A Bookable Offense

During the last few weeks, the British media has been whipped into a frenzy over allegations that English soccer star David Beckham has been having affairs behind the back of his wife, Victoria, the artist formerly known as Posh Spice. Suddenly, the walls are tumbling down! The global Beckham brand is in disarray! Or is it? If a global brand falls in the forest and no one in the U.S. can hear it, is it even much of a global brand to begin with? Last summer, the Beckhams turned their marriage into a business relationship when Victoria returned to her former manager, Simon Fuller, creator of the Spice Girls. She wanted his help in reviving her floundering solo career and, more important, fulfilling her dream of launching her and her husband as a "global brand." It seemed like a good idea at the time. Their image was to be a wholesome one, blending music, sport and fashion. Victoria had earned a modicum of success with the Spice Girls. Meanwhile, David has always been seen as a devoted family man and model husband—a unique representative in the world of British football. Victoria plays the ultimate brand manager in this relationship, Fuller her strategist. But it's Beckham's athletic profile that gave the brand any hope of substance. As the world's most famous footballer, he is also its most marketable asset. Thanks to his runway looks, taste for couture and trend-setting hairstyles, he has inked millions in deals with the likes of Adidas, Pepsi, Marks & Spencer and Vodafone. Still, the Beckhams' bid to take over the world together has been fairly disastrous so far. Perhaps predictably, Victoria, coached by Fuller and hip-hop impresario Damon Dash, has failed to re-create herself musically. And David has had a rough time, too. Manchester United, the British club with its own broad (i.e., synergistic) reach, sold him last year to Real Madrid, partly because his manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, felt Victoria's celebrity obsession was unseemly and distracting. (To make matters worse, Victoria has refused to live in Madrid.) Then came the accusations of adultery by three women, including Rebecca Loos, Beckham's former personal assistant at his longtime sports-marketing firm, SFX Entertainment. David has called the accusations "ludicrous," but he has stopped short of denying them. (Not coincidentally, he has parted ways with SFX and Tony Stephens, the agent whom Beckham describes in his autobiography as a "father figure.") One "close" friend, presumably of the publicist kind, told News of the World, which has taken the lead on the story: "In any normal relationship, David would have been given the boot. But they've worked hard for global domination with their brand—it's business."Much of this is probably news to you—and therein lies a certain problem. On the one hand, the couple is scrambling to save their "happy marriage" marketing position, at least in the U.K. In this regard, as Rosie and Martha have taught us, there is a certain risk involved in being one with your brand: Human nature has a nasty habit of getting in the way. On the other hand—and this, perversely, may be even more unsettling to the Beckhams—few people outside Britain seem to care. In the soccer-loving world, Beckham's inconsistent performances for Madrid are of graver concern. And in the non-soccer-loving world—the U.S.—this "scandal" is just not making headlines. In this country, where buzz can work better than media oversaturation, the couple appear garish, uncool and unsophisticated. Instead of a distinctive designer brand, they come off as a tabloid commodity—and one U.S. scandalmongers can't even be bothered to cover. Distasteful though it may be, scandal presumes brand value. The Beckhams may yet survive their crisis at home. But proof of their larger failure is that they have nothing to survive abroad.

Brand Marketing

A Bookable Offense

Noreen O'Leary

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Noreen O'Leary