Bachelor Thesis
Table of Content
Summary
Introduction
Problem formulation
Work Method
Marketing
Branding
James Bond Analysis
From Product / Service to Brand
Analysis of Target Audience
Target Auditing Bond
Brand Awareness
Brand Equity
Brand Maintenance
Is James Bond a Brand?
Making a Strong Brand
Strong Brands
Advertising
Advertising James Bond
Internet Promotion
Internet Promoting James Bond
James Bond Sales
James Bond Branding Partners
Communication
Persuasion
Persuasion for James Bond
Bond Commercials
Identity
Bond Name & Logo
Bond Motto & characteristics
Bond Music
Image
Bond’s Image
Bond Questionnaire
Reputation
Bond’s Reputation
Media & Communication
Media Relations
Social Media
Is James Bond a Strong Brand?
Conclusion
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Appendices
Mindmap (app A)
Bond Sales(app B)
Issues in Marketing Communication and Buyer Behaviour (app C)
James Bond Questionnaire (app D)
Executive Summary
James Bond is product of Ian Flemings imagination and is by EON production made the leading spy figure available and the one that people associate with when the think of a spy. The reason to Bond’s success and how it has taken him to a status of a brand is described in the report. Branding is process that can make a big difference to any company and their products or services and for James Bond EON production has made him into a brand by playing on his features and improving his identity, which has created a very strong identity for Bond. They also advertise Bond frequently, where he makes use of persuasive skills to make the people watch the newest movie or buy the new re-launch of the movie series. Bond does this via the media where online media is the platform that is mostly used for promoting Bond. In the last cobble of years social media have been important to advertise on where Bond has been using Facebook and Twitter effectively. Furthermore, he has a variety of images that depends on the actor playing Bond and which is also shown on the sales and success of the movies. Therefore is the reputation that Bond possesses not as strong as expected compared to the strong identity he has. So it was concluded that Bond is a brand that has a fine basis and from asking people via a questionnaire it was found out that on third saw Bond as a brand, which has to be more before Bond can be a strong brand because with missing recognition of him as a brand the effort is a bit useless but with a higher recognition of him as a brand Bond has possibility of being a strong brand because he has the control of the other components making a strong brand.
Introduction
James Bond is a well known name for almost everybody. His name first appeared when his inventor Ian Flemming published the short story “Casino Royale” and gave the rights for first movie “Dr. No” eight years later. Today many years after Fleming’s death the Bond movies are still popular and new continue to be developed even though they are not even based on Fleming’s books any more but only his character. These days James Bond is more than just a piece of English culture. The name James Bond has been developed into a worldwide brand and for the British people maybe even history.
Problem formulation
James bond series include 13 small novels, 9 short stories and 22 movies (23rd is being filmed now). The books haven’t been read by that many and didn’t get famous worldwide until the movies created attention to them. The movies are all characterized by the same basic plot. So in a lot of ways they are a kind of predictable. Furthermore, the movies do not include stardust all over it. In most it is only the actor that is playing James Bond who is famous. So;
Why has James Bond become a brand and is it a strong brand?
One thing that can explain it might be that everybody has an opinion of James Bond; Brilliant, smooth, funny, tacky, cheesy etc. Another thing which is rather related is that the name James Bond creates a number of images and association when you hear the name. Finally, the entire argument over who is the better James Bond does not hurt because it gives further publicity. All this I would like to work in depth with and maybe find more less obvious reasons as well.
To answer the main question a number of sub questions follow also.
How has James Bond become a success?
What has made James Bond so successful that the name has become a worldwide brand?
When did the transformation that made James Bond into a brand happen?
How has James Bond been maintained as a Brand off the big screen?
What is done to brand James Bond relative to the new Bond movie “Skyfall”?
Work Method
As far as possible the project will include an equal amount of theory and empirical data. To help figure out what was needed of each a mindmap (app A) was made. Theory wise I want to look into several aspects; firstly, the brand James Bond of course and how it is maintained. Secondly, what reputation has the brand and how has it been achieved. Thirdly, how is Bond advertised including what media relations Bond has? To answer the theories several books and websites will be used and combined with the empirical data about James Bond that can be found on the internet via fan sites, web articles, social media, blogs, and what further can be found of information. A questionnaire will be developed regarding why people like James Bond and why he has the success he has. The questionnaire will be posted several places; on the James Bond official fan site on Facebook where there is almost on million fans and one on a more James bond “neutral” spot e.g. my profile. In that way all questions will be answered and can then be used in the theory connected to reputation.
As I am writing in Branding Communication I want to separate the subject a bit into two topics; a marketing part and a communication part because both set of previous courses can be of importance to the subject have valuable theory. I want to start with the marketing part and then move into the communication part bit by bit, so there hopefully will be a coherence between the subjects so it is still only one subject in the end, where every paragraph can be related to each other in ordered setup.
Marketing
In Branding Communication marketing is almost as important as communication because the process of making a product or service into a brand is a marketing related topic. Both branding and advertising are also essential parts of a good marketing strategy, which means they need to be taken in consideration in marketing and not just in communication. Furthermore, the marketing part of the thesis will hold some empirical information with statistics about the sales of James Bond movies and their success rate.
Branding
According to businessdictionary.com the definition of branding is “The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers”. Or as Dahlen, Lange & Smith states what a brand is “The product is a part of the brand; it is not the brand. It may offer the market a unique aspect of design or function, but it is the brand which is the promise, implicit in the name, the logo and packaging and all communication encounters” (195). In other words a brand cannot exist without a service or product it has originated from but a brand does not automatically come from the product either. It has to be well created and received a lot of creditability for a period of time so the expectation that Dahlen, Lange & Smith mentioned will come.
James Bond Analysis
James Bond has existed for many years now. The first James Bond novel Casino Royale was published in 1953 and was followed by ten more and a dozen short stories in the next thirteen years (ianfleming.com). Only nine years after the first book came the first movie Dr. No in cinemas which was followed by a total of 23 official Bond movies so far with the last one coming this fall. The first years a new movie aired every year but then a period of 2 or 3 years became a normal break between the movies (app B). Therefore the name James Bond is already well known and has a certain expectation to the people that hear it, e.g. when people go to see a new Bond movie they have certain things that they expect to see which will be Q’s gadgets, the cars, the girls and hearing all the characteristic Bond phrases. Regarding James Bond the branding process is a bit complicated because depending how you look at him, then he can be either a service or a product. This is because James Bond is already such a complex character. On the screen in a new movie he is a service where a customer pays to see him for a while and then leave again, when buying a movie or a novel the customer will get the product and the same is the case when a James Bond gadget or toy is bought. In this way there are also a lot of different people that is responsible of the brand James Bond. There are four branding strategies that include services; branded house, subbrands, endorsed brands and house of brands. Branded house is the most corporate branding style of those and is characterized by a company or a company group that applies the brand name to several things. This strategy is the one that is most natural regarding James Bond because the brand has such a wide range of products and services (Lovelock & Wirtz 117-8). For James Bond there are more possible companies that James Bond as a brand can be referred to but the ownership of the official James Bond name and logo (the 007 sign) belongs to EON production. They have made the official 22 movies together with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios over the entire period and other production companies have been cooperating from time to time e.g. Sony and United Artists (007.com).
From Product / Service to Brand
To make a service or a product into a brand there are more things that need to be taken into consideration, these are both regarding within the company and when targeting the customers. In the company an analysis of the target audience must be done, so the company can focus on the right group of people and in that way more easy can create a brand out of the product or service. This is important because in the end it is the customers that decide whether or not a brand develops from a product or service. The company can only make the preliminary work for this process and in other ways do as much as they can for it to happen because if the customers do not like the product / service or do not “feel it” then the product cannot develop or transform into a brand (Dahlen, Lange & Smith 195). Another topic in the branding process that the company needs to be aware of is the brand equity and also the maintaining of the brand should be taken into consideration.
Analysis of Target Audience
Having a well made knowledge of what a company’s target audience is regarding their product or service is essential because the better the knowledge of the target audience the better can the product be focused directly to them and will be more efficient. According to Jobber there are five questions that can help to give an understanding of the customer and also they are defined as the five key dimensions of buyer behaviour (109).
- Who is important in the buying decision?
- How do they buy?
- What are their choice criteria?
- Where do they buy?
- When do they buy?
