Apple's products star in TV shows and movies more than any others, study shows

Ever watch a TV show or movie and feel like you can’t help but notice an iPhone 14 here, or a MacBook Pro there? You aren’t imagining it.

Apple products have long been a staple diet for prop managers across the entertainment industry, but new figures seek to highlight just how popular they have become.

In an industry that continues to place products from some of the biggest brands front and center, it’s Apple that sits pretty at the top of the tree as the most-placed company on the planet.

Macs and iPhones everywhere

New figures collated by Merchant Machine based on data put together by Product Placement Blog, show that Apple is the company that finds its products on the big and small screen more than any other.

While it isn’t immediately clear if Apple is paying for some of that product placement — and owning Apple TV Plus probably helps — it’s clear that Apple benefits from product placement in terms of sales. Recent research shows that « given a choice, consumers would prefer to watch a TV program with product placement over advertising, » BENlabs research claims. « Product placement generates better recall and is more likely to result in consumers researching products. It also generates a stronger connection with products compared to traditional TV advertising. »

So which products are benefiting the most from that?

According to Merchant Machine, Apple’s laptops are the most-placed of all with the iPhone following suit. After that, it’s Nike’s shoes and sneakers with Budweiser’s beers and Dell’s monitors making up the remainder of the top five.

It isn’t just the latest and best Macs that appear on-screen, either. Examples shown by Product Placement Blog highlight that even 2023 shows like Cruel Summer include plenty of Apple nostalgia.

Apple has always known that its own products can advertise themselves — the iconic white iPod earbuds are a good example of that — and now it looks like they’re doing that on-screen, too.