Advertisements in books

At a message board I frequent, someone made mention of this topic. Other than a author listing previous works of theirs, I haven't seen an advertisement in a book, electronic or print.

If someone wanted to be clever, mentions of a certain product could be placed in a work of fiction.

John when he rose from bed, turned on the coffee so he could have several cups of Brand X coffee. When he was through eating breaking, John took his cup of Brand X coffee with him to his home office. As he sorted mail from the day before, John remembered he was almost out of Brand X coffee and would have to get more of it from the grocery store later in the day.

To me that would be pretty obvious. Just as obvious as the times I watch the television news and see a segment about a area attraction or business that isn't in any way newsworthy. Some years ago I remember Channel 12 having a segment in a news broadcast about some theme park in the area. It was obvious to me it was a commercial.

Works of fiction can contain mentions of real life businesses and products without it being an advertisement all the time. That's fine in my opinion. Character X had lunch with his girlfriend at Burger King. An author doesn't need to make up names of businesses, he should just be careful not to make the mentions of real life businesses so many that it sounds like he is promoting a product with his writing.

If a business or product is a prominent feature of a story, it should probably have a fictional name. Though there would be exceptions. If your story is Murder at the Alfredville Best Western, then I guess mentioning Best Western throughout the story is all right in light of the fact that Alfredville is a real life small town and its only hotel is a Best Western.

Tip to author's- If you're writing about a locale you've never been to yourself, use Google to search for real businesses. I do it all the time. It does make your story seem more authentic.