The first answer will be that the important people are people that have interest in the product that can be delivered. Regarding James Bond movies this will be movie interested people, who likes to relax and have fun with a movie with action but that at the same time is not too serious. Furthermore, most British have a patriotic feeling about Bond and at every new premiere it is a big event in Britain, so those to groups are especially interested for the company behind Bond (EON production) to target. Secondly, depending on it is a movie ticket or DVD movie the way to buy will vary a lot but focusing on tickets, then they will be bought at the movie theatre or online on one of the movie theatre’s websites and then some of the income will come back to the production company. Thirdly, the production company know they are dealing with a movie series with a certain reputation, which can both be a positive and negative thing for the company. It is much easier to disappoint when there are expectations and also much harder to shine and it goes the other way around as well. Therefore they are locked to some things they have to include in every movie e.g. girls, martinis, gadgets, cars etc. E.g. this year’s movie they are trying to move away from vodka martinis and replace it with beer (dailymail.co.uk). This they can only wait and see if that was a step too far of the usual Bond or if it can be appreciated as the other changes that have been made over the years. But the production company must certainly need to be aware of following the traditions otherwise they might easily lose some of the faithful fans. Fourthly, James Bond movies are today shown in most of the world if not the entire world. The final question will be answered via the “Issues in Marketing Communications and Buyer Behaviour” figure (app C). It is three steps to get a thorough understanding of the customers’ interests and needs when it comes to a product. The first step is the issues that occur before buying the product. The second is the issues for the actual purchase and finally the last step is for after the product has been bought, what issues will occur then.
Target Auditing Bond
With James Bond as a service people are going to the movies they go to watch a spy movie with a lot of effects and some good laughs. A person that goes to this kind of movie therefore might want to relax and empty the mind which this particular kind of movie is brilliant at. How does people know this about the movie, they know out of experience from previous Bond movies and they have the opportunity to watch trailers and reviews of the movie e.g. on IMDb’s website, which is the largest movie database online (imdb.com). The intension of the movie will then be to make people have a casual night where they can relax and enjoy. Therefore the marketer’s assignment is to make sure that the movie for fill those requirements that the audience pre-sets. For the company to be successful they need the audience to leave the movies and tell other people about the movie and that they should go see the new James Bond movie.
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is “the buyer’s ability to identify, recognise or recall the brand within the category in sufficient detail to make a purchase” states Dahlen, Lange & Smith (496). Meaning it is important for a brand to be recognised by a potential buyer otherwise the brand is not efficient. Brand awareness is a key step to make a good branding strategy and therefore also a possible successful product or service. By the use of brand awareness companies also have the possibility to move ahead of their competitors (investopedia.com). Regarding the branding process of James Bond, then the name James Bond is well known to almost anybody. The working field of James Bond is movies and can be narrowed down to action movies and further down to spy movies. As a movie Bond movies are compatible but not much more but as action movies they belong in the better half of the category. Finally, within the category of spy movies is obviously were Bond movies stand, which is at the top ahead of their competitors, because a lot of spy movies has their origin of James Bond movies and make fun of them or honour them e.g. Johnny English movies (imdb.com). So with all these movies copying it is also showing that James Bond movies are leading within spy movies. Bond movies are also good at creating awareness via the social media. This is a very good thing to do because via Facebook and other social media websites they can create contact to the groups of people they want (smallbusiness.chron.com). For James Bond there are a lot of these sites, where the largest is the Official UK Fan site on Facebook (facebook.com). The next step in the process to a good branding strategy is brand equity.
Brand Equity
For a brand to be successful it has to be good at creating an emotional relationship with the target audience that it is working with, because branding is all about making a product or service unique, including it has to stand out from the competitors. It has to give the customer a certain feeling when they buy, they should be able to identify with the brand (195). There are several methods to create brand equity; one way is if companies successfully can make their product superior in either quality or reliability. They can also make use of mass marketing campaigns to aid them to create brand equity. Brand equity can be negative as well as positive. Negative brand equity can also be obtained if the consumers are willing to pay more for a non brand. Such a situation can happen if a company has had to make a major product recall or a caused an environmental disaster. This would make the consumers loose faith in the brand and buy the competitors brand instead. A good example of positive brand equity is on cola, people automatically buy Coca Cola or Pepsi and just ignore the stores own brands that in most cases are only costing the third of the price (investopedia.com). Looking at James Bond it is obvious that the service can deliver reliability and quality that is at almost the same level every time a new movie is produced, so James Bond has equity. Furthermore, Eon production make use of vast advertising campaigns to announce when they are filming the new movies and as mentioned earlier they make use of social media to make James Bond known or in Bond’s case maybe more make certain he is not forgotten and that the interest level around him stays at the same level.
Brand Maintenance
Maintaining the brand is the final step of the branding process. An established brand should also be able to compete with new brands when they enter the market. The established brand should be ready to recognise deficit early, develop new potential and to keep the brand on a successful path. All of these possibilities the brand can do if the company and its brand manager is well prepared and has a lot of information, which gives them the opportunity to make efficient decisions (brand-equity-performance.com). With a well maintained brand the holding company should be ready for most challenges foreseen as well as some unforeseen, which also help give them an edge over the competitors and their respective brands. Therefore is the brand maintenance more important than it sounds and it holds a very essential part of the company’s success for a product or a service. Some good examples of brand that are well built up are Coca Cola and Harley Davidson. Coca Cola has the catchy motto “Always Coca Cola” which they have advertised worldwide and by the use of the famous “Santa Claus commercials” the entire world can identify with Coca Cola as the company want the viewers to and they even created the modern look of Santa Claus at the same time. 81 years ago the company started to put Santa Claus together with Coca Cola and have done so ever since with great success creating a very personal brand and in the progress and even also managed to invent the modern view of Santa Claus because of their continuing portraying of him on the same way the entire world see that way today (thecoca-colacompany.com). Harley Davidson has moved in some of the same path but has been manipulating with people’s feelings even more. The brand Harley Davidson has been given a personality, which makes it more interesting for a smaller group a people, so it narrow its target audience but the intention is then to make the audience that more interested (Dahlen, Lange & Smith 238). Harley Davidson is meant to appeal to people who want to feel free and be part of the community that the Harley Davidson owners offer. Their motto is “Born to be Wild” and it is all designed around feeling and community (jumeirah.com).
Is James Bond a Brand?
With the knowledge that has been obtained now about branding the question whether James Bond is a brand or not can be answered. Looking into it EON Production has given James Bond all the qualities of a brand. James Bond has a quality and a standard that he lives up to every time with only minor fluctuations which it can be seen from the table over Bond movies (app B). James Bond is well advertised and has a strong creditability, which helps Bond movies to move ahead of competitors. They make good use of social media to their aid and have just like Coca Cola and Harley Davidson created a famous motto or actually two for James Bond; “Bond, James Bond” and also “Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred”. The most important one is of course the first and according to a questionnaire that was developed concerning James Bond and branding most people liked James Bond movies for the catchy phrases. A bit less than half (45 %) of the surveyed answered that the catchy phrases were the reason they were watching James Bond movies (app D). Even though everything seems like a James Bond is a service that has been made into a brand it still has to be taken into consideration that James Bond is not totally comparable to a cola from Coca Cola or a motorbike from Harley Davidson.
Therefore it is important to take a look at the set up of James Bond as a brand and what structure that there is. The group of branding that James Bond belongs to is very small and quite unique. Branding James Bond can be compared to branding celebrities. They are branded with focus on their specialities and strengths e.g. Clint Eastwood is branded as the tough western hero, Michael Jackson was branded as the king of pop that delivered the unexpected within music and Steve Jobs as the man that send Apple into a new era of technology. So what is important to brand the celebrity with is what the interested of his / her achievements and what made the celebrity memorable (fastcompany.com). An example of celebrity that has made use of branding is Britney Spears; her carrier has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. Being branded quickly and already as a teenager she became a brand for her music and her music videos, then during the music crisis in 2003 she and she as a brand suffered as well as everybody else in the industry. Therefore see arranged the famous stage kiss with Madonna to renew her brand but with personal scandals following she failed her brand instead of improving it. In the last few years she has managed to turn the brand Britney Spears back on music and has done what she tried to do back then with success. Therefore it is also important what the branding process of James Bond should try to be focused on, so James Bond will be branded for his values and what the fans like the character for, so the message behind the brand is not misunderstood. Of course it is harder for Bond than for a celebrity to get a discredited brand but it can happen never the less, so the intended brand must shine through.
Bond is not a tangible service, this he only happens via the DVDs and books but he is not tangible. One of the things that EON production is especially good at regarding the branding process of James Bond is to keep him well known and constantly advertise him. At the end of each movie there has always been a tradition to advertise that Bond will be back and when they started to remake the movies on first videos and later on DVDs and Blu-rays, then they added the title for the following movie; so in “Dr. No” at the end credit the line “James Bond will be back in: From Russia with Love” showed in the end credits. This concept they have taken with them on to the internet where there on the official Bond website is a countdown timer showing when the next Bond movie, which is “Skyfall”, will air in cinemas in Britain (007.com). This is not only good to show Bond to the customers but is also helping to show possible competitors that EON production is continuing to make spy movies and thereby remain the market leader in the field. However, it does not matter much that EON has created a brand out of James Bond if it is not recognised by the customers as such. According to the questionnaire (app D) 36 % of the surveyed could see James Bond as a brand, 40 % could see the possibility of James Bond being a brand and only 17 % could not see James Bond being a brand. This is an okay statistic because with about three out of four that see the potential in James Bond or see him as a brand then a big part are covered. Furthermore, all these people receive associations of James Bond in the same way as with e.g. Coca Cola. James Bond also has a logo; the 007 followed by the gun, he too has a known motto; “Bond, James Bond” and furthermore a movie clip the he is world famous for; the gun barrel scene. All three of these are some of the most important reasons together with his consistency to why most people consider Bond a brand and why he also is one.
