Product Placement: Reese's Pieces on E.T.

One of the earliest examples of product placement. As the luring with candy was already part of the script, Steven Spielberg originally approached Mars Inc. They declined. Competitor Hershey was willing and decided to use Reese's Pieces.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Reese's
• Pieces
• E.T.
• ET
• product
• placement
• example

[fyberdude]

You can download it using the Download Helper plugin in Firefox. This gives you the FLV-file. If you convert this to mpeg, you may be able to insert into PPT. Good luck.

[deyoungparker]

Reese's Pieces were a joke before this movie came out. No one ate them...at least no kids that I knew ate them.

I ever remember watching ET when it came out and thinking, "How clueless is this movie? No one eats those nasty candies. If this was realistic, he'd be using M&Ms."

Turns out M&Ms were actually the first choice, but Mars turned it down. Hershey stepped up, got their product in the movie, and Resse's Pieces suddenly became popular practically overnight.

Somebody got promoted!

[ConfederateWolf3]

mmmm, i like  Reese's Pieces

[Yu7Yu7Me7Yume7]

@deyoungparker yeah Mars said that E.T. was so ugly it would be an "insult" to have him eat them its true

[TheFatKidPresents]

Honestly, if a fucking alien came up to me at night I would shit my teeth out through my fucking ears.

[wallacedavidsears]

Even silent films had product placements. For example, in the 1927 film Wings (winner of the first Oscar for Best Picture) there is a placement of a Hershey's bar. Later, even Godard used Coca-Cola in Band of Outsiders (1964). E.T. is really just the jumping-off point for contemporary product placement and the realization that using the technique can completely transform a company's market position. Thanks for posting the video.

[DJJordan4life]

i think this is realistic. hes throwing the reese pieces on the floor

[Nytstalker7]

ha jokes on Hershey i thought they were M&M's...but i still like Reese's pieces.

[MovieReviewer1697]

hes a fucking scary ass bastard

[MovieReviewer1697]

E.T can suck my big black dick!

[FallofDarkness55]

I just got a lot of reeses candy from last night--->halloween. and i'm eating some reeses pieces as i watch this. and i will watch my 1982 dvd right after watching this.

[alexanderdevery1]

@deyoungparker I was a kid in 1978 - 1980 (didn't turn 11 until 1982 when et was released). I ate reese's pieces between 78 & 80. My family lived in New Mexico but my dad worked in Indiana during this time where they were available. He brought them home. Our friends wanted them. They were a new & unexplored candy. of course we didn't share. I do prefer M&Ms (who doesn't). They made a mistake. By turning Spielberg down they essentially created their own competition.