Is Any Leading Man Loved by Brands More Than Mr. 007?

With Spectre about to open, wherever you look on Mr. Bond, everything he wears or touches seems to be worth a fortune.

Mr. James Bond is the world's most famous and longest-serving secret agent, the legendary man "every man wants to be and every woman wants to have." He is also the brands' favorite spokesman.

Ever since the first 007 film opened in 1962, the British agent has stood for gentlemanly manners and luxury. Brands soon found that a product only had to appear in one of his films to become a classic. Whether they pay hard cash for product placement or simply ride the wave with their own marketing, they all work hard to get close to the agent.

The latest film in the series, Spectre, opened in the UK last week and took US$64 million at the box office in its first week. Over the next two weeks it opens in the world's two largest film markets, North America and China, and the real money-making begins.

The brands are worked up too, and want to make their presence felt both on screen and off. Some have followed 007 for years and do it with ease, like Aston Martin, which always draws a "wow." Others try too hard, and the result looks a little odd... The Bond you imagine is one thing; the Bond that merchants see may be quite another.

Tom Ford gave Mr. Bond 40 suits to choose from, and a dozen big names are squeezing onto his body

A gentleman's basic kit starts, of course, with the suit.

In Spectre, Daniel Craig is again dressed by Tom Ford. Since the partnership began in 2008, Tom Ford has replaced Cyril Castle, Anthony Sinclair, Douglas Hayward and Brioni as the designer (and brand) closest to Bond's look. It supplied 40 suits for the agent to knock about in.

A suit alone is far from enough. Mr. Bond must look elegant and flawless in any weather and on any occasion. He also needs a Tom Ford Herringbone Overcoat, a Tom Ford SPECTRE short jacket with knitted sleeves, a Sunspel blue polo shirt, Mulberry gloves, an N.Peal turtleneck, Crockett & Jones shoes, Sunspel underwear, an Omega watch, Vuarnet sunglasses made of a special material, a John Varvatos biker jacket, S.T. Dupont cufflinks...

Tom Ford Herringbone Overcoat

Tom Ford SPECTRE short jacket with knitted sleeves

Tom Ford Windsor Three-Piece Suit

Tom Ford O'Connor Windowpane suit

S.T. Dupont 5172 Diamond Head Square Cufflinks

One outfit costs about 150,000 yuan. And that's before the bags and the car.

Anything 007 has used is worth money: the famous blue swim trunks sold for US$70,000

In 2012, to mark 50 years of Bond films, Christie's held an auction at which the memorabilia sold for a total of US$2.615 million. The watch Daniel Craig wore in Skyfall fetched US$250,000, and the Aston Martin from Quantum of Solace fetched US$390,000.

But the best "value for money" was the pair of light blue swim trunks he wore in Casino Royale.

Many people remember the scene: Mr. James Bond walks out of the sea in light blue La Perla trunks with black trim, from the Spring/Summer 2006 collection.

At the auction, Judi Dench, who played M, took the stage to introduce the lot: "All I can say is, they're unwashed. Original flavor."

The trunks are no longer made. But you can still try your luck on eBay, where a pair goes for about US$122.

Money isn't enough: Sony's phone got snubbed for being "not cool"

When Sony first approached the film about a deal, director Sam Mendes and star Daniel Craig both said no, for a simple reason: "James Bond only uses the best."

The episode should never have come out; airing it was disloyal to a brand client. But an email from Andrew Gumpert, head of global partnerships at Columbia Pictures, leaked by accident. It said: "Forget the money for now. Sam and Daniel don't like the Sony phone. In their minds it doesn't fit the Bond image; it isn't good enough."

In April this year, Sony offered to pay Craig US$5 million. Craig still balked. In the end Sony raised the total value of the contract to US$28 million: US$5 million each to Craig and to the producers, plus US$18 million in advertising.

Bond ended up using Sony's Xperia Z5. The money was taken after all.

Every new 007 film is an Aston Martin car launch

By now everyone knows the formula: a new 007 film means a new villain, (at least) one new Bond girl, and a new Aston Martin.

James Bond loves cars, and Q (a character who plays a role a bit like Batman's butler) supplies him with cars loaded with gadgets. Today the most iconic of them is the Aston Martin DB series.

Before Spectre opened, Aston Martin held a launch at Pinewood Studios (where 007 films have been shot), where director Sam Mendes unveiled Bond's newest ride, the Aston Martin DB10.

It is a true limited edition: only 10 DB10s were built, all for the filming of Spectre. The maker says the car shows where Aston Martin's design is heading.

Spectre also features a Jaguar C-X75, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Range Rover Sport and a Land Rover Defender, for Bond to drive over rough terrain and for other characters to use.

On the set of the car chase

Cars are not enough, though; Bond also has to fly. At least 60 kinds of aircraft, large and small, have appeared in 007 films. Spectre has an MBB Bo105 helicopter, a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander civilian plane, and MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighters. In Mexico, Bond and the ninja Sciarra fight a hair-raising battle inside a green MBB Bo105.