Making a Strong Brand
To find out whether James Bond is a strong brand, then strong brand need to be defined better. There are four areas that all have vital roles in branding a strong efficient brand; brand strategy, brand identity, brand management and brand experience. The brand strategy is the part concerning the relationship with the customers and laying the “groundwork” for the branding process for the product or service (allaboutbranding.com). That face has James Bond covered where EON production has built a brand strategy for Bond. The next face is the brand identity, which is about what the brand is. It looks into name, logo and personality and other things that make the brand stand before other brands. For Bond most of this has also been created and has so in some cases from the very start. Bond has both logo and personality but the complete identity of James Bond will be looked at closer on a later time in the bond identity section (reference p. 29). Brand management is the third point and it is for maintaining, planning and monitoring. This is lead by a brand manager, which is one of the most important persons in a company. Buckingham describes the brand managers as Superman or Batman as their alter egos’ Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne and what they create is companies that are truly great (76). The reason why they make such a difference is because they have to keep the brand running, which sometimes can be over many years. James Bond is one of those brands that have had to be maintained over many years and sometimes without any activity happening in the company for a longer period. Bond had a period of six years where no movies where made, which is the longest brake in Bond movie history and in that time it was the branding managers assignment to make plans about how to avoid be forgotten and at the same time figure out how to make good of the minor failure the “Timothy Dalton Bond movies” had been. The brand experience is about PR, environment and advertising and all that kind of related issues. The purpose with the brand experience is to design a range of experiences customers will receive when they deal with the brand and it that way make it stronger. The brands creditability becomes harder to question if it has a big trustworthy background over a narrow one (allaboutbranding.com). James Bond has a good strength when it comes to brand experience; the brand is advertised and announced well around both online via social media and at the time of new movies via TV and newspapers. The difference between a brand and a strong brand normally lies within brand management and brand experience where they are taken more into consideration and put more effort to by the companies behind the brands.
Strong Brands
Every year the website Interbrand.com makes a statistic over what the best brands in the world are and in 2011 the list was as following;
- Coca-Cola 71,861 ($m)
- IBM 69,905 ($m)
- Microsoft 59,087 ($m)
- Google 55,317 ($m)
- GE 42,808 ($m)
- McDonald’s 35,593 ($m)
- Intel 35,217 ($m)
- Apple 33,492 ($m)
- Disney 29,018 ($m)
- Hewlett-Packard 28,479 ($m)
The first thing worth notable is that all ten brands are American. The category of the brands is electronics related brands that dominate the top ten, Coca Cola, McDonalds and Disney are the brands that stand out. All these brands are world famous and is commonly known in the everyday but it is still a bit surprising that Google is fourth on the list because Google might be dominating as a search engine on the internet, then it is compared to the others as an extremely young company. Another interesting thing is that IBM still is the second strongest brand in the world even though IBM laptops has been sold out to Lenovo, which also shows that IBM has a very strong brand management that they have built up over the years. In the top ten the only brand that has diminished the value is Microsoft, they have a decrease of three percent of the brand value compared to 2010. This could come of the fact that Apple is simple too compatible for them to handle and it is time for Microsoft to release Windows 8 as soon as possible so the brand do not get further hurt because of lack of interest form the customers. On the other hand, there are two brands that have a very big enlarged value, which is Google with 27 percent increase since 2010 and Apple with 58 percent increase since 2010. The reason of these changes can also be found; Google as a brand as just rising steady because more and more people have access to the internet and Google invent more areas they can contribute to make the internet easier to navigate in. Apple launched “iPad 2” in 2011 which has maybe been their most successful product so far and also more and more people buy Apple products, being willing to pay for the quality that Apple represent. For James Bond to be a strong brand he is not required to compare with these brand but James Bond has to have some of the same qualities as some of these; quality and reliability as Apple, personality as Coca Cola or Disney, efficiency as IBM or Google, advertising skills as McDonalds etc.
Advertising
Advertising is defined by Newsom & Haynes as “the process of one-way communication used by anyone wishing to sell a product or service. This may include exposing the target audience to their message via television, radio, newspapers, magazines, bill boards and the internet” (259). Advertising can be used for more purposes; it can be used to increase interest and awareness as when a new brand name has to announced, it can also be informative and it can help persuade people to choose one brand over another (259). As already mentioned briefly advertising is a part of the branding process but it takes up such a large part, so it can be taken as a subject as itself also products without brands needs advertising so this do not particularly belong to the subject but there is still some differences between advertising a product or a service and advertising a brand. Promoting (advertising) is one of the four P’s included in the marketing mix (Jobber 17) and is described as any paid form of non-personal communication of ideas or products in the prime media, i.e. television, the press, outdoor, cinema and radio (462). What is important in advertising is sending the message so it is decoded by the receiver meaning the customers as the company behind it intends. Following the communication process model the company has less change of risking being misunderstood (466, figure 13.2). When it is a brand that has to be advertised it is just like in the rest of the process of brand versus product / service; more is expected. For brands to advertise well a target audience relationship is important to have and maintain (Dahlen, Lange & Smith 294). To make an efficient brand advertising it is about building a connection with the customer, most importantly establishing the brand as something, which is a quantity to the customers that they recognize. The best way to advertise a brand is via television and print. This can be advertisements on billboard, commercials and adverts in subways and other places in the public space where a lot of people’s attention are easily obtained. A few well used media are better than multiple less good used, so an advertising campaign is better with a simpler planning that is well executed (ezinearticles.com). One of the best companies to advertise their brand is the Pepsi Cola Company and having the world strongest brand as their main competitor they have to stand out somewhere to keep being competitive and still be able to sell the brand worldwide. This they are doing buy a very strong advertising section of their brand. Pepsi constantly have celebrities helping to advertise the brand and have over the years been good at especially making television commercials; some of the most famous examples of the commercials are available on buzzfeed.com. Names such as Cindy Crawford, Michael J. Fox, Jackie Chan, P!nk, Beyonce and Britney Spears have been advertising for Pepsi and today the names that is supporting them are Nicky Minaj and several football players. The latest television ad they has been running has been with some the best football players in the world including Lionel Messi and Didier Drogba who both have advertised for Pepsi before at the World Cup 2010 where Pepsi was one of the official sponsors, which also was a great way of advertising them (pepsi.com). Pepsi is also not afraid to include Coca Cola in their ads and has done so in several of the best of the commercials where they try to persuade the viewer that Pepsi definitely is better than Coca Cola.
Advertising James Bond
When it comes to advertising James Bond the most focus runs in the period around a new movie or a re-launch of the movie series in a new edition on DVD. The interest for James Bond is beginning to rise now because in less than half a year “Skyfall” is supposed to be in the cinemas. EON production does not have to advertise James Bond equally much all the time as Coca Cola or Pepsi almost do but has to advertise that much stronger when a there is a reason for it, which there is for example now with “”Skyfall” coming in the cinema October 26th and therefore they are already beginning, so they are well prepared and has made the upcoming movie known. Another example is that this spring EON production is marking the 50th anniversary of James Bond movies by making a big re-launch of the entire movie series on Blu-ray in a golden box with all 22 movies for the first time available together and they made a press conference and a trailer to announce it (007.com). Another example of that is; about one and a half month before the premiere of “Quantum of Solace” a commercial with James Bond and Coca Cola Zero was launched, which served the purpose that both brands were advertised and associated with each other, which fits Coke Zero well because it has the saying “the impossible made possible” and that is basically what James Bond do, so they fit well together (guardian.co.uk). In Bond’s homeland United Kingdom a new Bond movie is something special and it is advertised much more there than in any other place. In 2005 when Casino Royale had premiere James Bond’s Aston Martin was parked in the glass exhibit in Harrods in London and postponed the Christmas exhibition. Furthermore, billboards in subways, on busses and in the streets advertise widely about the event that it is when a new Bond movie is available in cinemas in the UK.
