To a near-hysterical welcome in Japan, the English soccer star David Beckham began a staggeringly lucrative commercial break between soccer clubs on Wednesday, the first of four days of cheesy promotional work that will reportedly earn him and his wife Victoria more than his entire first season salary with his new club, Real Madrid.
Screams, tears and the flashes of several hundred cameras greeted the England captain at Tokyo’s Narita airport on his first public appearance since he announced that he will leave Manchester United.
Many of the thousand or so fans had travelled hundreds of miles and waited more than five hours to see their hero, but few got more than a glimpse of the smile that the footballer and his wife granted in a brief pose for the army of photographers and TV crews before rushing off.
Proving that Manchester United have lost one of the planet’s greatest salesmen — particularly in this most sought-after of markets — Beckham’s promotion work this week will be among the mostly highly paid in the history of advertising.
According to the Asahi newspaper, he was lured back to Japan for the first time since last year’s World Cup finals with a £5,5-million two-year deal to sell chocolates and beauty products. By comparison, Beckham’s contract with Real is reported to be worth £4,2-million a year.
But while he will have to perform week in, week out on the pitch to earn his euros, almost all of the yen will come from his work this week.
On Thursday, David and Victoria fronted the Just Beauty campaign by TBC, a chain of beauty salons that offers facials, waxing and diet aids. The Beckhams already appear as the ultimate beautiful couple in a series of TV commercials for the firm, which has previously used Naomi Campbell and Takuya Kimura, Japan’s biggest pop idol.
Complexion and weight concerns take second place on Friday when the Beckhams switch their selling power to the chocolates of Meiji Seika. The confectionary giant says it has doubled its sales by offering the chance to enter a lottery to attend a ”press conference” by the visiting stars.
On Saturday they are scheduled to sell car lubricants for Castrol before the promotional tour takes them to Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The couple are being unusually publicity-shy about their promotional activities in the Far East — banning the foreign media from attending events and insisting their Japanese partners refrain from commenting about their visit. ”We would like to say more and to include all journalists, but Beckham’s people inserted a clause in the contract that coverage should be restricted to the domestic press,” said a spokesperson for Meiji Seika.
The rationale is that the Beckhams are only in Japan to sell products domestically, but marketing agents say their behaviour is consistent with that of numerous Hollywood stars who have drawn up contracts to ensure their work in Japan is never shown elsewhere.
Audrey Hepburn sold wigs to Japanese women, Sophia Loren appeared in adverts for mopeds, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen took yen to endorse products. The call for Western celebrities to act zanier or cheesier to meet the demands of a different audience made many of them balk at having their Japan orientated images shown elsewhere. In recent years, lawyers for Arnold Schwarzenegger forced a website focusing on such ads to remove one that showed the actor hamming it up with a fake moustache and a wig to promote a satellite TV company.
”Beckham is number one for Japanese women,” said Yasushi Oka, editor of Women’s Seven magazine. ”It is not about football. He is incredibly handsome and he is loyal to his wife. They are a rich, happy couple that people are envious of.”
On Wednesday, dozens of fans turned up in Manchester United shirts, but many said they would switch allegiances with their hero.
”I’m very sorry he left. Manchester is where he belonged and I am angry they let him go, but I will follow him and buy a Real Madrid shirt with his name on it,” said Junko Ohashi, a young woman who took the day off work in the hope of seeing her idol.
”I went to Manchester last year to see Beckham, but this year I will have my holiday in Spain. Where he goes, I go.” —