It’s one of the video conferencing industry’s worst kept secret that during the mid 2000’s, Cisco made a huge push with the product placement of their video and audio solutions in some of America’s top TV shows and movies.
If you happen to catch any re-runs of ‘24’ or ‘Heroes’ then you’ll no doubt start to notice the not-so-subtle placement of Cisco Telepresence and Cisco IP phones, not to mention the countless appearances of Cisco WebEx! These products also make appearances in films such as Transformers, Iron Man, Spider-Man 3 and The Bourne Supremacy and safe to say, you’ll have seen at least one of these films.
I often find myself commenting on how quickly the technology is becoming dated within the movies; after all, the first generation iPhone wasn’t released until 2007 and Facebook was only just gaining momentum. This was the year that we saw Blockbusters such as I Am Legend, No Country for Old Men, Juno and Knocked Up. If we were to remake these movies now, then I’m absolutely certain that the iPhone would play a prominent role in communication between the characters!
I find myself wondering what business technology would feature now if Cisco were to continue their campaign of product placement. For example, would Michael Scott still be using the classic Cisco IP phone, or would he know have an EX60 on his desk to allow him to have those HD video calls and really enhance his conversations (or his sing-alongs if he prefers!) ?
When I watch the show ‘24’, I can’t help but think how much more productive Jack could be if he had Cisco Jabber on his iPhone – not only could he then feed back to his team with a video feed, but it would also free up the other staff members from using the more traditional telepresence suite, and actually make ad-hoc calls happen in a shorter space of time! Could the show perhaps then be re-named ‘17’ and a spin-off called ‘7’ created showing Jack having some well needed down time…?
What I’d like to see is some real use-cases for the technology within these fantasy worlds. How cool would it be to see our action heroes utilising everyday business technology; not only would it help identify additional use-cases for the tech, but also inspire existing customers to make better use of their collaboration systems.
We’d love to know if you have come across any other placements of Cisco, or other manufacturers technology for that matter, within any TV shows or films recently, please do let us know!
We have the UK’s largest demonstration suite here at VideoCentric, with video & collaboration systems from all the leading vendors showcased in our suites. If you’d like to see how Cisco technology could further enhance your business then please let us know and we’d be happy to setup a demonstration.
