In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the famed James Bond series and, because we’re a bit burned out on political research, we thought we would share some of our data on the most popular actor to play 007. Over the past year, we have asked 14,340 consumers across the United States who they considered their favorite all-time James Bond. The results were weighted where necessary to reflect the general US population based on Census figures. So, without further ado:
As you can see, Sean Connery wins in a landslide, with Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan coming in 2nd and 3rd respectively. Roger Moore ranks 4th, with Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby tied for a distant 5th. But let’s look at some of the demographic cross-tabs to see how these numbers breakdown.
First, we can see some big difference between men and women:
Connery picks up his biggest gains among men, perhaps because he was known as the biggest “tough-guy” of the Bond lineage. Women, meanwhile, were alomst twice as likely to choose Pierce Brosnan.
Now for age, where we see the biggest trend across the board:
Here, we see the strongest correlations from young to old. Connery clearly picks up his biggest support the older the age of the respondent. Daniel Craig, on the other hand picks up his support among the youngest respondents, obviously because he is the most recent actor to play 007. Moore peaks among respondents age 45-54 and Brosnan among those aged 18-24.
Finally, let’s look at household income level among the respondent, which admittedly serves as a close proxy for age:
Here we see a similar pattern as we saw with age. The respondents with the lowest income levels and also likely those earliest in their professional careers side with Brosnan and Craig most commonly. Connery falls right in the middle of income ranges, perhaps representing the largest mix of middle-aged and older respondents, who might be retired and claiming less income overall. Roger Moore, meanwhile, appeals to the slightly higher income ranges, where we would also find the most 40 to 50-year-olds at the peak of their career earnings.
We’ll take a closer look at some of the other attributes in our system and report back if we find anything interesting. But for now, hopefully this was enough to keep you entertained for a few minutes on a lazy Friday.
(Special thanks to our friend @IndyMuttMom on Twitter for the great research idea).
