The Most Famous Examples of Product Placement & What We Can Learn From Them

Product placement is one of the biggest risk/reward formats of any kind of marketing or advertising. When done incorrectly, moviegoers spend a scene thinking, “Did they really think we wouldn’t notice the Samsung laptop right in the middle of the screen?” and leave the theater being annoyed with Samsung and whatever IP they were watching. When done correctly, your product could become part of the cultural zeitgeist. 

What Is Product Placement?

For the uninitiated, product placement is when a brand pays for their product to be included in different kinds of media, usually movies and TV shows. Rather than traditional advertisements that happen during breaks in the content, product placement is when a product becomes part of the content. 

This is a time-honored form of advertising technique that has been around for nearly as long as movies have. The Lumiére Brothers were responsible for the first commercial movie screenings in December of 1895. Just a few months later, in June 1896, we got what is widely considered to be the first instance of product placement in a movie. The minute-long silent film from the Lumiére Brothers called “Laveuses” (or "Washerwomen" if you weren’t paying attention in French class) heavily features Sunlight Savon soap, with the labels facing camera, and all. In hindsight (and the fact that we’re no longer so blown away by video that we run out of the theater fearing an oncoming train), this “film” feels more like a commercial.

From the moment marketing directors saw their first movie, they were doing the Tim Robinson: “I gotta figure out how to make money on this.”

Historical Examples of Product Placement Done Right

One of the most successful examples of product placement was Reese’s Pieces in the movie "E.T." Surely you’ve seen this movie. In case you haven't and are appropriately filled with shame, the main character, Elliott, lures E.T. to his house with a trail of Reese’s Pieces.

Reese’s Pieces: a candy so good that it will make an alien that’s on the run from humans blindly follow a child. In the weeks that followed the release of "E.T." in 1982, Reese’s Pieces sales increased by 65 percent, as detailed in this incredibly 80s-looking news report. You’ll also notice that Reese’s was ready to capitalize on the momentum they knew the product placement would create, with "E.T." merchandise and in-store cardboard labels that read “E.T.’s favorite candy.”

What’s interesting about Reese’s product placement was that it was much more a product of circumstance than any kind of planning on behalf of Reese’s. "E.T." was originally supposed to eat M&Ms, and Stephen Spielberg has even said that, “It was M&Ms in the screenplay.” Spielberg asked M&Ms if they could include their product in the movie, but M&Ms wanted to see the script first. Spielberg was apparently very secretive about "E.T.," wanting to keep as many details out of the public eye as possible before its release. Spielberg didn’t give them the script, but instead, the broader plot points. When M&Ms said no, Spielberg reached out to his second favorite candy, Reese’s Pieces.

Yes, an incredible opportunity fell into Reese’s lap, but they still needed to have the guts to seize it. Spielberg was already a wildly successful director by this point, and in hindsight, it seems like a no-brainer that M&Ms should’ve jumped at the opportunity to have their product in one of his movies. But it’s riskier when you look at the facts on paper. It’s understandable that they would be skeptical of having their candy forever synonymous with a gross alien creature. In this instance, it was Reese’s who took the risk, and they were rewarded for doing so.

The Big Takeaway 

Product placement works best when the product is actually part of the story. E.T. loving Reese’s Pieces was a cute, if not super important for the plot, moment that audiences remembered after they left the theater. Having ET be curious about the Reese’s Pieces undoubtedly worked better than it would’ve if there was just a box of them on the kitchen counter.

And there are more recent examples that show this is the most effective type of product placement. Sales of Eggo Waffles increased following the release of "Stranger Things." In the show’s first season, Eleven, a child with unexplained powers who has just escaped from a government lab, wants one thing above all else: Eggo Waffles. (That’s actually an eerily similar plot to "E.T."—the show even takes place a year after "E.T." came out.) 

The most successful product placements are when a product is actually a part of the plot and the characters interact with it in a meaningful way. If you’ve been to the movies in the past 10 years, you’ve seen your fair share of Microsoft tablets with the logo staring down the barrel of the camera, but you won’t find any articles about Microsoft’s tablets seeing notable sales increases after being in a movie, because they’re basically part of the set. They’re just there. And it’s very difficult to interact with a tablet in a cute or memorable way.

Inorganic Placements That Flopped

Ironically, one of the most successful examples of product placement of all time was directly responsible for one of the worst examples ever. McDonald’s saw the incredible commercial success of "E.T." and said, “Let’s do that.”

“Mac and Me” is just about a beat-for-beat rip-off of "E.T." that was just a vessel for McDonald’s product placement. In fairness to McDonald’s though, "Mac and Me" came out six years later, so they probably thought everyone just forgot about "E.T." by that point. The plot goes thusly: An alien named MAC (Mysterious Alien Creature) is on the run from government agents when he befriends a young boy in a zany adventure that ends up at McDonald’s. You can’t help but picture the movie theater lines stretching for blocks on opening night. 

"Mac and Me" was a commercial flop, grossing $6.4 million with a $13 million budget. Not only did the movie lose money, but if anything, it damaged McDonald’s brand image because they produced one of the most famous bad movies of all time. It’s still the butt of jokes decades later. Famous actor and Nintendo ambassador Paul Rudd has a running joke where every time he makes an appearance on Conan, he cues up a clip from his upcoming project, only to show the same clip from "Mac and Me." Here’s the first time he did it, in 2004:

Conan no longer hosts a late-night show, but Rudd has kept the joke going strong, doing it on Conan’s podcast in 2022:

The Big Takeaway

The product should be a part of the story but not the focal point. At a certain point, we as advertisers need to be honest with ourselves and realize that the audiences are not there for us. They’re there to be entertained, which is why we strive to make our ads as entertaining as possible. But when it comes to product placements in movies, we can’t be overly obtrusive to the viewing experience. With the Reese’s Pieces in "E.T." and the Eggo Waffles in "Stranger Things," the product is there, but it’s not in your face. When placements override the story, audiences tune out (or mock).

Product Placements That Are Impossible to Categorize

In the United States, if you want to put your product in a movie, you have to deal with the people who are making that movie, but it isn’t the case everywhere. In Chile, for example, when a movie plays on cable TV, brands can actually pay to have their products edited into the movie. Enter: Chilean beer brand, Cerveza Cristal.

See if you can spot the Cerveza Cristal in the original "Star Wars." It’s a little subtle, so pay close attention.

Were you able to spot it?

The Big Takeaway

Sometimes being in on the joke can boost brand recall. The advertising is so blatant and over-the-top that it’s self-parodying. Yes, in the section about "Mac and Me," we said product placement shouldn’t be in your face, but Cerveza Cristal strikes the right tone. "Mac and Me" was trying too hard, but Cerveza Cristal never takes itself too seriously.

How to Get Product Placement Right

Having looked at the most famous examples of brand placement, we can confidently say that the most effective examples were the ones where the product was part of the plot story. That being said, you don’t want your product to be so much a part of the story that it becomes distracting for the viewer. And of course, tone matters. 

Want to be the next Reese’s Pieces or Cerveza Cristal? Well, there will only ever be one Cerveza Cristal, but we can still help you get your products on the big screen. Let’s talk about it over an $18 bucket of popcorn.