Julien Combes’ blog post about David Beckham

I read Julien Combes’ blog post from February 24th about David Beckham. Beckham is truly a unique story among all athletes in the world. The product David Beckham has become known in every corner of the world. His latest transfer to Paris St. Germain (PSG) is just one of the transfers he has been through where he as a marketing tool has been discussed. For this post, I am just going to add on some more reasons for why Beckham is just as much as a marketing tool as an athlete.

The product David Beckham started in the 90s when he broke through as an athlete and married the superstar Victoria “Posh Spice” Adams from Spice Girls. Together they become the definition of a super couple. As Julien mentioned, Beckham signed lucrative sponsor contracts with companies like Adidas, Pepsi, H&M, and several more. He has appeared in many commercials and magazines, such as the Armani ad with Victoria seen on the right hand side.

I remember when I was a kid back in Norway, if Beckham changed his hairstyle then everybody did the same. Here is a summary of his hairstyles through the years. Everybody, both girls and boys, loved Beckham for his looks and/or his athletic skills.

He was a big reason why his hometown, which is London, got the Olympics in 2012, and now he is promoting football, or soccer as it is called in North America, in China.

Julien mentioned that Beckham played for LA Galaxy in the US. Many people stated that he decided to go there to capture a market where he was not as popular as he was in Europe. Of course, Beckham succeeded and became more popular than ever.

The perfect example is the €35 million transfer fee for Beckham’s when he left Manchester United for Real Madrid in 2003. Apparently, Real Madrid earned back all the money they spent on the transfer in a year only on jersey sales. From a financial perspective and a marketing perspective, Real Madrid did a very good deal! On top of that he was one of the best players on the planet.

In other words, I totally agree that David Beckham is a marketing tool; however, the transfer to PSG is not the only time he has been used as a marketing tool. In my opinion, He has been a marketing tool since he married Victoria Adams in 1999.

This commercial is for the Norwegian potato chip company KIMs. It’s one of my all-time favourites because I find it extremely funny. The protagonist is putting the chips he just bought in a plastic bag and he makes sure to check the receipt before he takes the bag without looking at it. When he comes home he asks his friend if something has happened in the game he’s watching and he says no. Then he discovers that he had grabbed the wrong bag in the store because it was full of vegetables. The bag belonged to the gay couple that were packing their bag next to the protagonist in the store. After that, he tells his friend that he got the wrong bag. The reaction of his friend as well as the gay couple is priceless! The ad ends by saying without KIMs, there is no satisfaction.

This ad is targeting men between 18-45 years old that loves to watch sport on TV with their friends on the weekend. In Norway, it’s very common to gather to watch English Premier League soccer and/or the Norwegian Tippeligaen soccer on the weekend. Unlike the NHL, normal league games in soccer doesn’t ofter occur in the middle of the week. Norway has a small population, but this ad targets people in urban areas more than rural areas where they don’t have they same access to stores on Sundays (because stores are closed in Norway on Sundays except for a few places). On the other hand, this as doesn’t try to target people with very healthy lifestyles, such as the homosexuals featured in the ad. They have succeeded to create a very silly and false, but funny image of homosexuals and they are the the two that makes this ad different from other ads for similar products I have seen before. This ad is between 5 to 8 years old.

KIMs website, more KIMs ads.