Internet Promotion
However, promotion can be done by more ways than just in the “normal media” and searching more internet promotion is one of the most important because the rising power that the internet has and how among other things the social media is used more and more by companies e.g. the use of Facebook for both advertising and communication (blackboard.hih.dk). Companies have figured out that they need to use social media to advertise on to stay competitive. Otherwise they are afraid of falling behind. Social media can be used to reach more customers than other media and in an easier way, besides that it offers more possibilities. Facebook and Twitter are right now the preferred means of social media but it can change very fast in the quickly developing field (baruchnewmedia.com). Also the brands will then be possible to advertise easy in the commercial bar in the window at the right site of the “news feed” page on Facebook, so they are shown also to non fans. Twitter adds a feature more to the perspective of social media, which is E-wom. E-wom is a statement made by potential, current or former customers about a product or company made visible for multitude of people via the internet (wom.musicremedy.com). On Twitter it is possible to go in and follow a brand and share the opinion of it with thousands of other people and some companies has used that to their advantage and asked for ideas how to improve or change their brands or what the consumers like or dislike about them (baruchnewmedia.com).
Internet Promoting James Bond
The internet promotion is the strategy where the employees that advertise James Bond really are working to reach out to most people. Mainly via the social media James Bond is constantly advertised and thereby branded on the internet. News, images and historic facts are posted on the official Facebook site (facebook.com) and official Twitter page (twitter.com) for James Bond and all the information is coming from the official Bond website and is administrated by EON productions in cooperation with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (007.com). By promoting the brand all three of these sites they reach a lot of people, where maybe the website might only be for the hardcore fans they can still post they same information on the social media sites were more fans are active, which gives them a bigger target group. On the Facebook site historical facts about earlier movies are filmed and which interest a lot fans and keeps the site running with exciting news at all time. The Twitter site is mostly coming updates on what is happening and when which can be expected of Twitter, so it is fulfilling its purpose. On the website sets of pictures has been posted from the movie set at “Skyfall”, which can show some of the movie and create interest for the people. The most important thing about the use of online media is that it is world wide so a lot of people gets influenced by the small effort it is e.g. the official James Bond site has close to one million fans. Beside the official that is controlled by EON productions fans all over the world create websites or Facebook fan sites for James Bond, which also helps to advertise him. The first fan page online was made in 1994 and since then they has just kept coming and on the fan pages there is debates, images, videos just as on the official and therefore they help to advertise too (klast.net).
James Bond Sales
To prove the Bond movies’ consistency and continued quality a table of the 22 (23) movies (app B) was made were the facts was found on the Internet Movie Database website (imdb.com). Looking at the table there are two things that has to be taken into consideration with the statistic of the sales. The first is that the value of money has changed over the last fifty years and at the same time the amount that people have has changed as well because of war, crisis etc. therefore people have not been equally rich compared to the value of the money the last fifty years. The second thing that needs to be considered is that the budget for the movie rises steadily over the years. From an estimate budget of 1.1 million for the first movie to an estimate of 200 million for “Skyfall” that is in progress now, which is 180 times as much as for “Dr. No” in 1962. “Dr. No” grossed 59.6 million and “Casino Royale” as the best earning grossed 594.2 millions which are about ten times as much. Worth noticing is that the budget for the Bond movies has evolved into more every time except twice; first time were when Sean Connery was replaced as Bond. Second time was after “Moonraker” but looking at the budget for the movie it is also out proportion compared to the rest and it took ten years before the budgets got close to that high an amount of money again. The high price will most likely come from all the “space scenes” that are in the movie and at that time have not been too easy to make without using a lot of money. The gross sales of the movies are on the other hand much more fluctuating. The numbers alternating peaks and decreases. First time they peak is with “Thunderball” at that time James Bond is having his the first golden period with Sean Connery as the well portrayed Bond and the interest and attention of the movies are still very new. Following this the gross starts to be less and with “On her Majesty’s Secret Service” the gross is almost the same as with the first movie but with a budget that is seven times more, therefore Sean Connery is brought back once more and the curve starts to improve again and with Roger Moore taking over the next peak arrives in the end 1970’s and the start of the 1980’s were the Bond movies finally hits a gross (“The Spy who Loved Me”) higher than with “Thunderball” which were 12 years earlier. In 1989 the movies with Timothy Dalton could not live up to the previous standard, so EON production gave James Bond a short brake until they had found the right person to take over. That person turned out to be Pierce Brosnan and with him the movies got a new found success and reached gross sales much greater than earlier. This evolvement has become even more severe after Daniel Craig has taken over and the new bond movies are compatible with the old Sean Connery movies in success rate. This can be a result of the fact that Daniel Craig is the Bond that comes closest to Ian Fleming’s original figure of all six actors that has played him and that he at the same time can be associated more with Sean Connery’s Bond than the other Bonds.
Another way the success can be seen is by the other statistic that has been included in the table (app B) is the list with numbers of awards the movies has won. Through history only four movies has won one of the big movie awards; Oscar, Golden Globe or BAFTA award. Three of these awards have gone to the early Bond movies and the last one to “Casino Royale”, which also by far is the movie that has won most awards of all Bond movies. Worth noticing is also that through twenty-two movies only “Licence to Kill” has never won an award. All this is visible evidence of the strength and consistency of James Bond and it also shows how EON production has been quick to make changes when they have felt Bond’s image or creditability are in danger.
James Bond Branding Partners
The James Bond brand has several working partners that Bond help advertise in the movies and then in return serve him purpose e.g. Omega watches, which shows style and has since “Goldeneye” been the chosen watch for James Bond to wear and he is an official ambassador for Omega along with Cindy Crawford, Zhang Ziyi and Daniel Craig, which is a bit ironic (omegawatches.com). The latest agreement made is the very controversial agreement that made most newspapers with the fact that Bond is changing his drink from a Vodka Martini to a Heineken Beer. The move gave Bond both a new partner and a lot of publicity, which in most cases were bad publicity because fans felt Bond is not being faithful to his character by doing this but as unfaithful to the James Bond character as many claim it to be, then it is not because the original figure enjoyed a Heineken beer once and a while in the novels (independent.co.uk). It is also very important for James Bond what car he drives and even though there has been several car brands involved over the years Aston Martin is the car that Bond has made most movies driving and keep returning to. The most legendary Bond car is also the Aston Martin DB5 that is featured in “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” in the 1960’s.
Communication
Communication between companies and their consumers are much more important today because the consumers require more of the companies (baruchnewmedia.com). From the communication perspective the branding process will still be taken into consideration and worked with but it will be from another angle. Persuasion and reputation are some of the topics that need to be worked with together with the media.
Persuasion
Persuasion is an act of influencing the mind using arguments or other methods to move the mind or the passions. By this a person has to convinced of something else than the original opinion of the person (brainyquote.com). E.g. a way of persuading is to use stimulus-response, which is a simple approach to persuasion where the ideas is that to object are seen together many times and automatically people start to think of one when they see the other. The Coca Cola Company have made used of this theory to perfection with their Santa Claus advertisements (Newsom & Haynes 41). The most important uses of persuasion within a company are for advertising and for public relations. Using persuasion companies can argument or persuade their brands as they want the customers to see it. For the advertising persuasion is used to secure attention and to increase a following recall of the message. Hidden in many adverts are persuasive messages to built brand identities. For PR groups outside the company are linked with it and the message they deliver also need persuasive language e.g. newsletters to customers or a staff magazine (Blundel & Ippolito 120) Persuasive communication has been rewritten to rhetorical argumenting, which means effective to persuade or influence. There are three essential elements of a rhetorical argument; ethos, logos and pathos. Ethos focuses on creditability of the person or organisation that is behind the argument. Logos focuses on internal logic instead and on the argument presented. Pathos is focusing on appealing to emotions in support of the other elements (121). To persuade the customers through assessment of the target audience has had to made, which also means that a good target audience analysis is very useful in the means of persuasion. It is important to know how the audience feel about the subject that is the company wants to persuade about. Another fact that should be taken into consideration is whether there are competitors or others that persuade in the other direction of the company and most importantly might what previous experience the company have with persuading the audience (123).
Persuasion for James Bond
EON production uses a lot of persuasion concerning James Bond, which is in movies, advertising and on the everyday basis. James Bond is a very persuasive character. He is boosting with self-confidence and one of the main reasons that he gets the girls in every movie is his persuasive ability. Especially the women in the early movies he has to persuade much but he also uses his persuasive abilities to stay alive in situations where the villains could just have killed him e.g. one of the most famous scenes in the Bond series where he saves his life by persuading “Auric Goldfinger” to save him from a laser beam that “Goldfinger” is aiming at him (youtube.com). EON is setting a label on how they think secret agent should look and is trying to persuade people about the fact that it is how they are. With all James Bond’s copycat movies; Johnny English, Get Smart, Ispy, XXX and more it help EON production’s persuasion. Expectations that secret agents has a cool car, extreme gadgets, score all the girls and gets the villains every time is associated when thinking of a one and that is mostly because of James Bond.
