Could the Jude Bellingham brand be bigger than Beatles?
Forget Beatlemania; this summer, it’s all been about Judemania following his inclusion in an anthemic Adidas campaign. M&C Saatchi’s Toan Ravenscroft explores.
Ahead of Uefa Euro 2024, Jude Bellingham was hyped as a Ballon d’Or contender, Uefa Champions League winner and at the center of growing Judemania. A man ‘mature beyond his years’, he is charming and confident. He is already so at ease with delivering the phenomenal on and off the pitch that his rise feels inevitable.
And that’s why he is a...
Billion-dollar brand in the making
There are many previous benchmarks to assess his marketability and associated earning potential – from Jordan to Tiger, Cristiano to Federer (aside: I would love to have a sportswoman on this list).
First and foremost, he’s gifted and a consummate professional. At just 20 years old, he delivers on the biggest stage. He has age on his side.
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He is authentic – he runs his own social media and his tight-knit family who manage him with such aplomb and seem to have kept his feet simultaneously rooted to the ground off the pitch as he levitates on it. This provides a strong degree of control of ‘brand Jude.’
He has long-term brand partners – from an anchor partner in Adidas who has created his bespoke brand mark, through to Lucozade, McDonald’s, EA Sports, to Louis Vuitton and his latest venture as the face of Skims. He is already in the right corporate board rooms, so expect to see joint ventures and equity partnerships unfurl.
He gets modern marketing – he seamlessly fuses fan communities across his passions in sport, lifestyle and culture – and when our UK team worked with him to create store 22, he was at ease making people’s dreams come true. That relevance is what brands are crying out for, and it naturally broadens his options from sport to lifestyle and culture.
@skims Jude Bellingham for SKIMS Mens.
He has charisma – he puts interviewers at ease, he charms, he’s firm, he’s calm, he has presence, and he has an opinion. When he enters the room, people seem to feel it – and that should not be underestimated. It works all the way to C-suite execs, and it is not a given with top sports people.
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He is a winner – nobody likes to back a loser. The more he wins on the pitch, the more he will win off it as brands look to that reflected glory.
He is global – his journey from Birmingham to Borussia Dortmund to a talismanic debut year at ‘the biggest club in the world’ Real Madrid means he has more life experience than most 20-year-olds, and crucially, he now speaks excellent Spanish and English. The two languages of football broaden his appeal to hotbeds in Europe and South America alongside emerging fan communities in North America, Asia and Africa.
And the list goes on…
What he represents
Where Jude has another string to his bow is what he represents.
Modern Englishness is complex, conflicted and often outdated – as Grayson Perry’s excellent tour of England proved.
Jude could seamlessly represent a new kind of national pride.
He is outward-facing, cosmopolitan and erudite.
He is confident while being humble.
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He is from an industrial heartland and has risen to charm the globe.
He is respectful and charming.
He is proud to wear the Three Lions and be English.
A mixed-race role model for a new celebration of multiculturalism.
There feels a certain full circle of ‘Hey Jude’ becoming the soundtrack to Judemania over 50 years after Beatlemania gripped the world.
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You may say it’s hyperbole, and it’s a lot of pressure for a footballer, but he seems to rise to all challenges.
Superstardom, and maybe more, awaits. Hey Jude, you’ve got the right attitude to be the next billion-dollar sports brand.
Toan Ravenscroft is managing director of M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment in Amsterdam.