Brand It Like Beckham: The story of how Brand Beckham was built [Paperback]

"Fascinating book. [Milligan] explains and conveys the essence of modern brand management in a highly accessible and readable manner."

"An essential textbook for understanding the business of global celebrity... provides an invaluable insight into the Beckham marketing phenomenon."

"This is an insightful and thorough read...
a fascinating glimpse of how brand consultants' minds work."

"Excellent record of the rise of the Beckham brand and a marketing man's dream. 4 out of 5 stars."

There is no one quite like David Beckham: brilliant footballer, dedicated athlete, fashion model, global icon and all-round celebrity. But Beckham the brand? Well, yes. This book shows David Beckham in a new light: as a man who has harnessed his skills and his growing fame to market himself in the same professional and disciplined way that a successful company markets its brands.

Here is the story of a new breed of sportsman: one who is as comfortable with the trappings of marketing, fashion and the media as he is with team strips, playing surfaces and training grounds. By looking at the key choices David Beckham has made off the pitch, this book helps us understand how he has achieved his phenomenal commercial success. It provides fresh insights for readers who know about branding, a glimpse of a different side of Beckham for people who know about football, and an account of individual effort and achievement for all of us.

For many people the notion of David Beckham as a brand will be a strange one. It will perhaps seem strangest to many of those people who admire Beckham most – people who pay large sums of money to watch him play on a football field. David Beckham is a footballer, and that remains the most important aspect of him. If he were not a footballer of great talent, this book would never have been written.

But there is already much more to Beckham than "footballer." His face on a cover can sell copies of a style magazine; his endorsement will sell anything from football boots to hair products; his presence in a place will arouse enormous interest among people of any age, race or gender. He is a commercial property, and his image is carefully managed by a team of people who are committed to making him one of the world’s most valuable individuals.

Brand it like Beckham analyses David Beckham as a brand. No one has looked in detail at Beckham the brand before. [This book] provides insights for fans of David Beckham, but also for anyone interested in the way that brands really work.

From the Preface by John Simmons

This is a story about a brand called David. Well, not really a story; more of an analysis, I suppose. Is David Beckham a brand? If so, how has that brand been built? What can we expect of it in the future?

But there is a story here too, the story of a new breed of sports professional: a dedicated athlete on the pitch and a self-marketing brand off the pitch. One who is as comfortable with the paraphernalia of marketing, fashion and media as he is with training grounds, team strips and playing surfaces. One who knows what a pitch is in the football sense and the marketing sense.

It is also the story of a unique individual who has held on to and consistently demonstrated his personal beliefs and values in an over-exposed and sometimes hostile arena. Someone who has been able to balance his passion for football with a flair for fashion. And someone who has emerged at the right time in the right place: when football has become a mass-consumption product available globally 24 hours a day through every means of modern communication from digital TV to mobile phones, and when the English Premier League has become the most popular weekly football attraction in the world.

There are those who argue that it is demeaning to think of people as brands: that to take something as complex, unpredictable and adaptable as a person and reduce them to the rudiments of a packaged product is distasteful and intellectually dishonest. I agree. People aren’t brands, but – and it is a fine distinction – brands can be people. By that I mean that it is possible to manage the public side of your personality and, particularly in the case of celebrities, the commercialisation of your personal appeal in the same manner and with the same discipline as a successful brand.

Think about Beckham. How many of us know him? How many understand, or could even begin to imagine, what he thinks and feels at any moment in his life? But we all have a clear perception of him, and this perception is driven by what he does and the way he presents himself. And what he does is in turn driven by what he believes, what he values and what he wants to achieve in life.

This book is not a biography, nor even a psychological or sociological study of the Beckham phenomenon. Instead, it seeks to explain the success of Beckham as a brand by using the terms and analyses of modern brand management. I have tried to avoid academic or business jargon and to explain any marketing concepts in straightforward language to make this book as accessible as possible.

I hope Brand it like Beckham will appeal to those who know nothing about branding or marketing, but would like to understand these simple but incredibly influential concepts and the way companies use them. It should also appeal to people who know nothing about football but are interested in how the business of brands can be applied to social phenomena like soccer stars.

One final thought: I hope that when you finish reading this book, your respect and admiration for David Beckham and what he has achieved both as a footballer and as the first celebrity icon of the twenty-first century will be deepened. And for those of us who support the England team, let’s hope he continues to lead it with the dedication and style he has brought to the game so far.

Andy Milligan is a leading brands expert who has worked on major sports branding projects (including the 2002 FIFA World Cup). He is currently a director of Interbrand, the world’s largest brand management consultancy firm. He is the author of Uncommon Practice (Prentice Hall).