Is There A New Bond Film?

CRICKET went to see the new Bond film ‘Skyfall’ last week. The cinema was packed… and the one we visited had been pretty solidly booked from opening night the previous weekend. Little wonder when you consider the omnipresence of advertising and publicity for the film. It seems like every newspaper has been reviewing, running Bond features and competitions; that every TV and radio talk show has interviewed the stars; and Bond specials are on every satellite and terrestrial channel. We’ve mocked up the Angling Times cover but we’re sure there were editorial meetings at both Angling Times and Crochet Monthly where supporting the movie with a feature was discussed…

So why have the media got behind this particular Bond film so wholeheartedly and is there such a thing as too much publicity? Does such an onslaught start to breed some sort of resentment amongst the public?

The answer to the first question is probably money and momentum. A new Bond in a Jubilympic year meant that the publicity machine started playing in earnest almost a year ago – and we reckon that much of that was telling trade partners that this would be big. And once that machine started everyone wanted a piece of the expected financial bonanza. So a clever bit of B2B strategy ahead of the B2C.

As to whether they over played their hand from a consumer perspective… well the numbers at the box office would probably suggest not. Skyfall had made £37.2m in the UK in its first seven days – to overtake previous record holder, the last instalment of the Harry Potter series. Skyfall is already 2012's third highest grossing movie and may now be on course to beat Avatar’s £93m for the highest-grossing film in UK cinemas of all time.

So a good UK result. But it was interesting that in talking last week to a Shanghai based client that he had seen very little publicity – strange for a film where one of the main action sequences is set in Shanghai, and a sequence that makes the city look pretty amazing. Perhaps Bond is after all an acquired taste. JS