Skyfall Product Placement
Being the 23rd installment of the James Bond series, Skyfall entered into a brand that was established and possessed long standing relationships with other brands. It makes sense that the Bond series would be highly sought after for companies to have their products in; James Bond is sexy, intelligent, dangerous, mysterious, and seductive which immediately elevates any products seen in the film to the same level. Often marketing teams rely on sending the message that using their product will give you the type of life you are seeing to make the product more attractive. If I think that driving the same car as James Bond will make me mysterious, seductive, and just flat out cool then I’m more likely to want that car. The James Bond series has such a strong history of product placement that the official James Bond website actually has an entire section devoted to their partners.
One of the major partnerships in Skyfall was Heineken. Alcohol and especially weapons often seek opportunities for advertisements in film due to the restrictions placed upon them for conventional marketing. Being associated with Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Skyfall certainly elevates the ethos of of Heineken. If Heineken is good enough for the infamous 007 then it would certainly be good enough for me. During the scene in the move where Bond is drinking Heineken he is laying in bed with a beautiful woman which sends the message that Heineken helps you get the girl that you desire. Additionally the ad campaign between Heineken and Skyfall also serves to make the consumer feel like they can be part of the 007 world. The commercial depicts a seemingly average person running from assassins and then running into Daniel Craig as James Bond who is drinking Heineken and upon spotting the assassins parachutes out of a moving train. The partnership in this movie between Skyfall and Heineken is a relatively symbiotic but if anything I think that Skyfall receives greater benefit from the partnership. Skyfall has enough weight and reputation behind its brand that it can be extremely choosey about who it partners with and how much they charge to feature a product. Costs for featuring a product in films are generally not released, but it is estimated that Skyfall received over £29 million from product placements. At the same time Heineken received quite a boost from its association with Skyfall. James Bond is equated with luxury so any product featured will automatically be associated with luxury as well.
Sony is also a partner of the 007 brand as is listed on the partners tab of the website. One Sony product featured throughout Skyfall is the Vaio laptop. This partnership is also a very productive and logical partnership. Again, Skyfall has enough ethos behind it that they don’t need that contribution from Vaio. However, Skyfall provided a lot of boost to the Vaio ethos that it probably really needed. Before looking into these product placements I didn’t even realize that Vaio was a Sony product. Vaio is still an relatively unknown brand since it restructured its efforts to focus on mobile devices in 2014. Skyfall has high enough ethos from the brand that the lack of ethos the Vaio has doesn’t damage Skyfalls ethos any but serves to build up Vaio quite a lot. As I mentioned with Heineken, Skyfall made a boat load of money off these types of partnerships so I consider these two partnerships especially quite effective, logical, and I think they really work to be mutually beneficial. Overall I think this is one of the best Bond movies they’ve made, but at times the product endorsements detract a little from the film simply because there are so many of them.
Being the 23rd installment of the James Bond series, Skyfall entered into a brand that was established and possessed long standing relationships with other brands. It makes sense that the Bond series would be highly sought after for companies to have their products in; James Bond is sexy, intelligent, dangerous, mysterious, and seductive which immediately elevates any products seen in the film to the same level. Often marketing teams rely on sending the message that using their product will give you the type of life you are seeing to make the product more attractive. If I think that driving the same car as James Bond will make me mysterious, seductive, and just flat out cool then I’m more likely to want that car. The James Bond series has such a strong history of product placement that the official James Bond website actually has an entire section devoted to their partners. 
One of the major partnerships in Skyfall was Heineken. Alcohol and especially weapons often seek opportunities for advertisements in film due to the restrictions placed upon them for conventional marketing. Being associated with Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Skyfall certainly elevates the ethos of of Heineken. If Heineken is good enough for the infamous 007 then it would certainly be good enough for me. During the scene in the move where Bond is drinking Heineken he is laying in bed with a beautiful woman which sends the message that Heineken helps you get the girl that you desire. Additionally the ad campaign between Heineken and Skyfall also serves to make the consumer feel like they can be part of the 007 world. The commercial depicts a seemingly average person running from assassins and then running into Daniel Craig as James Bond who is drinking Heineken and upon spotting the assassins parachutes out of a moving train. The partnership in this movie between Skyfall and Heineken is a relatively symbiotic but if anything I think that Skyfall receives greater benefit from the partnership. Skyfall has enough weight and reputation behind its brand that it can be extremely choosey about who it partners with and how much they charge to feature a product. Costs for featuring a product in films are generally not released, but it is estimated that Skyfall received over £29 million from product placements. At the same time Heineken received quite a boost from its association with Skyfall. James Bond is equated with luxury so any product featured will automatically be associated with luxury as well. 
Sony is also a partner of the 007 brand as is listed on the partners tab of the website. One Sony product featured throughout Skyfall is the Vaio laptop. This partnership is also a very productive and logical partnership. Again, Skyfall has enough ethos behind it that they don’t need that contribution from Vaio. However, Skyfall provided a lot of boost to the Vaio ethos that it probably really needed. Before looking into these product placements I didn’t even realize that Vaio was a Sony product. Vaio is still an relatively unknown brand since it restructured its efforts to focus on mobile devices in 2014. Skyfall has high enough ethos from the brand that the lack of ethos the Vaio has doesn’t damage Skyfalls ethos any but serves to build up Vaio quite a lot. As I mentioned with Heineken, Skyfall made a boat load of money off these types of partnerships so I consider these two partnerships especially quite effective, logical, and I think they really work to be mutually beneficial. Overall I think this is one of the best Bond movies they’ve made, but at times the product endorsements detract a little from the film simply because there are so many of them. 
No comments:
Post a Comment