Bonding With Ford In Casino Royale
With the Ford Mondeo making an appearance in Daniel Craig’s debut Bond film, Casino Royale once again reaffirms the bond between Ford and 007. Ford’s Myles Romero, head of global brand entertainment discussed their involvement in Casino Royale to Brandweek…
The Bond franchise is one of the most successful in move franchise history, so it has always performed very well for us,’ says Romero. ‘But for Casino Royale, Bond is being introduced to a younger demographic, going back to the first [author Ian] Fleming book and focus on Bond before he became a 007 agent. That’s why we have a new James Bond, Daniel Craig. But it gets our product out there in front of that 18- to 34-year-old audience, which everyone wants. At the same time, we have some other vehicles with great parts in the movie. The main villain drives a Range Rover Sport, and then our Jaguar XKR and XK Sport have two great parts in the movie.’
When asked how they decide which vehicle is right for a specific film, Romero said: ‘We audition our vehicles, and it’s not always about what would work, but also what they want. For the opening of Casino Royale, we had several cars looked at. The Mondeo is very European and the filmmakers were interested in that car in that it reflected Bond at his best. In recent memory, Bond hasn’t jumped into a really hot car in a while. And it was a car that was relevant to us. These cars are auditioned a year to 18 months ahead of time, so there is a bit of a curve there. But we try to show them everything. The Mazda CX7 crossover auditioned. The Ford Edge would have worked well. And the Aston Martin will always be in there. The Broccoli family [producers of the films] specifically calls us and asks what Aston Martin we are using this time. In this case it’s the DBS.’
Click here to read the entire interview online.
Stay tuned to CBn for all the latest Casino Royale coverage.