If you’ve been following the latest season of House of Cards — which, according to critics and fans alike is a return to form for the series — you may have noticed something a bit unusual.
It seems a disproportionate number of the show’s characters this season have switched to the OnePlus 2. A couple of eagle-eyed Reddit and OnePlus forum users took note of how predominantly the device is framed in certain scenes and started sharing screenshots of the scenes in question.
There’s no final tally just yet, but even the way the phone is held in certain scenes, letting the camera catch a good view of the OnePlus logo, is enough to suggest OnePlus may have paid Netflix to have its device featured throughout this latest season of House of Cards.
Indeed, according to an unconfirmed report from Chinese microblogging website Weibo, OnePlus paid $300,000 to get the OnePlus 2 on House of Cards, an extremely modest amount of money when one considers the popularity of the show.
The show’s producers have yet to confirm the deal, but then House of Cards is no stranger to product placement. No where is it more apparent than in President Underwood’s love for video games. Kevin Spacey’s character can be seen playing Call of Duty several times throughout the course of season one. Later, in season three, he lays down to work through a level of Monument Valley, though Ustwo, the games developer, claims this was not a paid product placement.
Then there’s this season one gem.
It’s hard to say what kind of return OnePlus will see on the deal. However, if Monument Valley is any indication, then these type of hidden adverts do actually work. According to Polygon, ustwo, the developer of Monument Valley, saw the sales of the puzzle game spike almost immediately after the release of House of Cards season three.
Various Samsung Galaxy smartphones can also be spotted in the latest season of House of Cards.
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