The advertisement that EON make for James Bond are also persuasive. There are basically three ways James Bond is advertised on; Movie posters advertising a new movie, the movie trailers and commercials for Bond in cooperation with other companies. Besides that EON has also held a press conference recently to announce the re-launch of the twenty-two movies in the golden 50th anniversary box. At the conference they made use of five of the famous people that has been involved with James Bond. Most importantly they had three of the former Bond movie directors including John Glen who has made five movies. Furthermore, two of the new Bond girls were present for people that do not have knowledge of the people behind the movies as well, so they also could see familiar faces. All of these talked positively of the box and the opportunity to watch all movies for the first time in the same box and in that high a quality. So they all use persuasion. On the website they promoted the new box with a trailer and in the text section a starting sentence “Fancy seeing all 22 of the James Bond films like you’ve never seen them before – with incredible eye-popping picture and crystal clear sound – in one cool box set? Well now, finally, you can” (007.com). The sentence is very persuasive and is with the same tone all through the phrase the expectations to the quality are very high. To complete the advertising of the box the also made a trailer for it including clips from every movie, which matching the phrase perfectly and really set an expectation to the quality.
The movie posters have been an important part of advertising James Bond since the beginning with the first movies. Normally the posters aim to seek the essence of the movie in the posters (bondposters.com). To do so the posters also has to be very good and precisely on the target of the intention. According to an old Chinese proverb “One picture is worth ten thousand words” and that is basically what a poster needs to say and by using persuasion that might be possible to do. The James Bond posters over the years have been many because there are different for most countries in the world for each movie but looking on list of the official UK posters, the posters can better be worked with. By the voters on the James Bond website the best poster has been named, which was the “Casino Royale” poster from 2004 (007.com). The persuasion argumentation that the poster uses is logos. It is very informative, kept simple and displays a clear purpose. To look at all the official poster together then they have in common that they feature James Bond holding a gun and also do all of them have a lot of information about the movie on them. Besides that there are a lot of differences; all the posters have girls on it except one and some posters are created as scenery others as single clip. Most of the Bond posters are created with pathos argumenting in mind, they appeal to emotions and wakes excitement and anticipation, and this is especially all the posters that are created via scenery created based on the movie. E.g. the “You Only Live Twice” poster.
The trailers has like the movie posters been made from the beginning to persuade people to go to see the movies. In the official “Dr. No” trailer there is focus on telling people that the Bond the will feature in the movie is the same as the character that has been created for books by Ian Fleming and the trailer is telling that James Bond has spellbound millions of reader. The trailer is very informative and even has a narrator and it use time to introduce the main characters to show creditability and in these ways the trailer is very persuasive that there is potential in the movie and it is worth watching. To compare with it the trailer for the next movie “From Russia with Love” is characterized by a lot of effects and in much less time showing just as much of the course of action. The purpose of this trailer is to persuade people to watch another Bond movie and that it was not a one hit wonder and this is displayed in the trailer, where the interest and anticipation are brought to life. The trailer for “Skyfall” has just been released on the 21st of May, which is about five month before the movie will be in cinemas. The trailer has a clear built up with short movie clips switching after each other, the mood is clear in the trailer it is action packed and slightly more serious than James Bond use to be but follows perfectly up with the Bond that Daniel Craig is building (007.com). With the release of the trailer EON production is persuading that this Bond movie is worth watching and with all the effects in the trailer they use pathos argumentation as they tend to do in their movie trailers, where they often want to get people excited and to expect a blast of a movie via the trailer. Comparing the trailer for “From Russia with Love” and the trailer for “Skyfall” it is also clear it is the same emotions that are supposed to be affected and they are made with the same ideas and persuasive purposes behind them.
Bond Commercials
The bond commercials are relatively new phenomenon and only a few commercials have been made but at least one for each of the newest movies has been made. The first commercials where made by Pierce Brosnan with Visa, where the Bond image clearly was important. One of the commercials is Pierce Brosnan cruising through the streets of Shanghai as passenger in a tuk tuk taxi, the driver is doing stunts worthy of James Bond to impress Brosnan because he believes he is Bond and there are fun elements as when they arrive to their destination the taxi falls apart just after the girl arrived and said her line that becomes funny because of the taxi falling apart. Then Brosnan gives the driver his visa card to repair the taxi and realises that he is not James Bond (youtube.com). Therefore it has some of the elements of a Bond movie; action, fun phrases and a beautiful girl. The persuasion that has been thought of in this is for one Otto Lerbringer’s stimulus-response design, where James Bond and Visa have a series of commercials together and therefore they try to get them associated, which might help strengthen the creditability of both brands especially because they come from so very different fields (Newsom & Haynes 41). Furthermore, the commercial is strengthening the brand of James Bond, which obviously also has been in the brand manager’s mind, so in this way persuasion has been used as well. The commercial is making use of ethos and pathos in the argumentation of the persuasion in the commercial. Pierce Brosnan is well known and represents creditability and at the same time the ad appeals to the emotions of the viewer. Another commercial is the one that was made before the release of “Casino Royale” with cooperation of Heineken. The character that is featured in it is surprisingly enough not James Bond but Vesper Lynd (played by Eva Green). She is entering the hotel where the main parts of the movie take place and see a suspicious acting waiter carry a tray with a Heineken beer. They both enters the elevator but she leaves and takes the stairs instead after making sure that he will stop on every floor, when they meet again on the top floor she hits him from behind and take the beer from him entering her suite (youtube.com). This commercial is setting the mood for the movie that is coming. It is working as a combination of a teaser and an advertisement, which is clever. Via the commercial viewers are persuaded to drink Heineken but the ulterior motive for the commercial is to advertise for “Casino Royale” and in the way it is setup, the viewers get the feeling that something great is waiting. This commercial too uses both ethos and pathos for the commercial but regarding this one it is the pathos argument that is clearly most important. The commercial is manipulating with the viewers feelings. The latest James Bond commercial that has been made is the commercial made just before “Quantum of Solace”, which was in cooperation with the Coca Cola Company. The commercial shows an animated version of James Bond and what he represents. It include the Aston Martin model that Bond drives in the latest movies in a car chase, Bond in a fist fight, girls, guns and everything else that is associated with Bond and that is combined with Coca Cola’s everywhere. Coke Zero represents the phrase “The impossible made possible” and James Bond fulfil that profit, which make the two of them a good match. The commercial ends with a view of the details for “Quantum of Solace’s” release date and it is followed by a still of a Coke Zero and the phrase “It’s possible” (guardian.co.uk). This commercial is very good persuasive wise because it improve because Coke Zero gets their persuasive message through that by drinking Coke Zero more is possible, and now they have a strong name in James Bond to support the statement and it the return James Bond gets advertisement together with the worlds strongest brand, which value should not be underestimated not even for a name in the size of James Bond’s. Furthermore, the image is again maintained and maintaining of the persuasion of how James Bond is supposed to be seen has been done. This commercial makes use of logos and pathos argumentation, where the ad is equally trying to make use of logic and feelings to persuade the viewers.
Identity
According to Argenti “a company’s identity is the actual manifestation of the company’s reality as conveyed through the organization’s name, logo, motto, products, services, buildings, stationary, uniforms and all other tangible pieces of evidence created by the organization and communicated to a variety of constituencies” (68). This means that an identity that a company’s identity is what they make it to be via the means mentioned above. The same is applied for brand identity, again is it name, logo, motto etc. that makes the difference. To make a good brand it is important to think a head and make the identity including the target, audience, target market and work field in consideration (Dahlen, Lange & Smith 213). The first that is essential to a successful brand is a good name and together with the logo is it also the thing that people tend to notice the most. The brand name is used to create awareness of a brand; the names have to be simple and easy to pronounce e.g. IKEA that comes from “Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd” or Nike which is originated from the Greek god of victory (166). A lot of companies have over the years changed their name so it was better in a branding perspective. Normally they do this to either signal changes in the identity, to make the identity better, or to account for company changes. One of the most well known companies that have done changed name is FedEx that was originally called Federal Exports. The new name was more dynamic and catchy and the customers were calling the company it as a nickname even before (Argenti 75). The reason why the name is important is because it clearly distinguishes one brand from its competitor. Another good example is the Danish company B&O that originally was called Bang & Olufsen after the founders but as the name was not usable international they changed it to be more compatible and then have a slightly better chance in the international market (71-72).
