Irrational Product Placement

I am a late student to product placement. Around since 1896 when Sunlight Soap was featured in a number of Lumiere silent movies. A frame at the right. Here is one blatant example. More on YouTube. I had always thought that these were subtle, creating only a natural placement of a product where it would be anyway. Better than say, have a generic product label. I was wrong, a car blogger points out some very unnatural automobile placements in older and even movies still showing today. Revealing.

Update: Richard James points me to excellent WP piece on early product placement ... and of course Soap Operas, created by my former employer. They even attempted early online serials, which were not generally successful.