2023-09-19 15:26:34
The latest watch from a Swiss watchmaker, sneakers from a German equipment manufacturer but not the latest smartphone from a Silicon Valley giant. Master spy of product placement, James Bond does not use Apple’s flagship model in his latest adventures. He prefers to put in action and highlight a more modest Nokia 8.3, the first 5G device from the Finnish brand released at the end of last year. Without “spoiling” the film too much, Her Majesty’s Secret Agent even juggles a legendary 3310 and a less memorable 7.2.
“The 8.3 is a very beautiful and very solid product and above all secure with regular updates, it’s perfect for James Bond”, trumpets Bertrand Dupuis, European marketing director of HMD Global, the Finnish company which relaunched the brand Nokia in 2016. “It does not suck up user data, does not suffer from security flaws and we are a trusted European brand”, tackles the manager in a barely veiled reference to models from Chinese manufacturers suspected of spy on their owners.
A nice product placement contract
In previous episodes, Agent 007 was equipped with the latest Xperia smartphone from Sony, the Japanese manufacturer of which a subsidiary Sony Pictures was also… the distributor of the film. Agent “Q”, Bond’s official gadget supplier, could therefore not equip him with a competing brand, regardless of the amount of the check. Once Sony lost the distribution rights to the franchise at the end of 2015, the image of James Bond, very “bankable”, was once again for sale, particularly in view of the 25th film, the release of which was postponed several times.
Thanks to a contract “worth around ten million euros”, Nokia, the iconic brand of the 2000s, thus offered its mid-range smartphone a global showcase. “The resonance of the film is global and affects some of our strongholds such as the United States, India, the Middle East and Africa,” says Bertrand Dupuis.
Omnipresent in Apple TV + productions but also in other blockbusters, the iPhone was not in the race despite a reputation for higher reliability than Android models. But the resounding affair of espionage via the Pegasus software has since put into perspective the interest in integrating it into 007’s panoply. There is also no question of one of the bad guys using an iPhone in the film. Apple strongly advises Hollywood against putting its devices in the wrong hands.
Due to the pandemic which delayed the release of the film, James Bond does not draw the XR20, Nokia’s latest reinforced smartphone, because it was not possible, according to the brand with modest market shares, to reshoot scenes . But actress Lashana Lynch, future face of the world’s most famous spy, does not hesitate to use it in a Nokia advertisement which was updated faster than James Bond can draw.
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