The logo is as mentioned very important for the identity too. Logos might have an even bigger impact on consumers’ perception of a brand or a company. The logo is the visual recognition of a company. There are several forms of logos; there are symbols where some are simple and others are symbols that represent names, then there are logos that is styled names or parts of names, and finally there are logos that is a combination of both. One of the most famous logos is the Nike “Swoosh” logo that is a very simple symbol but never the less has been world known and associated more than anything else with Nike. A lot of famous athletes have also then advertised further with the “swoosh” on their clothes in big sports events and have given Nike a very strong brand identity (74). Another simple clever logo is the IKEA logo, which is just IKEA written with a big yellow font on blue background and the colours has been chosen because the company is Swedish. For the brands that have text embedded in their logo it is not indifferent what kind of text type they use in the text. The text type can have one of four different elements used in it or a mix of them. They are pleasing, engaging, reassuring, and prominent. Via these elements the details of the logo come clear e.g. harmony in the writing (Dahlen, Lange & Smith 172). Having a motto is also a good thing to have for a brand because it can help to implement what a brand stands for. Via the motto the brand can be advertised, the message is often persuasive and therefore it is good to create interest to the brand. E.g. a legendary motto is Gillette’s “the best a man can get”. The motto is very persuasive with statement that they are the best and they are then possibly persuading some customers to use them instead of competitors. Another motto that is very well known is the “Always Coca Cola” motto from the Coca Cola Company that in its simplicity is very good. It is with one word except its own name saying to drink Coca Cola every time. It is very persuasive and effective. Furthermore what is needed to identify a brand is what else it stands for and totally depends on what kind of brand it is.
Bond Name & Logo
All the parts of James Bond’s identity are developed partly by Ian Fleming and partly by EON productions. The James Bond name is developed by Ian Fleming, who has set certain parts of his identity that EON production cannot change without making James Bond into another character. “James Bond – 007 licenses to kill” is the person that Fleming has created and EON has put into the big screen. Hearing one of the names James Bond or 007 people automatically tend to think of an invulnerable British secret agent. The James Bond logo is on the other hand developed by EON and is James Bond “status name” or work title the numbers “007” that is put together with a gun so the number 7 and the gun handle is the same. The logo is all black and pretty simple and is made with the engaging design elements in mind in the text type of the numbers. With its simplicity it is easily recognisable and was quickly identified with James Bond. It was developed for “Dr. No” in 1962.
Bond Motto & characteristics
On of the most important things for James Bond’s character is all his characteristic phrases and of course his motto is legendary all the way back from Fleming books. The motto is “Bond, James Bond” and is used in the movies to reflect the characters personality where he is always saying the motto with a great self-confidence. The motto is expected to be in every movie at least once. Bond also has other phrases or mottos e.g. “vodka martini, shaken not stirred” which is used almost as often as “Bond, James Bond” but it is not quite as important. Another part of Bond’s identity is the framework of the setup in the movies. They all begin with a short opening scene known as the “gun barrel scene”, which also has become a part of the identity of Bond. The “gun barrel scene” features James Bond entering in a circle on a black screen and taking a shoot towards the screen. Following that scene a “preview” or “teaser” of the movie is with 5-15 minutes of the movie followed by the movie introduction with the movie theme and then the movie is shown. Other characteristics of James Bond that people know what gun he use; a Walther PPK, they know what car he drives; an Aston Martin, what drink he prefers; a Vodka Martini and all these small things becomes a part of his personality as well as name and logo but just with a smaller impact but they are never the less.
Bond Music
Music is also a part of James Bond’s identity. The James Bond Theme song that has been used since the first movie and was written by Monty Norman and adjusted by John Barry and the theme has been used together with the “gun barrel scene” in every movie. This is some of the essential in what James Bond’s identity is a long side with his name and logo. Furthermore, from “Goldfinger” and onwards every movie has had it own theme song except for “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”. Performing these songs have famous artist such as Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Duran Duran and Madonna. Shirley Bassey was so successful as performer for the “Goldfinger” theme, so she performed two soundtracks more later in the James Bond series. Today a part of the expectation of a Bond movie is that there is a movie introduction with theme song worthy of Bond and fitting the introduction. The last artists that had the honour were Jack White and Alicia Keys that were assigned to write and perform the theme for “Quantum of Solace”.
Image
According to Argenti “image is the corporation as seen through the eyes of its constituencies. An organization can have different images with different constituencies” (54). An image is therefore what the consumers see in the company and in their brands. A company cannot themselves change their image but they can try to improve it by improving their identity. Companies also have to be prepared for the fact that they can not please every consumer no matter what they are doing. Companies can get a better sense of the image that they and their brands have by doing conducting research on their constituencies. The research should include both qualitative and quantitative parts that can help determine the consistency of the identity the brand or company have (69). A brand image is passive and tend to look at the past; it cannot exist before the brand has been exposed in public (Dahlen, Lange & Smith 213).
Bond’s Image
The most important concerning James Bond’s image is for many people who are playing the character of James Bond. For the Bond fans there are many discussions about who is the better Bond and in that way also who is giving Bond the best image. This is because every actor is giving a different image of James Bond; Sean Connery as the first Bond is seen as the rightful Bond, who is a tough guy version of Bond that is very consistent in his performances. He is followed by Charles Lazenby who falls through as the worst Bond and does not get more than one movie to prove himself and create his version of Bond’s identity before Connery reappears. The Bond Image improves again with Roger Moore, who is seen as a funnier and less tough version of Bond but at the end goes too far and become cheesy. His successor Timothy Dalton brings back a bit of the original toughness of James Bond’s character but is still not a success and is followed by Pierce Brosnan, who starts as success finding the balance between action and fun but then also drops in level and becomes too cheesy. Daniel Craig as the current Bond has started out very high with Bond with the toughness as Sean Connery and an intensity not seen before except from the James Bond character from the Ian Fleming books. A good example of a discussion about the better Bond is a blog where analyses of the six Bond actors are described and a list of who is best is made and then it is commented on be several people. The result is consistent with what is available on other sites with votes and similar. On the site it is clearly stated that Sean Connery is the best Bond that has ever been and that the only Bond that has been close to his level is Daniel Craig but with the latest movie his level was not as high as in the first movie but if he makes more movies as good as “Casino Royale” he can make the image of James Bond as strong as it was with Sean Connery (lebeauleblog.wordpress.com). Bond’s image has been the weakest just after a for the Bond series bad movie that has not fallen in the taste of the viewers and especially just after some average bond movies e.g. after “A View to a Kill” or “Die Another Day”. These both got bad images and first mentioned are today by many seen as the worst Bond movie of all and the latter is seen as the one of the most ridiculous Bond movies. Besides that the overall image that people see of James Bond is of course also important the picture that people create inside their own heads of Bond is and what he is capable of. The latest attack to James Bond’s image came with the earlier mentioned announcement of Bond switching Vodka Martini with Heineken beer in “Skyfall” and when it was announced a lot of Bond fans was furious because the classic “Vodka Martini, Shaken not stirred” phrase would not be in the movie and because they feel that Bond is losing some of his style buy drinking a common beer and in that way his personality too. This has had some costs on the image for Bond even before the movie is out but maybe the people that has been offend will be positively surprised (independent.co.uk).
Bond Questionnaire
To help to see Bond’s image a questionnaire (app D) was developed, where questions directed towards Bond fans could answer on mostly marketing related questions. From the survey it was obvious that a lot of people could see more to Bond than just a movie character, which is very good because it is showing that the work and effort EON production put in making Bond into a brand works. 43 % of all who answered the questionnaire think that Bond is also a sales objective and 36 % consider Bond as a brand. From the survey the preferred actor to play James Bond was also asked for to compare with the statistics found elsewhere on the internet, where Sean Connery was the clear choice of Bond. Pierce Brosnan was the preferred Bond but most of the surveyed also had only been Bond fans for maximum ten years and the majority of the surveyed were younger people. Next to Brosnan Sean Connery was also favoured, which continues the tendency but he also has the unofficial title as the best James Bond. Therefore the survey is telling that for most people the Bond they grow up with and gives them the image of Bond as the first one they see or the one they get used to first.
Reputation
According to definitions.net is reputation “the positive or negative view people have of somebody or something as a result of their behaviour” (definitions.net). Corporate reputation has a relation to branding; both are intangible and affect all areas of a company. They differ however on the part that the brand is for the most part what the company has made it into and what perception it has whereas the reputation looks further and also include the brand in it together with future expectation etc. (allaboutbranding.com). The reputation is coming out of the identity and image put together and a solid reputation is built on a probably adjusted identity and image that match each other. The reputation is built up over time and it is the result input of both internal and external constituencies (Argenti 83). Brand reputation is different from the normal style of branding. Brand Reputation is community driven and appeal usually on a more human or emotional level. The reason for it occurred because of the development that the internet has created and then branding had to follow along as well as everything else (leveragingideas.com). With the reputation the efforts put into the branding process comes to show because both what the brand want people to see and how the customers sees them come forth. When a company have a strong reputation it creates attention to it and helps to show what creditability it has.
