Sara Kimberley
Jun 9, 2010

Yahoo signs David Beckham as global brand ambassador

GLOBAL - Yahoo has signed David Beckham as its first global sports ambassador, as it looks to gain momentum in its marketing tussle with Google.

David Beckham
David Beckham
In a bid to make Yahoo a one-stop-shop for exclusive sports content during and after the FIFA World Cup, the site has enlisted the former England captain.

Chief executive Carol Bartz was criticised following the launch of Yahoo's US$100m revamp campaign, ‘It's you', last September.

Bartz said Yahoo was creating a positioning based on the concept ‘the internet of one', but conceded the campaign, created by Ogilvy, had not performed as well as expected. In a recent video interview with Media, the company's global executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele, discussed the campaign’s creative direction following the failed campaign which coincided with a 2.6 per cent drop in unique visitors in April this year.

Steele went on to say that the next phase of the campaign looks to fill in the blanks left after the first initiative.

Beckham will front the second phase of ‘It's you', created by Omnicom's US-based agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners and spanning print, outdoor and social media activity. He will also interact with the public through the Yahoo Answers service.

Yahoo UK marketing manager Andrew Cocker said: "Ultimately, we want to get the brand back to being central to people's lives. Using Beckham will allow us to be part of people's passions."

In a seperate development, Yahoo last week announced the relaunch of Yahoo Profiles as Yahoo Pulse offering privacy tools and a central dashboard to manage Facebook feeds.
Source:
Campaign Asia

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