Not exactly a hall of shame, but you might have a good time looking through https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ProductPlacement/Live...

Those were quite entertaining to read through!

It really made me think that not all product placement is created equal. Sometimes there are products that don't serve a purpose just sitting somewhere really conspicuously, but something like the Snack Packs in Billy Madison never once struck me as a product placement, they just seemed like a goofy thing that a kid would get really worked up over, and it ended up being one of the most quotable lines of the movie.

And that got me thinking about product placement in general, and how much stuff on that list is just products being on screen, period. I'm sure none of that ever happens on accident, but at least for me personally, it can contribute to the art to have a certain brand be present (like the Wayne's World example).

In my own life, there are brands that evoke specific feelings like road trips, or sporting events, or drunkenness, or LAN parties, or childhood in general and seeing a generic bag of burgers on screen doesn't have the same effect as seeing a bag of McDonalds... I mean, it doesn't really matter and this is all silly conjecture, but people's reactions to seeing real life brands on screen are quite interesting!

I actually find it a bit weird to watch something nominally set in the real world where everything is conspicuously covered up, and they get coffee from Generic Grey Cup, their computers from NoBrand Aluminum Cases, their fizzy sodas from Vaguely Red Can Corp., their cell phones from The Unbranded Glass Slabs Conglomerate, etc. In real life, there are some brands around. But in real life, nobody spontaneously rhapsodizes about how awesome their monitor is, or at least, not very often.

My monitor is pretty awesome, though.

Good point!

There's some pretty egregious examples of product placement in that list, but some of them aren't so bad. For example, Bruce Wayne driving a Lamborghini Murciélago in Batman. On top of showing everyone what a rich playboy he is, murciélago is Spanish for "bat".

I kind of liked how Amazon's Alexa device was used in Mr Robot. It actually got to provide plot driving insight into Dom's psychological state.