The Independent today has an article on how the personal brand of football player David Beckham adds value to the team brand of Real Madrid. Beckham is referred to as a ‘marketing phenomenon’, and he probably is: from dolls to football shirts, though no Simpsons cartoon voices yet.
   Or, put another way, Real has a personification of its brand in Beckham, with all its inherent risks (fiction in tabloids, his performance each season). However, it means a soccer team cannot just manage its on-field performance and its games. It must adopt all the trappings of brand management, gauging audience reactions, and analysing its image. It needs to inject glamour to pump up its players, and Beckham’s marriage to a Spice Girl is Real’s Heaven-sent gift, where the glamour was already there when United sold the player for a reported £20 million.
   In football, or any sport, brand management is tougher, because the product life cycle cannot be planned as readily. Personal branding is less refined as a discipline, though there are tools (such as Managing Brand Me). It is truly dependent on people: specifically, it is dependent on their manner and moral standing. In which case, a football team brand may be one of the most easily affected ones out there: fans will react instantly to rumour and misreporting, a bad game, or real misbehaviour off the pitch. Brand research here could be one of the easier parts of the whole process.
   Bottom line, however, is this: a corporate brand is very much like a personal brand. Behave in line with the values you say you have, and all is well. Go against it, and there will be reactions. And, the more media and communications’ channels you reach, the more you can affect your brand’s perception—and reach is something that David Beckham brings to the table in droves. Posted by Jack Yan, 21:35  permalink

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