Kevin Keegan — the footballer who invented the personal brand

Decades before Beckham and Ronaldo, Kevin Keegan's natural ability as a television performer and self-deprecating humour established him as a personality beyond football

March 31 1980: Kevin Keegan filming a TV advertisement for Brut 33 aftershave with former British boxer Henry Cooper in 1980. Picture: Kent Gavin/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty

Anyone old enough to remember Kevin Keegan in his heyday as a player will also have etched on the memory his 1980 television advert for the aftershave and deodorant brand Brut.

Featuring Keegan working out in the gym and bantering in the locker room alongside boxing legend Henry Cooper, it was an early example of a footballer doing what would now be called “leveraging his personal brand”.

Keegan, whose death at the age of 75 was announced on Monday, was Britain’s first footballing superstar. But he was also perhaps the first to intuitively grasp the idea that his success as a footballer could be turned into something that held a wider cultural and commercial value — and could make him a celebrity in the world beyond sport.

Today’s footballing superstars are autonomous economic and cultural forces, global celebrities far beyond their sport, and Keegan was a bridge from that old world to the new.

Keegan was a natural TV performer

Before the Brut ad, TV viewers had been introduced to Keegan in a short public information film.

Sharp and stylish in a wide-lapelled jacket with a broad black-and-white check, black polo-neck, and chain, he tells a young boy how to cross the road safely.

He seems confident and poised; a natural TV performer. The Brut ad came next, and then promotion for Lyons Maid ice lollies. In 1996, by now manager of Newcastle United, Keegan starred with the Honey Monster in a Sugar Puffs advert that showcased the self-deprecating humour that had become an integral part of his public personality.

Today, top players cultivate, trademark, and market their names, personalities, goal celebrations, and much else.

Consider the star names who turned out for the Nike and Adidas World Cup ads, Lamine Yamal and Ronaldinho promoting McDonalds, or the ubiquity of David Beckham in half-time commercial breaks.

June 5, 1980: Kevin Keegan with model Lucinda Jane as he tries on a pair of Foster Grant sunglasses at FA Cockfosters HQ in London. Picture: Bunny Atkins/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty

Most footballers earned a modest income

But in the 1970s and 1980s, this was very new. 

There were famous footballers, of course — some, like George Best, had pop-star appeal — but football was a working-class industry and players functioned as labour in the service of their clubs.

Less than 20 years previously, footballers had gone on strike to overturn the iniquitous maximum wage, which meant that even the biggest stars could earn no more than £20 a week — £25,000 (€29,200) a year in today’s money. 

It would be another 20 years before the Bosman ruling gave players the freedom of movement that created the circumstances for today’s astronomical salaries.

Down-to-earth, sharp, and articulate, Keegan was ahead of the game. 

'Superstars' moment established Keegan's brand 

In 1976, at the height of his Liverpool career, he appeared on the BBC’s Superstars, a show that attracted massive prime-time audiences by pitting athletes from different sports against each other in a decathlon-style competition.

He competed tigerishly, but fell off his bike during the cycle heat, suffering cuts and abrasions on his back and arms. Expected to pull out, he opted to continue, saying: 

These people here in the stands have come here to see me make a fool of myself and they’ve got a right to it! 

That moment — in today’s social-media world it would have gone viral — and his self-deprecating reaction to it, helped to establish Keegan as a personality beyond football.

The self-confidence and curiosity that drove Keegan to become the first Englishman to appear in Germany’s Bundesliga, also allowed him to appear in a pioneering 1979 documentary Brian Moore meets Kevin Keegan.

September 19, 1980: Southampton players Chris Nicholl, Dave Watson, Kevin Keegan, Mick Channon, and Charlie George raising a champagne toast to their new Rank Xerox shirts on the eve of a match against Liverpool. Picture: Bill Kennedy/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty

We’ve grown used to behind-the-scenes, fly-on-the wall TV shows today. But, back then, there was something extraordinary about hearing Keegan talk frankly about his problems. He discussed settling in Germany, the way he was ostracised by his Hamburg teammates and the anger issues that culminated in an eight-week suspension for punching an opponent.

His ability to be authentic and vulnerable were in startling contrast to the macho inarticulacy that dominated both football and wider society.

Today, it is well understood that authenticity (or at least the performance of it) increases spectators’ identification with football stars. But this was uncharted territory in the 1970s.

Characteristically, Keegan overcame his rocky start in Germany and won over the Hamburg fans. They christened him ‘Mighty Mouse’ after a then famous cartoon character. Along with ‘King Kev’ — bestowed on him by Liverpool supporters — these were more than just nicknames, but further components in a developing personal brand that prefigured ‘CR7’ (Cristiano Ronaldo) ‘O Fenômeno’ (Ronaldo) and ‘Cold Palmer’ (Cole Palmer).

Keegan’s personal style added to his fame and cultural influence. In the mid-1970s he pioneered the bubble perm — a bouncy, tightly curled hair-do. It stood out in a football world defined by rugged, utilitarian cuts like the mullet. After initial bemusement and mockery, Keegan’s style was widely copied by other players and became one of the defining male hairstyles of the era. He also developed his own clothing line, influenced by the idiosyncratic and highly stylised Avengers TV series.

Keegan was a great player who became a brand. In an era before the internet and social media, he didn’t achieve the global influence and untold wealth of Ronaldo or Beckham. But back then there was no road map to the kind of celebrity that Keegan achieved — and he paved the way for footballers who came after him.

• Simon Hinde is programme director, journalism and publishing, at the University of the Arts, London.

• This article was first published here in The Conversation.