The devil's adman - BMW's James Bond tie-ins - Column

Brandweek, Jan 26, 1998 by Philip Van Munching

Seduced by the lure of the easy headline--"Licensed to Shill"--business writers embraced the tie-in overkill issue and missed out on the far more subtle (and interesting) marketing question raised by 007's latest filmed opus.

(And no, it wasn't why a beer importer would spend millions to push a movie about a world-renowned martini drinker.)

By way of getting to that question, imagine this: You're a BMW marketing exec, and the producers of the James Bond series call to see if they can feature your 750i sedan in their new film, Tomorrow Never Dies. Not only will James drive it personally, but there will be a lengthy scene in which the character of Q shows off the car--replete with Bondian gadget add-ons--as well as a major action sequence starring, ta-da!, the 750i. For your end, you'll have to spend heavily on an ad campaign touting both your car and the film.

After you pinch yourself, to make sure you're not dreaming, you ask one four-word question, right? Where do I sign? No-brainer, that one.

Except it is a brainer; there's a sixword question you should have asked first. Is it right for the brand? Dig beneath the surface, and there's a case to be made that BMW has done itself a bit of long-term damage in order to gain a bit of short-term publicity.

It's easy to see why BMW thinks its Bond tie-in is a good thing. A few years back, the company used the previous James Bond film, Goldeneye, to launch its sporty little roadster, the Z3. Sales of the two-seat convertible, on the heels of its 007 launch, reportedly exceeded even BMW's most optimistic projections. Dealers and consumers alike took to referring to the Z3 as "the Bond car."

And therein lies the problem for BMW. I've noticed an unintended by-product of the little car's close alliance with the secret agent; derision by folks who own . . . other BMW models. "Look at that idiot," I hear them say time and again when a Z3 rolls by, "he thinks he's James Bond." The unspoken part of this, of course, is ". . . and that idiot is driving my brand." Often, they go on to make disdainful fun of the fact that the Z3, at around $30 grand, enables anyone with the scratch for a high-end Accord to drive a Beemer.

Anyhow, the point is not that many BMW owners make lousy arguments about pricing--BMW's 3-series has long been affordable--but rather that they feel so put out by some of their fellow Beemer-owners. More specifically, many established BMW owners, the type who shell out 50 or 60 grand every four years or so because a BMW is a wonderfully designed and built status symbol, are feeling put out by suddenly having an affiliation with people who spend considerably less on the same brand name . . . because it's what a fictitious super-spy drives.

And let's make an important distinction here: It's probably not wrong for BMW to have placed its product in a movie aimed largely at teenage boys; rather, it's self-image-mutilation for them to spend so heavily on advertising that tie-in. In other words, it's OK for Bond to aspire to BMW, but it's decidedly not OK for BMW to aspire to Bond.

Image is sacred in high-end consumer categories. The images held by mid- and upper-priced car companies seem writ in stone: Volvo is the safe family car, Jaguar is the sporty car of the middle-aged, Porsche is . . . well, let me put it in the context of a joke I heard recently: Why do men smoke cigars? Because they can't get Porsches in their mouths. BMW is the sophisticated sports sedan for people with style. That's a carefully created image (see: "The Ultimate Driving Machine") and the marketers at BMW are clearly not dumb people.

With the Bond tie-in, though, I think they've done a dumb thing. Doubtless their short term sales will rise. As with the Z3, Bond will drag a lot of additional folks into the showroom. But I wonder if he won't, in the long run, push long-time BMW drivers into other showrooms, showrooms where there isn't much chance of one day seeing a life-sized cut out of Will Smith alongside his Men In Black II Beemer.