The flap over Heineken’s product-placement deal with Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond movie, isn’t going away. How’d that happen? After all, James Bond drank beer in some of Ian Fleming’s original stories. He had beer in some movies, as recently as 2008’s Quantum of Solace, the most recent 007 flick.
"James, was this beer deal such a good idea?"
"Pass me a Heineken, Felix!"
With 20-20 hindsight, it’s not that surprising. Here’s what led to the situation:
The financial conditions of two studios: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns half the 007 franchise, recently was in bankruptcy court, emerging as a smaller company. It ended up cutting a deal with Sony Corp. to distribute Skyfall (and the next 007 film). But Sony has financial problems of its own. That meant:
Skyfall was going to rely heavily on product placement: The Sunday Times of London reported 11 month ago that MGM and Sony were looking to product placement deals to supply as much as one-third of Skyfall’s budget (this link shows the version of the Sunday Times story that appeared in The Australian). Months later, Skyfall star Daniel Craig tactily admitted that product placement was vital to Skyfall.
As a result, the media and some fans were on red alert: Bond movies had been criticized before for what seemed like excessive product placement. Some fans noted how 1979’s Moonraker included plenty of plugs for Marlboro cigarettes, British Airways and 7-Up. The 2006 Casino Royale movie, Craig’s debut as Bond, was noted for how it shoehorned a reference for Omega watches into a key scene with Craig’s Bond and Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who had done a film on product placement, included 007 films in his critique.
The initial announcement of Heineken’s Skyfall deal wasn’t handled well: Heineken’s Feb. 8 press release announcing the product-placement deal had a lot of chest-thumping by both the company and Eon Productions, which produces the 007 movies:
Alexis Nasard, Chief Commercial Officer of HEINEKEN said: “When two great brands like Heineken® and James Bond join together, excitement is guaranteed. We are proud of our long standing partnership. The trust that we have built has allowed us to take the partnership to a new level by linking SKYFALL directly with our award winning global ‘Open Your World’ campaign. We are confident our activation plan will ignite the conversation with our consumers and film viewers.”
Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the SKYFALL producers added: “The level of collaboration with Heineken® is unprecedented. We are excited by the global reach and the creativity that the Heineken® team is able to deliver.”
Of course, Heineken and Eon could have mentioned that 007 had consumed beer in Ian Fleming’s novels and Eon’s movies. Evidently, they were so busy discussing how wonderful they were, that fact just couldn’t be squeezed into the press release. Make no mistake, when a press release quotes an executive, those quotes are approved by the executive ahead of time. This wasn’t an oversight. This is the message Heineken and Eon wanted to get across. Translation of said message: “We’re wonderful, you’re lucky to have us.”
Timing is everything: In this case, the timing was bad. Yes, Bond drank more than just martinis on the page and on the screen. (In Live And Let Die, director Guy Hamilton and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz made a point of having first-time 007 Roger Moore drink bourbon to avoid comparisons with Sean Connery.) But Bond was, for better or worse, identified with martinis in movies.
In addition, the Casino Royale reboot shook things up. The movie turned the traditional Bond formula on its head as we watched a thuggish Bond learn to be a gentleman. They could have chose to shown how a gentleman learned to become tough (this is not an original observation on our part) but the filmmakers didn’t take that approach. During Casino Royale’s marketing, we were told, the film shows “how James became Bond.” We were told by the end of the movie, the James Bond we all knew would emerge. Then, in 2008’s Quantum of Solace, we were told that James wasn’t Bond just yet. Hence, the gunbarrel scene, again, wasn’t at the start of the movie.
As a result, in the last six years, Bond fans have processed at lot of change. The Heineken deal meant yet more change and that’s been the theme of much of the coverage since the deal was first announced. Maud Adams, who appeared in two 007 films, said “this has gone too far. Martini was something elegant when I served Roger Moore and it is elegant to this day.”
Some fans say this was all planned by Heineken to get publicity. We doubt it. Most companies don’t like publicity where people dump on you. This probably will blow over. Then again, we first thought this would have blown over by now.
UPDATE: According to A YAHOO! MOVIES POST blog post, Michael G. Wilson told reporters in Mexico (he was speaking from the U.K.) that: “Bond would sup Heineken in the film, but added that he would drink Vodka Martinis as well.”
Filed under: James Bond Films | Tagged: Barbara Broccoli, Bond 23, Casino Royale, Daniel Craig, Eon Productions, Eva Green, Heineken, James Bond Films, Maud Adams, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Michael G. Wilson, Moonraker, product placement, product placement in 007 movies, Quantum of Solace, Roger Moore, Skyfall, Skyfall's Heineken product-placement deal, Sony Corp. |
The Spy Command 
There is as yet absolutely no real evidence that Bond will abandon his usual vodkatinis and champange in favour of Heineken: in fact, exactly the same tabloid rumour was circulated before ‘Casino Royale’ was released because of a similar product placement tie-in, and yet the only evidence of the deal was a billboard / display behind Daniel Craig in the Miami Airport sequence. If I’m wrong and Bond does drink nothing but Heineken in the movie (and I’ll bet you my house and a year’s salary that he doesn’t) then we can argue the rights or wrongs afterwards – but is this point really worth debating when all we’ve got to go on amounts to tabloid hearsay / gossip / googled and un-researched ‘journalism’ on a slow news day?
The Casino Royale Bond had, at age 38, never worn a tuxedo before. Maybe he had expensive tastes, but he wasn’t a refined character. Vesper taught him how to dress for a formal occasion. Oh, and before you argue that Bond wasn’t 38 just because Daniel Craig was, better check out the publicity materials distributed at the time. Sony had a Casino Royale Web site that said Bond’s birth date was the same as Craig’s.
I’m sorry, but where do you get the idea that he had never worn formal dress before? It’s never stated in the movie in the slightest. He takes umbrage against Vesper because she has bought him a dinner jacket tailored to his measurements and has one-upped him, not because he he has no idea how to dress – and how would he recognise a tailored from an untailored item of clothing if his tastes were completely unrefined?
We’ll concede the point on the tuxedo. He says he has his own dinner jacket but looks with big google eyes at himself in the mirror wearing the tailored jacket. Maybe Daniel Craig’s expressions and acting gave us that idea.
This controversy does have an unusually restraint shelf-life. However it was entirely predictable, in 2006 word of a similar green bottled beer deal had tongues awagging the new upstart Bond would be flogging beer on screen. There was a similar defense mounted by those who had read the books and knew Bond did indeed sip a brew from time to time. There was one oddity it seems some were saying Bond drank beer in CR which he didn’t. Eventually it was made clear Bond would not be a beer shill on screen and the standard commercial was minted. Although Bond was voiced by someone who sounded like brave, brave Sir Roger.
So everything that happened since the horribly mishandled Heineken announcement (circa 2012) was completely knowable before hand. I’d expect it to die away as summer approaches but it’s dammed strange it struck a note with people in the first place. Maybe this stink lingers, it’s certainly not what Heineken wanted, calling attention to their flagrant advertising campaigns in a poor light.
The vitriol on this blog is worse than The Sun. I can’t believe you’d put so much effort into examining and re-examining this nonsense.