It’s no secret that the Bond franchise is the Holy Grail of product placement, with companies reportedly shelling out $44 million for Die Another Day, $50 million for Quantum of Solace, and $45 million just from Heineken in Skyfall. That the world’s suavest spy would be seen drinking the world’s skunkiest beer (with all due respect to Corona) would lead one to believe that Bond’s #brand predilections were for sale to the highest bidder. But according to a recent report, Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig drew the line at Android products, for which they were being offered $50 million, because “James Bond only uses the best.”
To be fair, the report did come from Apple Insider. To be fair to Apple Insider, it does cite actual leaked emails.
Discussions involved an $18 million marketing commitment from Sony [for Bond to use the their Xperia Z4], escalating to a $50 million marketing and promotional package from Samsung as well as a $5 million product placement for Bond to be seen using an Android phone with Samsung’s brand on it.
Leaked emails involving Bond franchise producer Barbara Broccoli noted that money wasn’t the only consideration involved in the decision of whether to take money from Android phone makers in exchange for promotion.
“BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor whereby Sam and Daniel don’t like the Sony phone for the film (the thinking, subjectively/objectively is that James Bond only uses the ‘best,’ and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the ‘best’),” wrote Andrew Gumpert, President of Worldwide Business Affairs and Operations for Columbia Pictures.
It’s fairly shocking to discover that Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig, or anyone in creative, had any say in a potential $50 million product placement deal. And even more shocking that they would turn down Samsung after depicting Bond drinking a Heineken. I guess that makes Samsung worse than the Heineken of phones. Does that make Samsung the Charles Reibenbach of phones?
In fairness to Samsung/Sony/Android, if Bond uses an iPhone, there should be at least one scene where he’s trying to put on some mood music to bed a sexy lady, but can’t figure out why his purchases haven’t synched. And just when he’s about to smash it against a wall, the world’s most terrible U2 song starts autoplaying. “Didn’t you download the new iOS? You have to download the new iOS, but make sure you back it up first,” coos Voluptua Moistwell.