E.T.

Do you ever watch a movie and see a strategically placed modern day product where the logo is prominently displayed?  This occurs quite often in movies such as James Bond movies-- his famous Ashton  Martin sports car, cell phones, ect.  It is pretty obvious the the movie studio is being paid for these "ads." I was watching the movie ET with my little brother last night.  There is a great scene where the little boy Elliot is trying to lure ET into meeting him with a trail of Reese's Pieces.  And the boy is successful.  What is so interesting is that the candy maker was willing to associate its product with this weird looking creature and such a lonely different sort of child. 
 
Eat Reese's Pieces and you too can meet an alien is a bit of a stretch. Eat Reese's Pieces and you too can be a reclusive lonely little boy like Elliot. That is a bit of a stretch too. Think about how advertisers often pull their ads from controversial television or radio shows.  It cannot have been easy for the owners of the candy to associate themselves with an alien-- even a charming alien and a lonely not particularly well adjusted little boy.  But the owner of Reese's Pieces got the last laugh.  ET became one of the most successful movies of all time and Reese's Pieces still exists today.  ET made product placements cool.  It opened up a whole new arena for advertisers.  Had ET bombed or had Reese's Pieces sales plummeted maybe today we would not be bombarded with product placements in movies and television shows.