Branding like Beckham

Creating a family brand as successful as David and Victoria Beckham's is a matter of adhering to practices that promote a family's distinctiveness and visibility, according to a study recently published in Family Business Review, a SAGE journal.

Author Marie-Agnès Parmentier collected more than 2,500 pages of data about the Beckham family from published biographies, official websites, magazines, and various social media sites. Parmentier found that in order to create brand distinctiveness, a family should carefully craft a dynamic personal story with distinct persona cues that are particularly interesting for a target audience and can be embellished by the media. One example noted in the article discusses how the Beckhams created a unique image with ties to both fashion and traditional family values.

"By capitalizing on chances for publicity and providing access to traditional media such as print and television, the Beckhams have enabled a variety of stakeholders to explore some of the nuances of their private life, as individuals, as a couple and, as a family," wrote the author. "Their strong family brand should allow them to capitalize on their equity for some time after they move beyond their original field of practice."

The author found that in order to create brand visibility, families should take opportunities to make their brand familiar to wide audiences through documentaries, television cameos, and interviews, and should create their own methods for brand visibility through social media outlets.

Parmentier wrote, "Creating opportunities that help reinforce the brand's presence both online and off-line maintains or increases brand visibility to targeted audiences and beyond. Such opportunities also shape stakeholders' perceptions of the family brand."