Did Herbalife Know Beckham Was Coming?

What a great deal Herbalife got. Buying the real estate on the LA Galaxy jersey when a huge star was about to join the team. David Beckham arrives and he’s then on the cover of SI with the Herbalife brand in full view on Beckham’s jersey. Wonder how they’re doing, how are their sales now since they bought advertising space on the LA Galaxy jersey….? Herbalife must have know Beckham was going to sign with the team.

I’m all for the .com, if you’re going to promote something give the person a place to go and learn more. Why not put the .com on the jersey. But anyway, what’s the terms of the contract, and how long? The agreement first was reported Thursday night in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal, which said the deal would pay the Galaxy between $3.5 million and $5 million a year through 2011.

I’ll dig deeper and see what I can find but did find they signed the deal in March:

Another marketer with a significant stake is Herbalife, Los Angeles, which sells weight management and nutritional supplements. In March, the company signed a deal to put its logo front-and-center on Galaxy jerseys. Now, Herbalife is predicting a boom in Beckham jersey sales. “This is a big part of extending our global footprint,” said Michael Johnson, Herbalife CEO. “We don’t have a huge media spend. But this will be our Aflac moment. The [insurance company] was relatively unknown until it put the duck in ads. By Aug. 1, Herbalife’s logo will be seen on Beckham jerseys around the world.”

Herbalife also is going into China, a multi-level marketing company that recently handed out bonuses to distributors:

Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF), a global nutrition direct-selling company, announced today that it has received its direct-selling license from China’s Ministry of Commerce.  The license permits Herbalife to conduct a direct selling business in Suzhou and Nanjing in the Jiangsu province. Over six million people live in Suzhou, the fifth largest Chinese city based upon GDP, and approximately eight million people live in Nanjing, which is the second largest commercial center in East China after Shanghai.

Herbalife lounge at the LA Galaxy stadium: