Branding Bond, James Bond ™

In “Playbill,” the page that introduces the March 1960 Playboy magazine, editors provide context for the first appearance of a James Bond short story contributed to that issue by Ian Fleming.

During a visit to Chicago, Fleming had been to the Playboy Building and “was properly impressed by the smart decor and the uncommon beauty of the receptionists and secretaries.”

As it stands, this makes for great biographical insight — with the 007 thrillers still in ascendency, the Eon Productions film deal yet to be struck, and Ian Fleming himself over four years from the end of life. Playboy refers to “those healthily selling novels” and list as examples (in this order): Doctor No (1958), Casino Royale (1953), Live and Let Die (1954), and Goldfinger (1959).

More importantly to this Blog entry, however, is the following quote from Fleming, which gives insight to the character he created.

I’m sure James Bond, if he were an actual person, would be a registered reader of Playboy.

For the articles?

Sean Connery provided the following insights into what Branding, James Bond Branding fundamentally argues is the critical role of product placement in 007 stories.

He had great energy and curiosity and he was a marvelous man to talk to and have a drink with because of the many wide interests he had. What made him a success and caused all the controversy was that his writing was such good journalism. He always contrived extraordinary situations and arranged extravagant meetings for his characters, and he always knew his facts. He was always madly accurate, and this derived from his curiosity. When he was discussing anything, like how a truck worked or a machine or a permutation at bridge, there was a brain at work and an enormous amount of research involved; it wasn’t just a lot of drivel he was talking. That’s what I admired most about him — his energy and his curiousity.

Playboy, “Playboy Interview: Sean Connery – A candid conversation with James Bond’s acerbic alter ego,” November 1965.

It can be difficult to separate history from myth in nailing down the particulars of the James Bond icon. There’s also an element of timing when considering first-hand research versus relying on the initiatives of others.

Playboy magazine is an invaluable resource when it comes to the James Bond legacy. At once, it captures snapshots in context, and provides that to researches for the most part, as said.

The following is from the November 1965 Playboy, titled, “Playboy Interview: Sean Connery – A candid conversation with James Bond’s acerbic alter ego.”

Here’s Sean Connery on “the phenomenal success of the Bond books and films.”

Well, timing had a lot to do with it. Bond came on the scene after the war, at a time when people were fed up with rationing and drab times and utility clothes and a predominantly gray color in life. Along comes this character who cuts right through all that like a very hot knife through butter, with his clothes and his cars and his wine and his women. Bond, you see, is a kind of present-day survival kit. Men would like to imitate him — or at least his success — and women are excited by him.

Then there is this on the character of James Bond in particular, in an attempt to reconcile what’s said by those who criticize and defend.

He is really a mixture of all that the defenders and the attackers say he is. When I spoke about Bond with Fleming, he said that when the character was conceived, Bond was a very simple, straightforward, blunt instrument of the police force, a functionary who would carry out his job rather doggedly. But he also had a lot of idiosyncrasies that were considered snobbish — such as a taste for special wines, et cetera. But if you take Bond in the situations that he is constantly involved with, you see that it is a very hard, high, unusual league that he plays in. Therefore he is quite right in having all his senses satisfied — be it sex, wine, food or clothes — because the job, and he with it, may terminate at any minute. But the virtues that Amis mentions — loyalty, honesty — are there, too. Bond doesn’t chase married women, for instance. Judged on that level, he comes out rather well.

Ten years earlier, however, this is how the recollection above would have compared to what Ian Fleming wrote of James Bond in Moonraker.

It was only two or three times a year that an assignment came along requiring [Bond’s] particular abilities. For the rest of the year he had the duties of an easy-going senior civil servant — elastic office hours … evenings spent playing cards in the company of a few close friends … or making love, with rather cold passion, to one of three similarly disposed married women….

When he was on a job he could spend as much as he liked, so for the other months of the year he could live very well on his £2000 a year net.

He had a … 1930 4½-litre Bentley coupé, supercharged, which he kept expertly tuned so that he could do a hundred when he wanted to.

On these things he spent all his money and it was his ambition to have as little as possible in his banking account when he was killed, as, when he was depressed, he knew he would be, before the statutory age of forty-five.

Almost a decade ago, Brand Strategy ran a piece by Phil James lamenting the diminishing impact of traditional media buys in the wake of emerging new channels.

Ironically, “James Bond” served as his illustration of how “media-within-media” could be successfully leveraged, in his article titled, “How to sell sports sponsorship,” February 18, 2000.

Product placement is a media-within-media spend. James Bond driving a BMW gives more airtime — and exciting airtime at that — to the product than a conventional ad.

James went on to argue that an advertisement placed “between chunks of programing or editorial is losing impact.” These buys are simply too succeptable to audience surf-off, or diminishing attention spans. Creating an entertainment value that overcomes this by stand-alone hook increasingly involves production costs on par with features, second for second. This also portends a dedicated association with the media into which they’ll be inserted: Difficult to predict, and not very flexible.

[Therefore] skillful product placement in movies can be a viable and highly effective marketing tool, especially when the product is ‘character-forming.’

For instance, Poggenpohl kitchen in a TV character’s loft apartment home tells the viewer plenty about the character, as did James Bond’s Aston Martin….

In other words, accountability becomes a two-way street. Agent 007 can’t simply drive a vehicle sold by the highest bidder without in some way selling out the character (read, “James Bond brand”) itself.

Citing research from the journal Sex Roles (May 28, 2009), PTI – The Press Trust of India Ltd. (June 8, 2009) provides the following rundown on Bond girls from the first 20 Eon Productions 007 films.

• 98 women were identified as having had “sexual contact” with James Bond
• 97 did not
• 27% were blond
• 40% had black hair
• 19% had brown hair
• 9% were readheads
• “The 18 per cent of women who had long hair were more likely to end up in a sexual situation with 007 than the 22 per cent who had short hair.”
• “Only a quarter of the women in the films had an American accent, but those that did were more likely to have a sexual relationship with the British spy than the 43 per cent who had a European accent.”

“At least one ‘Bond girl’ is particularly striking a woman,” says the research team, led by Kimberly Neuendorf, professor of communication at Cleveland State University. The typical Bond girl has “an adventurous nature, cunning attributes, strong potential for romantic entanglement with Bond, and a sense of self-assurance….”

The Sex Roles article does not conclude with praise for Our Man and the films in which his exploits are portrayed.

The women of Bond continue to be portrayed in a rather limited and sex-stereotyped manner. The ultimate penalty for a woman in a Bond film death seems to accrue from promiscuity and daring to threaten the ultimate iconic masculine hero, James Bond

This study provides further evidence of the continued sexualisation, marginalisation, and disposability of women within Bond films. The Bond films glorify the sometimes chauvinistic persona of Bond,’ the research said.

The original Sex Roles journal piece was contributed by Kimberly A. Neuendorf, Thomas D. Gore, Amy Dalessandro, Patricie Janstova, and Sharon Snyder-Suhy.