James Bond Brand Shaken by Product Placement

That wonderful biennial branding event known as a Bond movie is upon us again, and we will have to endure a cavalcade of mundane brands engaged in a series of inappropriate product placements, demeaning the film.

Far more entertaining is to watch these brands disguise the amounts paid to Eon Productions, which makes the Bond films, while simultaneously attempting to construct an authentic and exclusive connection between their brand and James Bond.

The mission is impossible. The real Bond, conjured up by author Ian Fleming in the 50s, was the opposite of today's superficial consumer. He was a connoisseur. That might sound like he would take photos of his bottle of Bollinger with his new Sony Ericsson cameraphone, but the reality is, and was, very different.

For starters, connoisseurs don't have routines. Their tastes are too wide and rich to be sated by consuming the same stuff all the time. In Bond's first outing, in the book Casino Royale, he consumes an Americano, a cognac and water, a Martini, several bottles of vintage Champagne and some brandy. The idea of sticking to one drink - even for one evening - would bore him to tears.

Bond is also no brand loyalist. Like all connoisseurs, he varies his brand of choice depending on the mood, the company and the occasion. The brazen manner in which Bollinger has paid for the right to claim Bond as brand-loyal smacks of everything that is wrong about product placement.