Saturday Night Live has a new video trailer promoting Melissa McCarthy as White House spokesperson Sean Spicer, who will host the May 13th episode. I noticed the video because it was retweeted by Lisa Jackson, Apple Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives.
You may wonder why an Apple senior executive is retweeting politically-charged SNL videos. It could be that she’s a huge Melissa McCarthy fan—because yeah—or it could be the Apple product placement at 38 seconds.
Here’s the tweet and the video:
This week’s host @melissamccarthy feels pretty, oh so pretty. #SNLLiveCoastToCoast pic.twitter.com/dvh4ZmXPmc
— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) May 10, 2017
Is This Apple’s SNL Ad?
You may remember that SNL is producing an ad for Apple. It’s clearly product placement, but this isn’t the ad, per se. But it is almost certainly a teaser for that ad, which was announced in April as in-show content paid for by Apple. Consider the tweet part of the package.
Melissa McCarthy has had a huge hit with her Sean Spicer impression. If it’s no coincidence Apple Watch is featured so specifically, it could be a play on Mr. Spicer’s social media-captured trip to an Apple Store to buy an Apple Watch.
I don’t feel too strongly about that angle because that story involved someone asking him what it’s like to work for a fascist. That doesn’t seem the sort of thing Apple would want to step into, but who knows where the skit will go?
Lastly, I love this trailer and can’t wait to see the full skit.
Although not quite as obvious, there’s what looks to be an old MacBook, complete with illuminated Apple in the screen, around 0:07.
I will have to “watch” that skit! 😀