To reiterate English soccer legend Jimmy Greaves, football really is 'a funny old game'. With global demand for the English Premier League (EPL) at record highs, TV investors have injected unprecedented millions to grow their media market share. The result is that as the world economy stumbles to recover from a crippling banking injury, EPL teams continue to spend fortunes on new players.
But as important as football may seem to be to billions of fans around the world, football clubs cannot afford to overlook a couple of fundamental, common sense principles which we as marketers must ALWAYS obey.
1. Focus on your target audience and ignore your customers at your peril
Like any business in any market, once it is doing well financially it is easy for them to "take their eye off the ball". It can be easy to become complacent, to forget why the business exists and forget why they have built a following and become just so successful. Football clubs are no exception.
The customers (or fans) build an emotional relationship with their chosen football club and this relationship is arguably stronger than what any brand has with its customer base. The great Bill Shankly once said of his teams' Anfield spectators, "It is more than fanaticism, it's a religion. To the many thousands who come here to worship, Anfield isn't a football ground, it's a sort of shrine. These people are not simply fans, they're more like members of one extended family."
With this in mind, it amazes me how this 'extended family' is sometimes treated. Take for example Cardiff City. Two years ago the club was bought by affluent Malaysian businessmen who injected millions of pounds into the Cardiff City depleted coffers. As thankful as the shareholders and fans were, the relationship was stretched when Malaysian owner Vincent Tan changed the clubs colour to "lucky" red and badge from a bluebird to a red dragon as part of his investment. A hundred years of tradition ignored relatively overnight. Now what's that going to do for your brand affinity? Unsurprisingly total uproar and negativity resulting in demonstrations outside the ground.
A year later, though not as drastic as the Cardiff City case, it seems that nothing was learnt at Goodison Park when Everton Football Club decided to 'develop' their club badge (left) again. Now I emphasise the word 'again' because as you can see below, Everton are not adverse to changing their club badge. Since the glory days of Dixie Dean, they've felt the urge to change their clubs icon ten times. Indeed sometimes the changes are so dramatic that they are unrecognisable from the previous version.
Now I've got two issues here as a customer and a marketer. Not with evolving a company logo because the style of anything can date (see the logo for oil giant Shell further below). But unless the logo has little value or 'equity', then the changes incorporated into a new version should be subtle and kept to a minimal. Another issue is the frequency of changes. Do it too often and you end up confusing your customers which will weaken the 'affinity' to your brand. Customers like things to be kept simple, easy to understand and are adverse to change. Now in the past, football clubs could get away with their subjective logo changes because there were no instant business/customer communication platforms for supporters to air their views. Fans were hardly going to chant on the terraces en masse about their club's new badge or kit when they were busy verbally abusing the opposition. But today the digital communication revolution has meant that internet chat rooms and social media platforms has swung the power in favour of the customers. Today businesses can't work in isolation and simply 'push' changes to their brand without firstly considering and listening to their customers.
So lesson's learnt? Let's hope so. In Everton's case the adverse reaction by supporters has been well documented. Their advertising agency Kenyon Fraser and Head of Communications Alan Myers are now working to deal with this 'marketing injury' and get the Everton brand back to 'full fitness'. The new club badge has gone to the vote and today Everton fans have overwhelmingly (80%) chosen the version which incidentally isn't a million miles away from what they've had since 1991.
As any business will know, unhappy customers will effect sales and we are yet to hear how this 'miss pass' (or 'faux pais'?) has dented Everton's bottom line for the season. My guess is not that much but fortunately for them football fans are unique. Unlike in 'the real world' where customers will simply purchase from a competitor, it is highly unlikely that Everton fans will suddenly take their allegiance across Stanley Park to Liverpool F.C.
But other businesses in other markets are not so lucky. Any marketer worth their salt can tell you that businesses can change their advertising campaigns, their messages, their products, their offers and their propositions but if you want to keep hold of customers then you should not change your brand values. After all your brand is what your company stands for, it is your 'personality'. Your brand is what differentiates you from your competitors and your 'brand essence' is your unique business DNA. This is what customers buy into as opposed to going somewhere else.
So finally, the other branding point that EVERY business should adhere to is...
2. If your logo isn't broke, then don't try to fix it
I wanted to show you a good example of how to develop a company logo to the point where you can leave it alone and move on to other more important marketing issues like growing your business. You'll know when you have reached that point, because your logo will have really good brand recognition and you won't have to have your company name printed next to the logo (think super brand's like Adidas, Nike's swoosh or SHELL). You will only need the icon or graphic.
Here you see how 'super brand' SHELL has developed its logo since Queen Victoria was sitting on her throne. Clearly the 1900 logo version was in need of creative development and over the next hundred years its basic element was fine tuned to the most recent version created by Landor Associates (don't ask me what their fees are but they've put together logo's for most of the big names that you can think of). From the table, you can see how the present logo has had a simple, interior colour change from plain, process yellow to an ochre. This subtle change gives a warmer, friendlier feel to this global brand's personality (probably for environmental issue reasons). Sometimes a subtle change is all that you need to do when it comes to your logo.
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