And here I was thinking rampant — not to mention pretty obvious — product placement was only in television and movies. As consumers continue to ignore blatant advertisements, companies are increasingly looking toward product integration — heck, Sex and the City the movie was criticized for being one giant high-end commercial. NBC’s 30 Rock (season premiere Oct 30th) did a parody about product placement with their bit about GE & Snapple in episode 1.5.

Still, careful to avoid being too in-your-face, Apple takes it to another level.

I was in Brussels, reading about the buying, the selling, the crashing, the crumbling of the financial market, when I came across this Mac campaign that rather softened my horror:

I admit, I was pretty annoyed when the New York Times started requiring you to view advertisements before you could get to their content — forcing you to either sit through it or, if you’re a well-trained consumer, to hit the “Skip This Ad” button. This Mac ad, however, took over about a third of the screen, not including Justin Long up top there, but it fit right in (though, if you look closely — the fonts don’t quite match, but now I’m just being picky). It also most certainly maintains the attitude and persona of the Mac and PC characters we all know and love. Anyway, I thought it was pretty genius. Read the full campaign/article after the break.