Bond’s Reputation
James Bond has a strong identity with a lot of characteristics that display what EON production wants to be shown in James Bond, they also advertise Bond well and keep his name known. The images that Bond have are on the other hand more fluctuating. In the 1960’s and 1970’s the image of James Bond was strong and except for the short crisis with Charles Lazenby as Bond there was no problem, then in the 1980’s Bond peaked and with the late Roger Moore movies and the Timothy Dalton movies the image was not as good. Not until middle of the 1990’s Bond got an improved image when Brosnan took over and now it is even stronger today. Therefore bond shows consistency and creditability and even with some movies better than others Bond is always on the market even though the quality is a bit varying. Bond is also making use of brand reputation being very active online, which important as it is the best way to reach the entire world on. From the survey (app D) developed the questioned believed that there would continue to be made Bond movies in the future; 62 % believed that at least in the next ten years there was guaranteed more Bond movies and only 18 % believed that the public would grow tired of Bond sometime within the next years. This is also a sign of a strong reputation which so good future believes from the public. Furthermore, 71 % thought James Bond was advertised well in the media and only very few though more should be done to advertise him, so all in all the reputation that James Bond has is pretty strong.
Media & Communication
Companies need the media as an essential part of their organization. Through the media investors, employees and consumers can receive information about of a company. The media is the tool for spreading information to a company’s key constituencies (Argenti 155). Handling of the media should also be part of a brand identity, where the tendency is that the audience is moving to the use of more media platforms, therefore more has to be thought of when planning how to engage in with the media. There are two media metrics describing how the media have been augmented; influence, which is based on persuasion, and engagement, which get the people actively involved via the medium. It is important to select the right medium for the message that wants to be sent (Dahlen, Lange & Smith 356-57). Advertising is a common use with the media companies but also PR need to go through some sort of media to reach its target. The brand of James Bond use media a lot for promotion purposes. With new movies the brand has to be active on almost every media platform; the trailers are going to televisions, cinemas and as part of trailer shows on DVDs or Videos. The posters that are made for the movies are featured in magazines, newspapers and in public surroundings which means they should be useful for all of the placings.
Media Relations
According to the online business dictionary media relations is “Linkages with the media personalities and resources that facilitate an organization in getting a favourable, timely, and widespread editorial coverage” (businessdictionary.com). To create successful media relations the company need to be willing to set of resources to the effort, where it is a good idea to involve a person in the media relation program that takes part of the decision making process in the company. Furthermore, some people that are experts in communication should also be part of the media relation program (Argenti 166-67). These people are essential to decide where a company should go public, how and why. Eon production have for James Bond a good strategy, where they are targeting only a few kinds of media but in return make a fine use of those. They use; online media all time and then besides that only use media for Bond when a new movie or a re-launch of the movies have come out and then they have used simple the same kinds of means every time to state their messages, which has been effective.
Social Media
The Social media is becoming more and more important for everybody; the individual, the business and the community. Social media is good to include people in discussions where the “normal media” cannot. It can be used to develop relationships between companies and their stakeholders (Newsom & Haynes 151) In June 2011 35 % of all companies were on Facebook and that number must easily have increased since then (womeninbusiness.about.com). The larger social media sites are all beginning to make special services to provide to company that want to go on their social network and some social media are developed entirely for business purpose e.g. LinkedIn. On Facebook a lot of companies (15 % of the companies that use Facebook) make business profiles simple because they are afraid that their competitors would get market advantage if they did not. Facebook has recently developed a tool to make the managing of the site easier as well give possible features that are not on the normal accounts e.g. Coca Cola’s Facebook site (facebook.com). Twitter is following the tendency and has made several new tools designed solely to help companies, where one of them is a targeting companies with more brands, where it is giving them the opportunity to switch easily from one account to another and still manage it all so the can advertise them. E.g. it can be Coca Cola that is having Twitter sites both for Coca Cola and Coca Cola Zero (baruchnewmedia.com). EON production have James Bond as briefly mentioned earlier active on both of these sites advertising and making themselves heard. On Facebook the site is also holding links to MGM’s Facebook site and the other cooperation partners and in this way serving a purpose more. The twitter site is simple the first place to get news about Bond and an easy place to reach the news.
Is James Bond a Strong Brand?
The fact that James Bond is a brand cannot be doubted anymore. The strength of the brand is on the other hand arguable. James Bond has a very strong brand identity and has made strong personality around it. The brand manager behind James Bond advertise him well and use the right media at the right times. Bond’s image is partially weak because of the inconsistency the different Bonds tend to deliver. This however does not change the fact that James Bond as a brand has been handled well in those situation where small crisis for the brand has existed. However, the fact that too many people still does not see James Bond as a brand, which is seen in the survey (app D), excludes the possibility of Bond being a strong brand. If the surveyed has been all English the result would most likely have been another and in United Kingdom Bond is a much closer to be a very strong brand if not being one. Worldwide James bond is not the strongest of brands but it is a solid brand that has a good basis. For the future James Bond should have good chances because according to the survey 62 % believe in more Bond movies to come and according to Daniel Craig he is going for at least four movies in total and if the last two can receive the standard that he started on Bond’s future is certainly secured. To make the brand stronger it would also be essential to make it better known that Bond can be more than just a movie character because if EON production manage to do so they have all components of a strong brand covered with James Bond.
Conclusion
James Bond is a fictional character invented by Ian Fleming and owned by EON production. He has via his movies and books become a brand even though he is only a fictional character. Branding James Bond is a process made by EON production in which they have mixed the characteristics from the Fleming books and combined it with their own features and has created a much deeper identity to Bond then the original. Bond has got a logo, motto, theme song and other characteristics that is part of his personality. Furthermore, James Bond is active on the media where the he can be followed all the time online using social media and in the “normal media” when James Bond events are happening. In the media Bonds is a persuasive character and all commercials that comes from Bond or is regarding Bond is persuasive. James bond has a good reputation especially because of the strong identity whereas the images are a bit weaker because of the switching Bond actors’ views of Bond. The brand James Bond itself has possibility of being a strong brand if EON production can make more people to see Bond as a sales object instead of just a character.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Books:
Argenti, Paul A. (2009)
Corporate Communication 5th edition
Singapore: McGraw – Hill/Irwin
Blundel, Richard & Kate Ippolito (2008)
Effective Organizational Communication 3rd Edit. – Perspectives, Principles and Practices
Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.
Buckingham, Ian P. (2011)
Brand Champions: How Superheroes bring Brands to Life
New York: Palgrave MacMillan
Chernatony, Leslie de and Malcolm McDonald (2003)
Creating Powerful Brands – in Consumer, Service and Industrial Markets
Burlington: Biddles Ltd.
Dahlen, Michael, Fredrik Lange & Terry Smith (2010)
Marketing Communication – A Brand Narrative Approach
West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons ltd.
Lovelock, Christopher & Jochen Wirtz (2011)
Services Marketing – People, Technology, Strategy
New Jersey: Pearson Education
Newsom, Doug and Jim Haynes (2011)
Public Relations Writing – Form & Style
Boston: Wadsworth
Articles:
Bergstrom, Alan
Brand vs. Reputation: Same or Different?
URL: http://www.allaboutbranding.com/index.lasso?article=191 (May 21, 2012)
Chaney, Paul (December 03, 2007)
Social Media Comes of Age
URL: http://blackboard.hih.dk/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_223968_1&course_id=_1864_1 (May 10, 2012)
Hahn, Dennis (2007)
Building a Strong Brand: The ID Branding Framework
URL: http://www.allaboutbranding.com/index.lasso?article=439 (May 17, 2012)
Long, Andrew K. (April 08, 2009)
What is Brand Advertising?
