Apple products featured in 30 percent of top Hollywood movies

One of the best ways of advertising a product these days is product placement on TV and in movies. And Apple is a frontrunner in this area, too. Things from Elizabeth Lemon’s iPhone in the show 30 Rock to Bella’s MacBook in the Twilight movies, Apple has insisted that it doesn’t pay for product placement in movies and television. According to Hollywood Reporter, that doesn't mean that Apple is ignoring it.

Highlights from the infamous Samsung vs Apple trial that’s going on shows that Hollywood has been played abig part in Apple’s marketing over the years. According to a survey by BrandChanel, Apple products have appeared in more than a third of all films topping the box office from 2001 through 2011.

As a more recent example, in the movie Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol, Apple got more than five minutes of on-screen time, which analysis from the Front Row Analytics estimated to be worth around $23 million.

Apple’s global chief of marketing, Phil Schiller testified that Apple concluded that it “didn’t need” to put any money into its advertising budget in 2007. This has somewhat changed, as according to what the jury heard, Apple spent $647 million on publicity for the iPhone and $457 million on publicity for the iPad. Though, the money isn’t that much considering that the company has sold around 250 million iPhones.

The tech battle of the century

Apple had named the iPhone project, “Project Purple” when they were first working on it. According to the testimony of Scott Forstall -- Apple mobile software head, the project was kept a secret to such an immense degree that there was a sign on the front door where work on the project was going on that said “Fight Club.” This was in reference to the movie Fight Club, where “The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club,” said Forstall.

The trial between Apple and Samsung has been going on in full speed. According to an earlier report, the focus of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics' courtroom battle shifted to the iPhone's iconic display on Tuesday, as the U.S. company called on a former employee and award-winning graphic designer to back up claims that Samsung gadgets look "confusingly similar."

Susan Kare, who had a hand in designing icons for the original Macintosh computers from 1982 to 1986, scrutinized 11 of the Korean firm's phones - including the Galaxy S and Epic 4G - and found icons and layouts on screens to be very similar.

Apple is contending that buyers may confuse Samsung devices with the iPhone, and accuses the Asian firm of copying designs and features. Samsung, in turn, has accused Apple of violating Samsung wireless technology patents.

Kare, who is also credited for Microsoft Corp icons such as the "Notepad" and for its deck of "Solitaire" game cards, testified that even she was fooled by a Samsung gadget at a pre-trial meeting.

"There was a big conference table with many phones on it, and some of them were on," said Kare, who followed the late Steve Jobs to his NeXt computer startup in 1986 before starting her own firm. "I could see the screen. I went to pick up the iPhone to make a point about the user interface, and I was holding a Samsung. I think of myself as someone who's pretty granular about looking at graphics, and I mistook one for the other."