Ad favourite David Beckham hits financial winner

It’s easy to knock rent-a-Beckham in ads (as we sometimes do) but, as with many things, it’s instructive to follow the money.

Now DRJB Holdings Holdings, the company that manages the David Beckham brand and TV business Studio 99, has declared a chunky dividend of S80m, up from $67m the previous year. Pre-tax profit rose to $45m, from $36.2m the year before, while revenues increased 1% cent to $92.3m, suggesting it’s payback time. DRJB is owned 55% by Authentic Brands, which also owns Ted Baker, Reebok, Hunter and Champion with Beckham interests holding the remainder.

On screen Beckham (Sir David now of course) can be quite a winning character although you wouldn’t know it from all of his appearances. Here’s a Super Bowl spot with Matt Damon, is Beckham as an ingenue (‘buffalo’ wings anybody) really that convincing?

What you get, of course, is someone who’s famous for being famous although, as the FT remarks, most of his 160 million social media followers are too young to have seen him play. (He was good but that not good – would struggle to get into an all-time Man United Premier League team.) Brands are happy to pay top dollar to buy into it.

How long can it last? Influencers, of which Beckham is partly one, are a growing force in so-called creative advertising as the Netflix-ication of ads (driven by algorithms) continues apace. The Beckham brand has been carefully managed (by Sir Dave presumably), riding out human rights criticism of his lucrative ambassador role for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Any personal brand is a high wire act but, so far, it’s clearly been back of the net for Beckham.