Czech Karolina Kurkova calculated to become highest earning supermodel

The 5'11" blonde Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova can expect to earn more money during her career than any other world supermodel - an astonishing 42.6 million euros. At least that's according to a calculation by the German advertising and marketing service BBDO Consulting.

Pavla Horakova spoke to BBDO's Simone Wastl and asked her how someone's money-making potential could be calculated.

"What we did in the brand evaluation of the models is to calculate the purpose income of them and to have a sort of ideal life cycle of a model. So that means we are looking at different models and different living positions of them - they are in different stages of their life cycles and then we look at what general and ideal life cycle of a model would be. They are starting very early, between 14 and 17 and then the main modelling stage is until 30-35. And that's the main period where they get incomes from different income perspectives. One is the core business - modelling - and the other one is promotion business. They have TV shows, they have cook books, sport videos, whatever, and we look at what they get from those different perspectives."

Can we say that fashion models these days are something like brands?

"Yes! Sure. That's why we did it. Normally we do brand evaluation for companies or for simple brands. We look at different brands and look what the brand evaluation is about. And this is the first time we have done it for models or persons. We are not looking at the personalities of the models or their private lives but how they are aging, acting like real brands and what they are doing to be a brand. So TV shows and being considered as a celebrity around the world and so on. I'm sure models are brands."

What exactly is it about Karolina Kurkova that makes her so promising, so potentially successful?

"I think there are two things which are very important. One thing is Karolina Kurkova is very young. The second is she is very famous around the world. The brand image and the brand strength of her is not that high because she is very young and she is not one of the famous supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer. That's what we got from the international brand research we did. But her potential is very, very high, because she has that potential face, she has the potential life cycle of a model and she started to be a very high-paid model very early."