There are hundreds of brands worldwide whose logo is instantly recognisable to thousands if not millions of people. Before you read on just see how many you can name.
Creating a brand takes time, and making your logo part of that brand and making it universally recognisable and synonymous with what you do also takes time and investment.
In 2004, after a decade or longer of poor management, failure to qualify for the FIFA World Cup and a dying National Soccer League, Football in Australia was reborn. A new administration came in, a new national league was formed and a new management structure for the game was introduced, one that was supposed to give everyone involved in the game a voice, instead of just the chosen few.
With the dawning of this new era the sport needed to be re-branded, and it was. The newly named Football Federation of Australia (FFA) not only introduced the word “football” to replace “soccer” but also created a logo that reflected the round ball game. In what was an extremely wise move the FFA had every state body adopt the same logo, but in the colours of their individual state. This gave the game a real uniformity across the country and also helped make the national logo instantly recognisable to thousands across the country.
The Hyundai A-League, the nation’s premier competition had a similar logo which linked into the FFA’s overall brand.
Thirteen years later in 2017 the FFA unveiled new logos for the Hyundai A- League, the W-League and Youth League. There were a few raised eyebrows as the new version looked like it had been inspired by three paperclips forming a circle on a graphic designer’s desk. Yet in truth no one really cared as the most important logos within the Hyundai A-League are in fact the team logos. These are the only ones that the fans and the sporting public really care about.
According to the company tasked with coming up with the new design, Hulsbosch, the FFA came to them looking to build “on their 20-year strategic plan to make football the largest and most popular sport in Australia, the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) approached Hulsbosch to reposition and rebrand the Hyundai A-League, Westfield W-League and the Foxtel Y-League,” it states on their website.
The company goes on to explain their design thus, “The modernised football icon is inspired by football’s three points of difference – atmosphere, diversity and unity. These differentiators create a platform to drive growth across all the codes. The unique identity delivers a clarified visual language and architecture that seamlessly integrates the competitions and will enable the game to create a stronger footprint in Australia. And, for the first time in Australian sport, the identity assumes the colours of clubs within all club communications, bringing the league and clubs under the one unified banner.” What is scary is that this ‘corporate-speak’ or spin was bought by the FFA, and also paid for!
These logos were unveiled in January 2017, and just over 18 months later the FFA unveiled a new logo for their organisation.
When it was unveiled FFA CEO David Gallop was quoted as saying that to get to this point “has been two years in the making and is the next major change following the rebrand of the Leagues (Hyundai A-League, Westfield W-League and Foxtel Y-League) that we announced early last year. Our new identity opens the way to reposition football as a top tier sports brand and promote the whole of the game. This new look and feel has been developed in collaboration with our stakeholders and has the support of the member federations who will also look to refresh their identities in line with the new FFA logo in the near future.”
Mr Gallop stated that “Our goal is to build one brand across our whole sport. Creating greater connection, belonging, and awareness and bring our communities together.”
Initial feedback is that the new logo has far less impact than the one that it is replacing. Quite how it took two years to come up with such a rebrand has many others baffled and questioning whether this really was time and money well spent by those running the game, especially with so many Governance issues left unresolved.
Having a new logo is hardly going to revitalise an ailing A-League competition or a Youth League which is to all intents and purposes today, pointless. Hopefully actual plans as to how the FFA plan to re-energise these two competitions will be forthcoming very shortly.
Back to the new Logo, maybe the Green and Gold paperclips swayed it for the men behind their desks in Sydney. This was something they could all relate to as they clip another memo to be filed. Or maybe it was more sales pitch from the agency employed by the FFA that swayed them.
“This new identity will help promote football and simplify the brand organisational structure.” Managing Director at Hulsbosch, Jaid Hulsbosch said. “This is more than a logo, it is an icon for football in Australia and will create meaningful, long-term brand building for the sport.” Time will tell if it comes close to becoming Iconic, the initial feeling is it won’t.
He may be right in terms of the link between the A-League and the FFA, and one cannot help but question the timing of this re-brand. The A-League clubs, as well as FIFA are applying pressure onto the FFA to have the A-League competition run separately from the games administration; as is the case in almost every country around the world. So is this re-brand really about the branding of the sport or a way of clinging to the A-League by association should the management of the A-League break away from the clutches of the FFA?
It is interesting to hear the words delivered by Robert Squillaciotti the Head of Marketing, Digital and Fan Engagement at the FFA at the Mumbrella seminar, he said “This rebrand wasn’t about design, it wasn’t about look and feel, it was actually about what we represent.” The three key elements being pushed that are supposed to be represented in the new logo are “the three key things that set football apart, its atmosphere, diversity and ability to unify and connect us to the rest of the world.”
Ask anyone in Marketing and changing a logo in such a short space of time is an unusual decision. It may be done if a scandal or very bad publicity was attached to the old logo, but such a change is rare. Which makes it hard to fathom why the FFA would look to make such a change after only 14 years.
After all it takes time for a logo to be embedded into a consumers mind. That is why it is unwise to make changes frequently. Major brands tend to stay true to their logos and only make subtle changes over a long period. Qantas would be a prime example of that. A truly Australian brand that has stood the test of time.
If you go back to the question at the beginining of this piece no doubt you would have named at least one of the following companies: Adidas, Nike, Starbucks, MacDonalds, Apple, Coca-Cola, Fedex, KFC, Chanel or Pepsi Cola. How often do or have these companies changed their logos, yet they are accepted instantly recognisable brands.
The FFA already had according to many a brand that was recognisable as being associated with football. Yet we are led to believe the 4000 people surveyed felt otherwise. That is 4000 of the 7 Million fans who follow the game according to Robert Squillaciotti in Australia. That means that the FFA based this monumental shift on the opinions of 0.057% of the people they say are fans of the game in this country, which is staggering.
How much has this two year project cost? Could that money have been better spent?
Whatever your thoughts tell us which Logo you prefer.
The new logo is absolute crap. IF the FFA paid more than $100 for that they are more stupid than I already thought.
Why did we need a new logo? To sell more merchandise? How much is it going to cost all the state bodies to change all of their signage, letterheads tracksuits etc? This is madness and hopefully the State bodies will ask how much the change cost in terms of design and how much it will cot the FFA to have their signage etc changed. What a complete waste of money.