When Brand Safety Kills Brand Soul: 007 Meets the Amazon Focus Group
You’ve no doubt seen the news. In a move that would make any self respecting Spectre villain blush, Amazon has quietly airbrushed the pistols from classic James Bond posters along with the Bond girls. We are told that fans are furious. Critics are aghast. And somewhere, a Walther PPK is quietly weeping in a dark corner. It made me think of Joe Caroff — the legendary designer behind the original 007 logo, who passed away recently at 103. (I shared a tribute to him in an earlier post — his name may not be known to millions, but his design defined a global franchise for over 60 years.) Caroff’s genius was simplicity with bite — a single, daring idea that embodied Bond’s character. So naturally, I wondered: what if Amazon’s brand-safety team had called him back from the beyond to “update” his work for a more sensitive era? Hello Joe, we know you're busy designing the celestial title cards for the afterlife, but we need your genius. Your iconic 007 logo is... problematic. The...