Selling Out: A Brief, Highly Selective History of Product Placement at the Movies

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Perhaps the best-known product placement of all time. Originally, the boy Elliott was to offer M&Ms to his cute alien friend, but Mars Inc. said no. Enter Reese's Pieces instead. The exchange was particularly sweet for parent company Hershey's, which invested $1 million in an ad tie-in for the movie and turned its little candies — then relatively new to the market — into a hit. An unscientific poll of people old enough to recall E.T.'s original release suggests that few of them can eat Reese's Pieces without thinking to phone home.

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