URL: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-Brand-Advertising?&id=2198428 (May 18, 2012)
Massie, Allan (November 8, 2011)
Why James Bond will go on and on
The Telegraph
URL: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/allanmassie/100057699/why-james-bond-will-go-on-and-on/ (April 16, 2012)
McFarlin, Kate
Ways to Boost Brand Awareness in Social Media
URL: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/ways-boost-brand-awareness-social-media-10102.html (May 16, 2012)
Nanton, Nick & JW Dicks (July 28 2011)
How to Brand Yourself Like A Celebrity (Even If You Think you’re Not That Special)
URL: http://www.fastcompany.com/1769746/celebrity-branding-what-if-im-not-special (May 20, 2012)
Silvestri, Rachel (June 2011)
Born to be Wild
http://www.jumeirah.com/en/Hotels-and-Resorts/Magazine/Archive/20111/Lifestyle–Technology/Born-to-be-Wild/ (May 17, 2012)
Thomas, Liz (April 4, 2012)
Is James Bond ditching the martini? Daniel Craig to trade cocktails for beer in new film Skyfall
The Daily Mail
URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2125022/James-Bond-Skyfall-Daniel-Craig-ditches-martini-beer-new-movie.html (May 7, 2012)
Websites:
Ask People – Free online questionnaire
URL: http://www.askpeople.dk/ask/index.php (May 1, 2012)
Best Global Brands 2011
URL: http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/best-global-brands-2008/best-global-brands-2011.aspx (April 20, 2012)
Bond Posters
URL: http://www.bondposters.com/Home.php (May 20, 2012)
Brand Awareness
URL: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brandawareness.asp (May 16, 2012)
Brand Equity
URL: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brandequity.asp (May 7, 2012)
Brand Equity and Brand Maintenance
URL: http://www.brand-equity-performance.com/html/05KW_48_en-Brand-Equity-and-Brand-Maintenance.htm (May 17, 2012)
Brand Reputation: What it is and why it matters a lot (March 21, 2007)
URL: http://www.leveragingideas.com/2007/03/21/brand-reputation-brands-20-branding-patagonia-made-to-stick-abercrombie-huleatt-globalization/ (May 21, 2012)
Branding Bond, James Bond
URL: http://brandingbond.com/ (May 7, 2012)
Coke Lore – Coca Cola company website
URL: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_santa.html (May 17, 2012)
Definition of persuasion
URL: http://www.brainyquote.com/words/pe/persuasion201632.html (May 19, 2012)
How the New Media are used in Business
URL: http://baruchnewmedia.com/wiki/How_the_New_Media_are_Used_in_Business (May 10, 2012)
Ian Fleming Books
URL: http://www.ianfleming.com/the_books.asp (May 6, 2012)
James Bond official UK fan page on Facebook
URL: http://www.facebook.com/JamesBond007 (February 16, 2011)
The 10 Most Iconic Pepsi Commercials of All Time
URL: http://www.buzzfeed.com/pepsi/the-10-most-iconic-pepsi-commercials-of-all-time-1q6t (May 18, 2012)
The Business Dictionary
URL: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/branding.html (May 6, 2012)
URL: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/media-relations.html (May 21, 2012)
The official James Bond website
URL: http://www.007.com/ (April 16, 2012)
The Most Visited Unofficial Bond Site in the World
URL: http://www.mi6-hq.com/ (2007)
Who is the Best James Bond?
URL: http://lebeauleblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/who-is-the-best-james-bond/ (May 21, 2012)
Word of Mouth
URL: http://wom.musicremedy.com/word-of-mouth/word-of-mouth.html (May 10, 2012)
Secondary Sources
Books:
Andersen, Ib (2005)
Guide to the Problem Formulation
Gylling: Narayana Press
Ind, Nicolas (2003)
Beyond Branding
London: Biddles ltd.
Articles:
Watch Coke’s James Bond ad
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2008/sep/11/advertising.jamesbond (May 18, 2012)
Websites:
Coca Cola Facebook business site
URL: http://www.facebook.com/cocacola (May 18, 2012)
Commander Bond – Bond article site
URL: http://commanderbond.net/ (April 16, 2012)
First Bond Website
URL: http://www.klast.net/bond/ (May 7, 2012)
James Bond Ad
URL: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3540/james_bond_ad/ (May 20, 2012)
James Bond Twitter site
URL: https://twitter.com/#!/007 (May 18, 2012)
Keller, Kevin Lane & Donald R. Lehmann (December 2006)
Brands and Branding: Research Findings & Future Priorities
URL: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40057218?uid=3737880&uid=2&uid=4&sid=47698967324687 (May 4, 2012)
Omega ambassadors – James Bond
URL: http://www.omegawatches.com/ambassadors/james-bond (May 19, 2012)
Optimize Brand Communication
URL: http://www.brandingcommunications.com/ (May 4, 2012)
Pepsi website
URL: http://www.pepsi.com/ (May 18, 2012)
The Internet Movie Database
URL: http://www.imdb.com/ (2005)
URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274166/ (2006)
YouTube
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CB1iY0yeWc (May 20, 2012)
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1TmeBd9338 (May 20, 2012)
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoZ-g3S6dWY (May 20, 2012)
Appendices
Mindmap (app A)
James Bond Microsoft Visio Mindmap
Bond Sales (app B)
| Movie | Year | Awards | Big Awards | Budget | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dr. No | 1962 | 1 | 1 | 1,100,000 | 59,600,000 |
| From Russia with Love | 1963 | 2 | 0 | 2,000,000 | 78,900,000 |
| Goldfinger | 1964 | 4 | 1 | 3,000,000 | 124,900,000 |
| Thunderball | 1965 | 4 | 1 | 9,000,000 | 141,200,000 |
| You only Live Twice | 1967 | 1 | 0 | 9,500,000 | 111,600,000 |
| On her Majesty’s Secret Service | 1969 | 0 | 0 | 7,000,000 | 87,400,000 |
| Diamonds Are Forever | 1971 | 1 | 0 | 7,200,000 | 116,000,000 |
| Live and Let Die | 1973 | 2 | 0 | 7,000,000 | 126,400,000 |
| The Man with the Golden Gun | 1974 | 1 | 0 | 13,000,000 | 97,600,000 |
| The Spy Who Loved Me | 1977 | 2 | 0 | 14,000,000 | 185,400,000 |
| Moonraker | 1979 | 1 | 0 | 34,000,000 | 210,300,000 |
| For Your Eyes Only | 1981 | 2 | 0 | 28,000,000 | 195,300,000 |
| Octopussy | 1983 | 2 | 0 | 27,500,000 | 187,500,000 |
| A View to a Kill | 1985 | 2 | 0 | 30,000,000 | 152,400,000 |
| The Living Daylights | 1987 | 3 | 0 | 30,000,000 | 191,200,000 |
| License to Kill | 1989 | 0 | 0 | 32,000,000 | 156,200,000 |
| Goldeneye | 1995 | 2 | 0 | 58,000,000 | 351,500,000 |
| Tomorrow Never Dies | 1997 | 6 | 0 | 110,000,000 | 335,300,000 |
| The World is Not Enough | 1999 | 7 | 0 | 135,000,000 | 351,100,000 |
| Die Another Day | 2002 | 6 | 0 | 142,000,000 | 432,000,000 |
| Casino Royale | 2006 | 27 | 1 | 150,000,000 | 594,200,000 |
| Quantom of Solace | 2008 | 4 | 0 | 200,000,000 | 576,000,000 |
| Skyfall | 2012 | 68 | 7 | 200,000,000 | 1,142,471,295 |
| Spectre | 2015 | 8 | 2 | 245,000,000 | 880,705,312 |
| No Time to Die | 2021 | 41 | 3 | 250,000,000 | 774,153,007 |
All facts found on IMDb’s website using each Bond movie’s own individual webpage’s (imdb.com).
Issues in Marketing Communication and Buyer Behaviour (app C)
(Dahlen, Lange & Smith 53, figure 3.1)
James Bond Questionnaire (app D)
How long have you been a James Bond fan?
| 0-5 years | 17 | 40% | |
| 5-10 years | 9 | 21% | |
| 10-15 years | 11 | 26% | |
| 20-25 years | 4 | 10% | |
| More than 25 years | 1 | 2% |
Who is the right James Bond?
| Sean Connery | 10 | 24% | |
| Charles Lazenby | 0 | 0% | |
| Roger Moore | 2 | 5% | |
| Timothy Dalton | 1 | 2% | |
| Pierce Brosnan | 24 | 57% | |
| Daniel Craig | 5 | 12% |
Why do you like James Bond movies?
| Bond girls. | 1 | 2% | |
| Q’s gadgets. | 8 | 19% | |
| Bond’s cars. | 2 | 5% | |
| All the characteristic phrases. | 19 | 45% | |
| Something else. | 12 | 29% |
Do you ever see James Bond as more than just a fictional character? E.g. as a sales object.
| Yes, I have thought of James Bond as more. | 18 | 43% | |
| No, I have thought about before but there is something about it. | 6 | 14% | |
| No, I have not seen James Bond as more. | 14 | 33% | |
| Maybe, I don’t know | 4 | 10% |
Do you consider James Bond as a marketing brand?
| Yes, I have. | 15 | 36% | |
| Sometimes. | 17 | 40% | |
| No, Never. | 7 | 17% | |
| I don’ know. | 3 | 7% |
Do you think that there today is more ways to keep James Bond’s image?
| Yes, I believe more can be done. | 24 | 57% | |
| No, I don’t think so. | 18 | 43% |
Is James Bond advertised well enough? Or is more required?
| James Bond is advertised well enough. | 30 | 71% | |
| More needs to be done e.g. banners, commercials etc. | 6 | 14% | |
| Not enough is done. A new direction should be thought of. | 6 | 14% |
Do you believe James Bond movies will just keep coming?
| Yes, for at least the next 10 years. | 26 | 62% | |
| Yes, for at least the next 25 years. | 4 | 10% | |
| Yes, for at least the next 50 years and maybe more. | 4 | 10% | |
| No, soon in the future the public will be tired of James Bond movies. | 8 | 19% |
Percentages are measured from 42 answers made in the time period 02 May – 17 May 2012.
© Henrik Liltorp