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. The author of this study collected more than 2,500 pages of data about the Beckham family from published biographies, official websites, magazines, and various social media sites. Findings suggest 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. 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.
Abstract
This article seeks to understand how distinctive family brands are created. Recent studies in family business have focused on the benefits for a firm to be known as family owned or family controlled. Few studies have paid attention to the distinct meanings stakeholders associate with a given family or to how that family comes to have those associations in the eyes of external stakeholders. Based on a case study of one of the entertainment industry’s most successful family brands—The Beckhams—four practices conducive to building brand distinctiveness and brand visibility are identified.
Article details
Parmentier, M. (2011). When David Met Victoria: Forging a Strong Family Brand Family Business Review, 24 (3), 217-232 DOI: 10.1177/0894486511408415
Tags: branding, entertainment industry, familiness, qualitative analysis, The Beckhams
