What is the ultimate badge in the loyalty of sports fans? A subscription? Brand underwear? A tattoo, maybe? Pay for the name of your favorite athlete or team on your skin is certainly a wonderful devotion display. Fortunately, we have not all had to go so far. Many sports teams, clubs, places and sports franchises in the world work hard to promote fidelity of fans without the need for needles and ink. It is a phenomenon known as the sports brand.
Ken Black is co-founder of the investment group of the Soccer Club FC32, former strategic advisor of Nike, and something of a guru in the sports brand. Based in Oregon, in the United States, it explains how the brand is so much more holistic than simply slap the logos on each athlete, each room of merchandise and each surface surrounding a sports franchise. He remembers years ago, working with the NBA, where the creative director was obsessed with the insertion of the image of a basketball in the 30 team logos of his franchise.
Black remembers their conversation. “I asked him:” Why do you think it is important to put a basketball in a logo that will appear on a basketball uniform, carried by a basketball player, playing on a basketball court, with thousands of fans looking from the inside and outside of the arena? “I explained to him that no brand should do all the work to tell the story of a sports brand.
A really dynamic brand is an experience, not a logo. A team brand is an experience that should take place over time, with its own arch of history, legendary moments and mythological tales. In this way, it can be expressed through each point of contact with fans – scarf cards with scarves with jerseys with arenas and stadiums, applications and even food. This trip of fans through the possible contact points allows teams and designers to create a more significant and magnetic experience as a whole, which is the goal of creating a brand in the first place. »»