Bending it like Beckham and living healthier, better, longer lives

English footballer David Beckham has been an inspirational player and captain for country and clubs over the last couple of decades. Now, as the owner of Inter Miami, a team in the United States, he is seeking to push his players to be the "best they possibly can" and looks for help from widely feted coach Jose Mourinho and the support staff at Tottenham Hotspurs (Spurs), a storied 138-year old club in England.  

AIA, the Asian life insurance group, used this opportunity to launch a new content series (filming was conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic) in partnership with ambassador Beckham and partner Spurs, This series marks the first time AIA has brought its two global partners together. 

For AIA, this campaign helps promote its purpose-led brand promise of helping people to live healthier, longer, better lives. It points to simple things people can do (sleeping at the same time every night, turning your eyes away from your devices half an hour before bed time), that resonate with many of us--before, during and after the ongoing pandemic. 

This campaign sees Beckham visit Spurs’ training ground and stadium, in search of ways to lift his team's capabilities. He meets with head coach Mourinho, first team players including Korean Son-Heung Min, coaches and nutritionists. Beckham and members of the Spurs team discuss the simple health and lifestyle choices everyone can make to improve their health. For the record, 45-year old Beckham is an embodiment of the message and looks perfectly capable of curling those freekicks into the back of the net.  

Even as everyone was socially distancing and campaigns were being canned or reshot, AIA decided to stick to its guns and their brand promise. "Yes, it was a major undertaking but no, there was no need to re-shoot anything," Stephen Thomas, Head of Group Brand and Communications, AIA Group, says. "We undertook this initiative in order to further amplify our brand promise (which) was already very relevant pre-COVID and for obvious reasons it resonates even more with people in the current environment." 

Rather than try to hastily redo their campaign, AIA decided that the effort represents "a sincere commitment to providing content that we think people will find interesting and useful"  and Thomas thinks the messages are of more relevance than ever to people around the Asia-Pacific region.

(This article first appeared on CampaignAsia.com)