"What the f*** are we doing?" asked Erling Haaland as he stood in a snowy field brushing his hair and wearing just shorts underneath a coat.

The answer? Showing the rest of the world how the best striker in the game wants to portray himself.

It says a lot about the 24-year-old that when he decided to sign the biggest contract in Premier League history he knew exactly how he wanted to announce it. And that he released the subsequent video as a teaser before Manchester City confirmed the stunning news of his new nine-and-a-half year deal.

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Footballers are not often seen as intelligent in this country, a consequence of them spending lots of their youth scrapping it out in academies for their dream profession instead of going to public schools that the people who do the judging in this country did. When you see Haaland's early media interviews or watch him bouncing into defenders or roaring in the face of players, you could be tempted to paint the Viking as a neanderthal.

That could not be further than the case. Haaland is acutely aware of the brand that he has built up to the point where every company in the world wants a piece of him.

The reason why he is the only footballer to grace the glitzy Champs D'Elysee in Paris, as the face of luxury watch brand Breitling is the same reason that led him to a snowy field in just his pants: he knows how to sell himself and is brilliantly good at it. Not as good as his football, but impressive nonetheless.

"He's very clear on who he is. He's a funny guy and some of the stuff he does is quite tongue in cheek but he is also an absolute pro," explained Gavin Johnson, head of City Studios. "We might do a humorous thing with him but he will do it really professionally. He's very much part of the creative process.

"He was sat in like -2 [degrees] without his top on with one of my team and they did three or four takes and then went and had a cup of tea. That was one producer, worked a bit with Erling, came up with the idea, shot it, edited it, bang. Other stuff we had 40 people in the studios doing all different executions. Sometimes the best stuff can come from one person, other times you need a whole crew."

City have been trying to convince Haaland to sign a new deal for over a year, and their content team had been working on how to announce a deal since June. Those plans picked up in November, when they were given an indication things were progressing, and then accelerated in the final few weeks that came between the contract being signed and announced.

It was news that the club wanted to shout around the world, but also to reflect on what Haaland has become in Manchester. From the wry letter the striker writes for Premier League defenders to footage of kids from Accra to Oslo who all see him as their hero, there was a snapshot of the Haaland effect.

That was also seen in the numbers, with 200 million views across the club's media platforms in the first five days after the deal was announced - double what they managed when they announced the signing of the Norwegian in 2022. Since then, there has been a boom in support for the club from the superstar appeal of their No.9, although having a team stacked with players who have helped City to win all of the biggest trophies in the game in the last few years has certainly helped.

The Blues were the most watched team in the world according to Nielsen ratings in the season where they won the Treble, and they repeated that last year as they clinched an historic fourth consecutive Premier League title. In the first six months of this season, the team's slump in form has not stopped the club from racking up the most live TV audience views with 6.5billion - one billion more than Liverpool have managed in second place, 1.7billion more than United, and more than double Arsenal's 2.6billion.

Erling had that amazing season and an amazing run in the autumn when he joined and our numbers went up and up as a result," said Johnson. "He's one of the reasons we're growing so quickly.

"We're not reliant on matchday footage or goals, a lot of the growth we see is just being clever with how we do content. That is growing and Erling is a big part of that, but we're very fortunate that we've got a lot of stars and hopefully an exciting season ahead."

With Haaland in place for the next decade, City can expect their appeal to keep growing around the world - especially if their star striker continues to have a say in the videos they put out.