Behind the Preplanned Oscar Selfie ⇥ online.wsj.com

Suzanne Vranica, Wall Street Journal:

The Samsung stunt didn’t come off without a hitch: many people were quick to note on Twitter that the Oscar host was also tweeting during the evening with rival Apple’s iPhone.

Samsung declined to comment about Ms. DeGeneres’ iPhone usage.

DeGeneres’ personal iPhone reads, to me, like a much more sincere recommendation. It feels almost like a personal recommendation, as it’s the phone she actually uses day-to-day. That goes for Ewan McGregor’s Samsung GS4, too.

It’s not that product placement is in of itself terrible, either. Notice how many Apple products you see in movies, or the cars used in “House of Cards” — these feel organic because they fit into the scene.

This, on the other hand, feels forced.