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James Bond Drives a Ford?

Submitted by bloggityblog07 on 18 November 2006 - 11:22pm. |

Instead of doing my homework this afternoon I decided to go and see the new James Bond movie Casino Royale. If you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading this blog right now and go. I promise you a full 2 hours of entertainment.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, I couldn’t help but notice the blatant use of product placement as is typical of so many movies made these days. But there was one instance in particular that had me a little upset. One scene features James Bond driving a new Ford coupe while on a mission in the Bahamas. James Bond driving a Ford? Come on! Thankfully, it is just a rental car until he has the time to get his hands on a far more Bond-appropriate car, a vintage Aston Martin. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but wonder how much Ford had to pay to get Daniel Craig behind the wheel. So I did a little research…

Turn’s out the car was the new Ford Mondeo, which is to go on the market next summer. The car was specially built for Casino Royale and flown in top secrecy to the Bahamas for filming. It is estimated that Ford paid “several million” dollars to have the Mondeo grace the silver screen for just a single scene. WOW!

Another fun fact about product placement courtesy of our friend Wikipedia:
The James Bond film License to Kill featured use of the Lark brand of cigarette, and the producers accepted payment for that product placement. The studio's executives apparently believed that the placement triggered the American warning notice requirement for cigarette advertisements and thus the picture carried the Surgeon General's Warning at the end credits of the film. This brought forth calls for banning such cigarette advertisements in future films.

There ya go, you learn something new everyday.

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product placement

Submitted by PureJaqassary on 19 November 2006 - 5:41pm.

For all that it does seem that product placement has become more and more onmipresent and blatant on the big and little screens in recent years (My favorite being a scene in Alias where the bad guy runs out into the parking lot with Sidney (or whatever) and guy in hot prusiut, a car chase is iminent and she goes "Look a Ford F150!" and they hop in and the car chase begins and I'm thinking, first of all, how much did Ford pay for that, second, a little blatant, no? and third, I think a truck would be one of the last cars I'd pick for a car chase) but i digress. My point is that even though product placement has gotten worse, it was already pretty bad in Bond films, and books actually, from the start. I mean just think of the Aston. We think Aston Martin, we think Bond and that's Seannary's doing, not Pierce's.

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Another real good example of

Submitted by TheGoodConstable on 20 November 2006 - 10:40pm.

Another real good example of product placement is in the TV show Friday Night Lights. I don't know if anyone watches the show, but one of the big commercial sponsors is Applebee's. And whenever there is a restaurant scene, it's almost ALWAYS at Applebee's. Not to mention, the first commercials of the commercial breaks are usually Applebee's as well. Maybe in the kind of West Texas town where the show takes place, it is very common, but I still chuckle when the mother in the show cheerily says, "Let's go to Applebee's!"

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Bond - Product Placement

Submitted by Scarpo (not verified) on 1 December 2006 - 5:19am.

I think that the least subtle product plaement moment in Casino Royale came in the train scene where Bond meets Vesper for the first time and they analyse each other. Vesper makes a point about him wearing an expensive watch and enquires whether it's a Rolex. Bond replies "No. An Omega". Not only placing a product but arguably dissing a competitor. Great stuff.

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