The man with the golden gun, lots of gizmos, an eye for charming ladies – who is also known as “Bond, James Bond” – may be one of the greatest examples of how consistency builds brands.
Lets face it. He is the king of the shallow male ego, the ultimate in male fantasy with fast cars, fast gizmos and fast women. But when you add a multi-million dollar movie, book and merchandizing franchise to it – suddenly we just go quiet and admire him. And he built his empire, not by doing different attractive things everytime he hits the silver screen, but by doing the same thing over and over and over….again.
Here’s how
1. Start with the title theme. Every Bond movie opens with a title theme of a singer (Almost always female) / band who is the hottest band of that era. The singers galore include – Madonna, Garbage, Sheryl Crowe, Tina Turner and many more.
2. The name of the song is always the name of the movie
3. The title theme always has a mystique quality showing women in shadowy sequences.
4. The gadgets and gizmos of course. Every bond movie has tons of them.
5. The car. Bond was the pioneer in brand placement in movies. And it was either BMW or Aston Martin
6. The ladies. In the beginning the bond girls were all decorative blonds. But as women started to have more controlling roles, the role of bond girls also changed. They started appearing as fellow spies or in more demanding roles in general
7. The Villain. Every bond villain has to be very cosmopolitan (Starting from Morocco to Russia) and must have a grand scheme of destroying the world
8. The Vodka martini. The drink was made world famous by those lines, “I prefer it shaken, not stirred.”
9. The dialogues. Among all the movie dialogues that are made immortal, AFI (American Film Institute) has listed “The name is Bond, James Bond” as the most popular of them all. Interestingly, this dialogue appeared in almost all bond movies and it still makes us weak in the knees.
Such fantastic crafting and attention to details is what made Bond such a global brand. This can be a great lesson for all brands. You don’t have to do different things everytime to be trendy or attract attention.
Rather
A. Find out what makes you truly unique and popular
B. And do it over and over again.
C. Simple
