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.

Before the Brut ad, TV-watching Britain 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........

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