Beckenbauer, Germany's Kaiser, is World Cup advertising king
(bloomberg.com)
Updated: 2006-06-23 16:01
Franz Beckenbauer, who won the soccer World Cup both as player and team coach
and is referred to in Germany as the "Kaiser", is the highest-grossing marketing
personality at the 2006 tournament.
Beckenbauer President
of Germany's World Cup organising committee presents a fountain in the
shape of a soccer ball in Munich.[filephoto]
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Beckenbauer generated more than 20 million euros (US$25 million) worth of
marketing spending after appearing in advertisements for Adidas AG, Telefonica
SA's O2, Deutsche Postbank AG and brewer Erdinger, research company Thomson
Media Control said. Runner-up Rudi Voeller, also a former German coach,
generated less than half that amount with 9.7 million euros.
Beckenbauer, whose presence at almost every World Cup game is tracked by the
German networks' cameras, has become nearly omnipresent on television by
dribbling a ball at the Berlin Olympic Stadium for Postbank, sinking a wheat
beer for Erdinger and examining his former World Cup champion teammates.
"His media presence is reaching enormous magnitude during the World Cup,"
Thomson said in a statement on its Web site. Beckenbauer also heads Germany's
World Cup organizing committee.
Juergen Klinsmann, coach of the current German team, generated 6.8 million
euros with World Cup-related advertising, Thomson Media said in the report
today.
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