Poor David Beckham. Injured out of this World Cup, England’s icon is relegated back to his more frequent role nowadays of selling his image to marketing campaigns for large sums.
The latest to stump up cash is Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), which has attracted Beckham to provide “exclusive content” for its tournament site and its upcoming 2010/11 season coverage.
Yahoo will create a “channel” for the midfielder, will rope him in to “directly connect” with fans via Yahoo Answers, Mail and Messenger, and will use his image to market itself.
Though, judging by the lame, insincere comment Yahoo attributes to Beckham in its press release, one wonders to what extent Beckham will be hands-on with Yahoo at all…
“Yahoo! has a true relationship with fans and is an online leader in sports content across the globe. Yahoo will allow me to interact one on one with as many football fans as possible talking about the game I love.” Aww, bless.
The biggest point here is that this campaign should nevertheless mend some of the damage done by the first in Yahoo’s series of new campaigns recently, which many felt failed to get the message across.
Yahoo’s sport site in Europe is a JV, produced in large part by Eurosport.