Rebranding: the logos revolution in French football
Why do French clubs (and Ligue 1) invest in changing their visual identities?
In all branches of economic activity, well-crafted brands are fundamental aspects for any company, and football is no different. Being responsible for adding £7.6bn in value to England economy (GVA), only by the Premier League, the sport definitely integrates the production chain of major world economies.
Specifically in France, in the last three years, seven teams that competed in Ligue 1, the league’s first division — including the league itself (see the video here), changed their visual identity (colors, shapes, typography, visual metaphors, etc.) with changes in their brands, usually with more minimalist and modern concepts. But why?
To answer this question we first have to understand what branding is and its aspects.
A brand serves as a kind of “mental shortcut” for certain aspects, tangible and intangible, to be associated with it, and can add value to a product in three ways: making it possible to charge higher prices for its products. products (gains in profit margin), making it possible to sell in greater quantity (gains in volume), or a combination of both.
Branding, therefore, can be considered the management of a brand, which seeks to generate different perceptions for consumers and the general public when compared to the competition, mainly involving actions related to communication (identity, positioning and values), of the brand. . The rebranding, on the other hand, would be restructuring; the change in aspects previously built by branding, which implies a repositioning of the brand.
Financially, a brand can be considered as an intangible asset and recorded on the company’s balance sheet for accounting and financial calculations and activities. Only the Nike symbol, for example, is estimated to be worth around $ 32.37 billion (read more here). That’s right, Swoosh alone would represent about 24% of the company’s total value, which is US $ 134.65 billion, according to the Stock Analysis on Net website.
When we talk about companies that operate globally, as in the case of the major European leagues, their brands must be promoted to different audiences in various locations around the world, and it is precisely in this factor that Ligue 1, (broadcast to more than 90 countries and in all continents) and their clubs are investing.
Over time, a brand can lose relevance and visibility for the consumer, becoming relevant to an increasingly smaller audience, a situation in which French football finds itself. Of the considered five major European leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1), the French championship is, historically, the one with the lowest revenue and the one with the lowest percentage of occupation of its stadiums.
Sportingly, the lack of emotion — the combination of few attractive games (common sense that league matches have fewer goals than other major leagues *) and the (lack of) competition for the title (seven, of the eight disputed titles won by Paris Saint-Germain between 2012/13 and 2019/20 and seven, of the seven disputed Lyon between 2001/02 and 2007/08) directly influence the fall of Ligue 1’s appeal.
* what actually happened in the last completed season, 2018/2019, with an average of 2.55 goals / match, against 3.17 goals / match in the Bundesliga, for example
To change this scenario, league and clubs aim to rebranding their visual identities to increase the attractiveness of the brand, increasing revenues through product licensing gains, fan association programs, increasing audience at stadiums and enhancing championship broadcast rights (last deal was made in 2018, guaranteeing an annual $ 1.15 billion euros until 2024).
Precisely since 2018, Lille, Toulouse, Nîmes Olympique, EA Guingamp, FC Nantes, Stade Reims and Bordeaux (the latter two later this year), changed their logos to seek to achieve new goals. According to the material made available on the club’s website, Bordeaux defines two axes in its new strategy, local and global:
1st axis:
“Strengthen our local roots, be closer to the inhabitants (…) and fill our stadium with happy fans”2nd axis:
“We want to conquer new regions of the world (…), but still under construction: Asia and China in particular and the USA”
As for Nantes (in 2019) and Reims (in 2020) not coincidentally had logos with similar aspects after the redesign of their shields: both clubs had the same branding agency responsible for the creation: Leroy Tremblot.
In an official statement, the president of the Stade de Reims, Jean-Pierre Caillot showed that the club was concerned about the loss of relevance of the brand:
“The creation of a new graphic identity serves several objectives of the club. First of all, it was a question of modernizing a logo that dates back to about twenty years and whose features age (…) In this sense, this emblem is the link between our history and our future. A future incorporated by the new generations that will be able to appropriate a logo that resembles them for its modernity ”
An important factor that we must pay attention to in this section is the appreciation of the club’s history (“link between our history and our future”). In the case of Nîmes Olympique, there is, in the lower corner, the silhouette of the Arena of Nimes, one of the main tourist points of the city. In the case of Nantes, at least the stoat was preserved, also in the lower corner, which is one of the symbols of the city’s flag and coat of arms. In the cases of Lille and EA Guingamp, the fleur de lis and the triskele also mention the symbols of their regions (Lille city and Brittany region, respectively).
Regarding the graphic part, some aspects are similar in these rebranding processes. In all of them, there is a tendency to simplify the old logos, facilitating a quick perception of those who see them (again exploring the mental shortcuts that the brands bring us), designing the logos with a 3D aspect and using more vivid colors (evident change when we compare the “before and after” of the Bordeaux logo).
In the cases of FC Nantes, Nimes and Stade de Reims, we perceive an “hollow” air because they present less delimitations of geometric shapes, exploring the principle of closure (our brain’s tendency to close or finish shapes that we see unfinished or open) and figure- Gestalt’s background (what we see depends on what we perceive as “figure”, element in focus, and “base”, background behind the figure). Note the similarity mainly of the FC Nantes logo with that of Carrefour and Juventus, which had its rebranding in 2017:
The new designs also allow the elements of the brand to be explored such as memorability, attractiveness (strong colors and rich visual and verbal images), transferability (being able to use the brand in other products, such as its own line of sportswear and licensing) and adaptability (possibility, for example, of the logo of the Stade de Reims changing colors depending on the background used, which makes it easier to adapt in the future).
One of the most important challenges in this process, however, is to make the right amount of changes. As in most cases football clubs are secular institutions, fans have a great affective bond and drastic changes would affect this relationship and undermine the initial objectives of the rebranding. But it will be?
In an article published by the Journal of Sport Management (2012), the authors studied the effects of small and large changes in NBA team logos on separate fan groups that were little identified, moderately identified and highly identified (see the full article, here).
After changing the logos, the researchers measured the reactions of the three groups in two ways: attitude towards the brand (ie, psychological tendency to evaluate a brand positively or negatively) and intention to purchase products with the new team logo.
The results showed that when there were small changes, the attitude towards the brand increased significantly in the fans little and moderately involved, but it generated a negative attitude of the fanatics. Regarding the purchase intention, there were practically no changes, with a greater intention in the group of very identified fans.
When the changes in the logo were big, however, there was a curious behavior of the group of fanatical fans. Although his attitude has been negatively affected to a large extent, his purchase intention has been very positive. This apparently antagonistic behavior would have an explanation: they avoid contradictory experiences (I support the team, but I didn’t like the change of the shield), the so-called state of cognitive dissonance, and they try to maintain their existing attitudes by adjusting their behaviors to the new reality.
In other words, the fans more involved with the club, will continue to buy (and according to the survey, even more) regardless of whether they liked an eventual change or not.
The original text was posted in portuguese 08/13:https://medium.com/box-2-box/rebranding-a-revolu%C3%A7%C3%A3o-dos-escudos-no-futebol-franc%C3%AAs-b60a69837a2b
