It’s been a good week for David Beckham, the Real Galactico whose golden balls were looking in need of a polish after a lacklustre Euro 2004 and tabloid stories of an affair with an assistant in which lacking lust was, allegedly, not an issue.
Beckham’s leadership of the England team to its customary quarter final penalty shoot-out defeat had set tongues a-wagging about the impact of his commercial commitments on his on-field performance, while much was made of suggestions that the Beckham brand had been damaged by the press coverage of his personal life.
Earlier this month the Beckham camp said that it was dealing with the former by scaling down the number of brands Beckham would work for, notably deciding not to renew a number of Asian endorsement deals. There was no suggestion that his overall endorsement income would suffer, simply that less could definitely be more.
On Tuesday, Vodafone announced that it was extending its deal with Beckham for a year and that he would continue to star in its advertisements and be the centre of a ‘content suite’ on its Vodafone Live service.
The real interest in this deal was based on role played by mobile telephones in Beckham’s alleged affair. The woman who claimed to have been his lover made much of his use of mobiles, and in particular SMS services for what quickly became known as ‘text sex’.
The question was whether the association of the Beckham brand with the seamier side of mobile phone usage would damage Vodafone’s brand in any way.
Clearly the suits and Vodafone didn’t think so and have taken a pragmatic decision that the Beckham’s positive attributes outweigh any potential negative associations. It’s a decision that reflects the complexity of the issues facing those on both sides of the table when developing endorsement strategies and then negotiating the deals.
And, as if to vindicate their decision, things got a lot better. On Wednesday night Beckham scored one goal, set up another for his new Real team mate Michael Owen, and generally and turned in a rousing performance as England beat Ukraine 3-0 at Newcastle.
Another deal that challenged conventional wisdom was announced by the Jordans F1 team on Thursday. The financially challenged team has signed a one-race sponsorship deal with a firm of real estate and property developers to promote a luxury apartment complex in Shanghai. The deal covers only the first Chinese Grand Prix, which is due to be staged in the city.
Students of these matters maintain that sponsorship is about relationships, that it goes deeper than mere branding, and that for sponsorship to deliver real value it needs to be an enduring, long-term alignment of two brands which somehow manage to find a magical ‘fit’. A kind of commercial marriage without the convenience of the till-death-do-us-part bit.
Students of real life, however, know that this is business, a matter of buying and selling. When all else is equal, the inventory is available and the price is right you sell. Few sports properties have the luxury of turning money away.
Formula One could have a battle on its hands for the hearts and minds of open wheel racing fans. The week saw Sky announce that it will be the UK broadcaster of the new A1 Grand Prix series.
This series, which runs throughout the European winter so as not to compete directly with Formula One, is the brainchild of His Highness Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum al Maktoum and funded from the Middle East.
Its appeal lies primarily in the fact that the cars will be mechanically identical Lola models, meaning victory or failure will be determined by the skill and courage of the drivers and not the expertise of designers, engineers and mechanics.
Designing, building, maintaining and improving the cars has always been an integral part of F1 and, for petrol heads it is part of the fascination. The Constructors Championship, mopped up by Ferrari last weekend, is a rich prize and fiercely contested.
However, the dominance of a single team of late has, in the eyes of some punters, devalued the performance of a man whose record suggests that he is not only the greatest racing driver of all time but the greatest sportsman of all time.
Michael Schumacher’s record is simply phenomenal but there will always be doubts about exactly how good he is because his car has been so much better than the competition.
In A1 that can’t happen. It’s driver versus driver, head to head. To make matters more interesting for TV viewers, A1 is also based on the premise that each team should represent an individual country and the driver will be of that nationality. As we’ve seen at recent Olympic Games which have produced huge UK audiences for rowing and curling, there’s nothing like a simmering international interest to drive ratings up.
DOPE WATCH: In the last week Greece’s star sprinters missed a dope test and quit the Olympics. They jumped before they were pushed by the IOC but have shamed their country and the Games. In countering the threat, the IOC has conducted over 1,200 tests of athletes who could be bothered to turn up.
Seven weightlifters have been banned, a figure which is less of a surprise given that sport’s record in these matters.
But today the attention turns to higher profile issues as action starts on the track. The real impact of doping issues on brand Olympic will largely be gauged by what happens in the track and field competitions, still widely regarded as the very heart of the Games. The critical time is right now.
