Product placement in James Bond for an essay

Oscar Einarsson

Hello James Bond enthusiasts, we're two students who are writing an essay on product placement within the James Bond series. We would like to have your opinion on the topic. For example: Do you think James Bond has been too commercialized or what type of changes in product placement has occured over the years?

Thank you!

Dirty Punker

Seek no further than Doe Another Day.
Specifically, the Hong Kong hotel scene.
Brioni shirts, Bollinger, Phillips.
The media nicknamed it Buy Another Day due to just how much product placement occured.

Unchecked, but I think product placement covered the budget of Tomorrow Never Dies (probably not true though).
Good luck with your essay.

Oscar Einarsson

Dirty Punker wrote:

Seek no further than Doe Another Day.
Specifically, the Hong Kong hotel scene.
Brioni shirts, Bollinger, Phillips.
The media nicknamed it Buy Another Day due to just how much product placement occured.

Unchecked, but I think product placement covered the budget of Tomorrow Never Dies (probably not true though).
Good luck with your essay.

interesting info, thank you!

clublos

Seek no further than the Memorabilia, Collecting & Clothing section of this forum, where you'll find obsession with overpriced polos, sunglasses and watches, and members who shill for them.

Thunderpussy

Omega watches are placed a lot )

JTM

Thunderpussy wrote:

Omega watches are placed a lot )

An extremely obvious example comes to mind...

Thunderpussy

) yes. Not very subtle.

MilleniumForce

Moknraker is the first film in the series I can think of where product placement is blatant and not actually related for the film, i.e the 7Up and British Airways billboards. Any previous product placement used to serve a purpose, such as a watch Bond wore or a car he drove. In this film the product placements were literally advertising boards.

caractacus potts

ooh ooh! that reminds me of an argument I made here a while back.
allow me to quote my old self verbatim:

...if there is a political/philosophical agenda to the Bond films, it is this: he is not saving the world for Democracy, or for Britain, or even "Freedom", but for Consumerism
think how often we see Bond and M scoff at the naivete of elected cabinet ministers, our heroes don't care about the will of the people
but all those meals at restaurants, clothes, fancy cars, expensive hotels, the ostentatious display of which takes up such a proportion of the movie, that is a cause worth fighting world-conquering megalomaniacs for
not even Capitalism, because wealthy industrialists are more often than not the villains, but the right to Consume fine luxury goods ... that is Bond's great cause

others in that same thread correctly noted this goes back to Fleming. Fleming describes the clothes Bond wears, and the products he uses in his home, in obsessive detail. He seems very snobbish as to what products Bond brings home from the department store. Part of this is Fleming's writing technique (to ground the fantasy in verifiable detail), but part of it also relates to the character of Bond. He knows he could be dead tomorrow, so he indulges in pleasure while he can.

Fellow agent Number24 pointed out when Fleming started writing these stories, Britain was still subject to rationing. All this conspicuous consumption was as much a fantasy to the average British reader as was the plane travel and the casual sex.

The filmmakers are able to visualise all this, requiring real consumer goods for our hero to conspicuously consume on screen. Which of course producers of these goods are happy to provide, as it's advertising with a guaranteed worldwide audience, and the filmmakers are happy to accept, as these films are bloody expensive to make.


The paradox is: why are the villains therefor so rarely communists, and so often western industrialists? The villains flaunt their fancy consumer lifestyle even more than the good guys do!

Dirty Punker

Well, Orlov in Octopussy was a commie but he did have a kickass Merc.

walther p99

JTM wrote:

Thunderpussy wrote:

Omega watches are placed a lot )

An extremely obvious example comes to mind...

That shot lingers for like an eternity )

Silhouette Man

Dirty Punker wrote:

Well, Orlov in Octopussy was a commie but he did have a kickass Merc.

Not all that surprising though as communism and hypocrisy go hand in hand with each other, especially at leadership level.

Barbel

caractacus potts wrote:

The paradox is: why are the villains therefor so rarely communists, and so often western industrialists?

It goes back to a decision made by Eon at the very start of the film series. Dr No, Rosa Klebb & co, and Goldfinger all worked directly for the USSR in the source novels (Dr No on a freelance basis, admittedly) and the films carefully removed this (trickiest in FRWL, of course). If the villain didn't have an organisation such as SPECTRE for financial backing, then he/she had to be wealthy to operate their fantastic schemes since they weren't working for a country.
It's possible to be both in the novels (eg Drax and Goldfinger were wealthy in their own right while working with/for Russia) but with the films extracting Russian backing they are simply left as rich industrialists.

Oscar Einarsson

Thanks for all the replies, I would like to know if any of you would like to participate in an interview-like conversation about the subject. You do not need to be an expert in marketing or anything really, just a big fan of the James Bond franchise. The questions will be simple. Though we will need a real name to be used in our essay.

The interview would be either be through a phone call or through an email conversation.

If interested please send a pm on this site (if possible) or an email to this adress " ek15.mattias.heurlin@edu.nykoping.se"

Thank you!