Modern Family

            The Modern Family episode works the technique of Madison and vine seamlessly into season 6 episode 16. In this episode the entire show takes place on a main characters computer while she is stuck in an airport. This computer is very clearly the most recent apple laptop and throughout the episode we are able to see all of the highlights of this new computer. In addition to being delivered an incredibly entertaining television program, I was also drawn into the amazing machine being showcased on the screen in front of me.
               The Madison and vine technique is when in a media platform a product is strategically placed in a situation that makes the product look better, this could also be referred to as product placement. The key to Madison and vine is if the product has been placed in the media so seamlessly that the audience is not aware that they are being marketed to. For this reason this episode of Modern Family did an excellent job. The only reason that I am able to analyze this episode now is because of my new knowledge on the subject. The first time I watched the episode was a couple of years ago and my only thoughts were, wow how creative, and I really want this computer. In the episode the main character was stuck in an airport and was concerned about her daughter who she had just fought with. For this reason she frantically video calls several members of her family simultaneously. You watch the computer screen as she drags each persons call to a separate corner of the screen in order to have her conversations. Once she tires of continuing these conversations we see as she opens another tab, this time to check her emails. As she scrolls through her work emails, and maintains the conversations with her family, I wish that my own computer was able to do the same thing. Finally after hanging up on every one except one of her children we see that she suddenly remembers that she needs to buy things on amazon. Quickly she opens a tab and orders the products without stress on her amazing computer. Throughout the rest of the episode she calls many people, splits the screen between tasks, and checks social media. All of these abilities of the mac book culminate to give me the impression that this computer is truly amazing.
                I was the perfect consumer in the sense that I was totally oblivious of the fact that I was buying into exactly what apple and the television network wanted. After finishing the episode I had the distinct feeling of desire for the product and sadness that I did not have it. My computer is perfectly fine, it works well, and I am thankful to have it, but in the back of my mind I always wish for a mac book. This was perpetuated by what I had seen on television. I had witnessed all of the amazing state of the art abilities of a computer that I did not have. For this reason I really really wanted this new computer. And this is the impact of the Madison and vine technique, making us better consumers. It was able to highlight the positives of a product, that I now more than ever, wanted to have. In addition Apple had gotten away with the perfect crime, I hadn't even noticed the fact that I was being targeted by a massive advertisement. This is just one example from the millions that exist in the media, and this is just my own experience. However when I researched online what others reactions to the episode were none of them mentioned that they felt targeted by an ad. On the contrary most of them praised Modern Family for having such an 'innovative' idea for an episode. For this reason I am fully convinced that the majority of the viewers of this episode felt at least partly inclined to buy this new laptop. For all of these reasons we can clearly see just how effective Madison and vine is.