Britten-Norman BN-2 Defender

Sean Connery is widely seen as the best Bond, and everything he used became a classic

In more than 50 years, six actors have played Bond. Sean Connery was the first. He set Bond's style, and for many people he remains the "most 007" of them all. Many of the brands he used became classics.

The Rolex Submariner may be the most famous watch in the world; some say no conversation about dive watches is complete without it. In Goldfinger, Sean Connery lights a cigarette in a nightclub and glances at the time on his Submariner. The time matters, because he has planted a bomb in the heroin lab hidden below. In 2011, Christie's in New York sold a Submariner that had appeared in a 007 film for US$198,000.

The Aston Martin DB5 he drove in Goldfinger and Thunderball, called "the most famous car in the world," sold for US$4.1 million at an RM Auctions sale in 2010.

Esquire once ranked the 10 most famous suits in film history, and the three-piece suit Sean Connery wore in Goldfinger came second. (First was Cary Grant's in North by Northwest.) The famous London tailor Anthony Sinclair made it to measure for Bond. Walk into the shop today and you can still have the same suit made to measure.

Anthony Sinclair making a suit for Sean Connery

Clothing brands like to cash in on the Bond girls, as with these 77 classic looks

According to Wikipedia, if you count every significant female character, there are more than 85 Bond girls across the 24 007 films. There are so many that you may not recall a single name, but you surely know what they share: they are beautiful and sexy.

Big Group, a London market research firm, made a chart showing the 77 most classic Bond girl looks.

In the first film, Dr. No, the female lead is Honey Ryder, played by Ursula Andress. Her red-hot white bikini became a classic and set the sexy character of the Bond girl for good.

The 24th film, Spectre, has two Bond girls. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) wears a silver Ghost Salma dress. Lucia Sciarra (Monica Bellucci) wears a fitted black outfit.

KitKat teases 007

When Spectre opened in the UK, the film posters in London's Camden and Oxford Circus Tube stations were joined by an ad from a chocolate company: Nestlé's KitKat, born in Britain but a hit in Japan, put up a poster at home crammed with text.

From Pussy Galore and Mary Goodnight to Elektra King, it listed nearly every Bond girl's name, then ended with one line: Time for a Break, James?

The line plays on KitKat's classic slogan, "Have a Break, Have a KitKat." Alex Ball of JWT, the agency behind the campaign, said they felt duty-bound to remind the world's longest-serving spy to take a short break from his heavy and often exhausting missions.

Jissbon once told everyone it was 007's relative, and ran an ad before Casino Royale: "I am Bang"

The Chinese condom brand Jissbon no longer mentions this story: its Chinese name, Jieshibang, comes from the Chinese transliteration of James Bond, a knockoff of a rather high order. But that is the fact of it. As early as 2006, it was telling everyone it was Bond's relative.

When Casino Royale opened in China that year, Jissbon teamed up with Huaxia Film Distribution to run an ad before the film. Its little yellow logo man put on 007's suit and appeared holding a Walther PPK pistol. The tagline: "I am Bang," using bang, the Chinese character that renders "Bond" and ends Jissbon's own Chinese name.

The ad can still be found online. Go and enjoy it.

Plenty of shopping sites will teach you to dress like Bond

A site called James Bond Lifestyle is the most detailed 007 shopping site we could find, with write-ups of the brands every Bond has used. It sells nothing itself; it partners with brands and links to their online stores.

With Spectre out, every big shopping site and fashion magazine is running special pages: What brands does Bond wear? How can you look as good as Bond? GQ's website thoughtfully put together a "Shop Like Bond" feature, with everything from underwear to sunglasses priced and linked.

Brands too expensive? No problem. There are plenty of cheaper spin-off products; if you can't afford the sports car, surely you can afford a T-shirt. A search for "James Bond" on Amazon returns 40,589 items, 3,160 of them clothing. You can buy US$10 cufflinks and US$4 sunglasses, all with the 007 logo.

Follow Bond around the world: 31 places to visit

There is an exchange in the 1965 film Thunderball.

Pat Fearing: "What exactly do you do?"

Bond: "Well, I travel mostly... professionally handle trouble."

The agent is no homebody; he has been all over the world. The James Bond Lifestyle site lists 31 landmarks and luxury hotels he has visited.

You can go to the Bahamas and stay at the One&Only Ocean Club (One&Only Ocean Club Nassau Resort), which faces the Atlantic, its villas tucked away in large gardens. In Casino Royale, Daniel Craig appears in the resort's library and in one of its three-bedroom villas, which cost US$5,500 a night.

You can go to India and stay at the Taj Lake Palace. In Octopussy, the hotel is the floating mansion of the character played by Maud Adams.

Or you can head back to London, stay at the Langham or the Four Seasons, and visit the SIS Building at Vauxhall Cross, home of Britain's secret intelligence service.

This cool, and not streaming online? He gets his own 24-hour channel on Snapchat

James Bond really does stay at the front of tech trends. On October 26, US time, he became the first to get an exclusive 24-hour channel on the photo-sharing app Snapchat.

To be precise, the channel belongs to the upcoming film Spectre. It is the first time Snapchat's Discover platform has set up a 24-hour, nonstop interactive channel for a film.

Fans turned out in force.