Rebranding: Juventus

Branding, by definition, is a marketing practice in which a company creates a name, symbol or design that is easily identifiable as belonging to the company. The consistency of a brand plays an important role. In this article In football, creating a powerful brand portfolio for clubs is therefore key. A strong brand can attract more sponsors, develop an emotional bond with fans and other stakeholders, and support the association’s strategic objectives.

Some of the biggest brands in the world are football clubs. You only have to look at the insane amount of money some of them make. The top five clubs listed in the latest Deloitte Football Money League include Real Madrid as the world’s richest club, raking in £665 million last season. Madrid are followed by Barcelona (£612 million), Manchester United (£590 million), Bayern Munich (£557 million) and Manchester City (£504 million). The fact that these clubs routinely pull in £500 million in revenue is in large part due to them being global brands in much the same way as, say, Apple or Google. While they are not multibillion-pound enterprises, they are in a league of their own. The question is, how have they built their brand to get to this level?

Winning football matches is the main reason, of course. This success translates to commercial success, too, as “the appetite to partner with Europe’s most successful clubs remains stronger than ever.” In other words, winning is the catalyst for business partnerships from commercial brands, and Real Madrid have plenty with Adidas, Emirates, Audi, Hugo Boss, and Coca-Cola.

After building a successful brand, why would you consider rebranding?

Juventus Football Club decided on July 2017 to change their logo and brand. In a statement released by the club: “From today, on the official adoption of the club’s new visual identity, a new black and white era can begin.

The new logo, which will be in use from July 2017, represents the very essence of Juventus: the distinctive stripes of the playing jersey, the Scudetto – the symbol of victory – and the iconic J for Juventus. These three elements make up the DNA of our club.” - Juventus official website.

"The idea of the rebrand was to reposition the club in the wider entertainment industry as a brand that was able to deliver lifestyle experiences," Ricci, who is now Juve's chief revenue officer, told Bleacher Report. "It was about being able to be identified as something wider than a pure football brand."

The Italian football club saw an opportunity to increase brand awareness and increase sales.

"We needed to create an attitude brand: a brand that would capture the imaginations of people who were not necessarily into football," said Manfredi Ricca, Interbrand's global chief strategy officer, who played a leading role in the rebrand.

"We needed to look at the great, fast-growing global brands that are able to synthesise and personify an attitude. We needed to look at the Nikes and the Adidases of this world, at the Chanels and the Louis Vuittons and the Guccis. Those are the brands that stand for a clear feeling and attitude and emotion.

"If you look at the identity of Juventus, the stark simplicity of it lines up much better with a Gucci monogram or a Nike swoosh than it does with very elaborate, legacy-driven [football] crests."

Juve's innovative marketing manoeuvres have accompanied the club's attempts to move to the next level on the pitch, where eight years of unbroken dominance in Serie A have been offset by recurrent failures to go all the way in the UEFA Champions League. The twin objectives of on-pitch success and off-pitch growth coalesced perfectly in the summer of 2018 when Juventus succeeded in signing Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid for an Italian-record fee of €100 million.

In addition to his on-pitch impact, Ronaldo's presence has been strongly felt at commercial level, with Juve's merchandising sales almost doubling in his first full season and the club's digital following swelling by over 50 percent to around 90 million followers.

Allied to the rebrand, the arrival of one of the most marketable figures in world sport has further served to enhance Juve's appeal to the young populations found in key growth markets such as China and the United States. Juve cannot compete with the television revenues enjoyed by their competitors in England and Spain, but as a slew of new deals with brands such as Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Japanese video game manufacturer Konami demonstrate, a player like Ronaldo can unlock commercial opportunities all on his own.

The Juventus chief explained that the most important KPI is not followers across platforms but rather the engagement, saying that the engagement has been higher since the rebranding.

On a global scale, Juve still lag behind European football's true heavyweights and slipped to 11th place in the most recent edition of accounting firm Deloitte's Football Money League, which ranks clubs according to annual revenue. But while the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United remain the front-runners, Juve are convinced that by harnessing the opportunities created by their rebrand, by piggybacking on the massive global appeal of Ronaldo and by consistently thinking outside the box, they can begin to close the gap.

By IKM for Marketing Solutions.

Amman, Jordan.