#6 TV product placement

Advertisers pay amazing amounts of money to have products placed in movies and television shows. For certain products I think it is a bit of a waste, for example fast food. I actually recently started noticing product placement and it was in the movie Iron Man. I found it amusing that i notice the crumpled Burger King bag. For the amount of money the advertiser payed to have it in the movie, it wasn't worth it. I don't feel any desire to have any Burger King and the product placement was so poor it seemed more like a waste of money. The only time product placement for food really catches my eye is when there's a great feast about to be eaten and something was made with this food brand. Otherwise food product placement seems pointless.
Product placement seems to work on consumers when it is some type of car or clothing brand. But even then it isn't always that effective. It seems like people are more influenced by the product placement if it is actually has to be used by a celebrity they like, or is being used in a cool way. The only reason I know about certain cars is from movies that have placed a certain car in it and the car has pulled some cool stunt, or looks amazing.
Sometimes there can be too much placement of a product in a movie or show. For example, the movie Step Up 2 the Streets had a phone placed multiple times throughout the movie. What kept me from wanting the phone, besides the fact that I like my present phone, was that basically every character had the phone. So whenever anyone received a text, the same phone was pulled out. It didn't seem as cool when everyone had one. If only the main character had the phone I'd probably have liked it more than I do now.
Overall it seems to me as though product placement is pointless unless its some sort of sweet technology. Even then the product can't be shown as being used or owned by many people, but it can't look shabby either. As for affecting peoples buying decisions, I'd say it has much less influence than radio and television commercials, but it is more effective than contextual ads.