Can global Beckham brand afford an X-rating?

Ground Floor Sheila O'FlanaganOne of the first comments from many people who read about David Beckham's alleged nights of steamy passion and X-rated text messages was not "bloody hell, Victoria will throw a complete wobbler" but "what will happen to the Beckham brand?"

It's readily understood by both football aficionados and celeb-watchers alike that the cult of Beckham has brought the household a lot more money through sponsorship and endorsements than through actually kicking the ball around the pitch. Many of those sponsorship or endorsement deals are based on the perception of David and Victoria as a two-for-the-(very high) price-of-one deal.

It's equally accepted that the Beckhams are as much of a global brand as a family and what damages one will damage the other.

Of course, problems can always arise when you become a brand - just ask Martha Stewart. If your reputation goes down the pan, so does your earning power.

Or maybe not. Opinion is currently divided on the issue. For David, the sporting contracts will continue to roll in the cash. Beckham's main sponsor, Adidas, signed him in the biggest commercial contract in sports history last year, in which he received an initial payment and a percentage of profits of sales as well as fees for promotional work.

He's said to have received about half of this up front so, even if it all goes pear-shaped, he has enough money in the bank to cushion the blow. Adidas might be feeling a little more fraught, however. Currently, Beckham sells more products on his name than the rest of its other endorsors put together, and Adidas wouldn't like public opinion to turn against him. Neither would his club, Real Madrid, whose purchase of Beckham last year had as much to do with his earning power off the pitch as his exploits on it.

Beckham's contract with Vodafone is for two years. While Vodafone might not be too happy about the change in image from the easy-going bloke in the ads having his picture taken by gobsmacked fans, they might benefit from the fact that he's said to have sent thousands of steamy text messages to his girlfriend! A bit of innovative advertising could surely cash in on the whole deal.

Presumably Victoria will keep plugging the Japanese cosmetics, although now concentrating on something to help with the frown lines (check out www.japander. com for Beckham ads).

But the Beckhams aren't the only brand in the news lately. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to talk of the Savoy Hotel in London as being a top-notch place to stay. And when a colleague spent a week there during a trading conference some years ago, we all thought he was fast-tracked for promotion.

Now the Savoy, with sister hotels in London, has been bought by the Quinlan group, which adds a prestige name to its property portfolio.

As far as I'm concerned, however, they've shelled out the shekels for the name because the hotel is long past its glory days.

I have to confess that I haven't actually stayed there myself but have absolutely no desire to following a function I attended a while back where, at the drinks reception, bored waiters wandered round a dingy room offering even more dingy, soggy crisps to the attendees.

My late grandmother would have been delighted at the idea of a member of her family scoffing canapés in the Savoy. But it's a brand that currently flatters to deceive.

Global brands are an interesting phenomenon. I first really caught the concept when I went to Egypt about 15 years ago and, in the dustiest town at the edge of the desert, where it was impossible to distinguish individual buildings for what they were, a creaky Pepsi sign swung in the breeze. It was like something from an old-fashioned Western but the bottom line was that it was easier to buy a Pepsi there than get a glass of water.

According to those inveterate list-makers Forbes, PepsiCo is the world's second-largest brand by reputation, just behind Proctor & Gamble (P&G). It has an overall ranking (which comprises reputation, management, innovation and human capital) of 10. The value of a brand is such that, although the PepsiCo balance sheet shows a book value of $6.6 billion (€5.5 billion), the market values the brand name at a whopping $80 billion, while Pepsi products make up about one-third of the US total soft drinks sales.

Somewhat surprisingly, Coca-Cola is behind Pepsi in reputation (coming in at 10) and in the overall ranking (making the list at 13), even though it is rated the number one soft-drink maker and sells nearly 400 brands in more than 200 countries.

P&G's number-one slot in both lists may have something to do with the fact that its household products are used two billion times daily around the world. P&G scores steadily across the board.

Pepsi stumbles in the three areas other than reputation, scoring lowest on innovation.

The thing is, for brands such as Pepsi and Coke, nobody wants innovation to mess with the main products. So they have to come up with something new (although not water, obviously, following Coke's Disani debacle). Coke's management is always trying to tinker with the brand by adding new flavours but nobody is really very interested.

The bottom line is that the brand is hugely important. Mess with the brand name and all bets are off.

Good brands deliver on a promise and are responsive to customer needs.

If Beckham does eventually 'fess up, he might need to do some serious re-branding, too - maybe a night of passion at the Savoy would do it?