Back to our second favourite subject – football and brands. With Portugal’s exit from the Euro 2008 competition everybody’s eyes turn back to the ‘will he won’t he’ saga of Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer from Manchester United to Real Madrid. With no spies available in either camp we will have to content ourselves with looking at this from a brand perspective. Unlike products and companies which can evolve and change constantly building on their brand, the career of the footballer is short and their (brand) value which is so easily inflated with one good season easily wanes with old age, poor form or injury. From a purely financial perspective Ronaldo himself would be wise to cash in on his brand- take the huge wages- who knows what one dodgy tackle next season could mean? Man Utd. also would be wise to take the money and run- Ferguson has shown consistently superstars are replaceable (Beckham, Van Nistelrooy) the club brand value will be intact no matter what (as long as they keep winning and playing tours in the Far East). Real Madrid also stand to make a substantial sum- they know better than anyone that the transfer fees are small fry to the advertising revenue and potential shirt sales. So what does this mean for the football side of things – will Real win the Champions League if they buy Ronaldo? Probably not. Will they make lots of money? Certainly. What does this mean for Ronaldo’s brand value? Well, if he stays he could just maybe become one of the icons of football where his brand and reputation outlasts his career. If he goes he could be the most highly paid footballer on the planet with the highest transfer fee but maybe, just maybe, in a couple of seasons time be another one of the many over paid bench-warmers with people asking Cristiano who?
Posts Tagged ‘brand value’
Brand Cristiano Ronaldo
Friday, June 20th, 2008Tags: advertising, brand, brand value, Branding, Champions League, Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckam, Euro 2008, Germany, Manchester United, Portugal, Real Madrid, record transfer fee, revenue, transfers, Van Nistelrooy, wages
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Subaru's Magnolia Approach
Friday, November 23rd, 2007Phew! At last we have got some time to update the blog- the studio has been pretty busy to say the least. Talking about time we like to give some new designs a bit of time to settle down in our heads. Sometimes the things that look wrong and jar at the outset start to look truly great once the initial newness has worn off. Chris Bangle’s BMW designs are now looking inspirational when you consider the range that preceded his and where BMW car designs were heading prior to his appointment. The 2012 London Olympics logo will we are sure, by the time of the Olympics, really stand up as a great bit of communication. It would have been so easy to have produced a safe, generic identity that would have blended in with every other event; in any case the genius of such a thinly disguised sex act in a logo brilliantly sums up Britishness in a way none of us could consciously articulate. And so we come on to the new Subaru Impreza- the rally inspired road car that more than any other car of recent times sums up the ‘Marmite’ syndrome in people (you either love it or hate it). You either think it is everything an exciting car should be and conjures up ideas of motor sport and pine forests, or you just think no……no, no ,no , no. So in the infinite wisdom of Subaru and following Ford’s world car approach (Ford who incidentally are losing money like there is no tomorrow) decided that what we really need is a magnolia approach, something neutral that appeals to everybody. This is the new Subaru Impreza. Aside from the fact that their idea of a neutral car looks like a rehashed Mazda, Subaru may have really deeply damaged their brand. In the past it was so clear to customers what the brand stood for; owners knew they were very different from those that wouldn’t touch the car with a barge pole. In a potential take-over bid the brand value would have been high and very clearly defined.
Only time will tell, but in our opinion this attempt to win more customers and be more profitable has went very wrong. We will get back to you in about 5 years on this one.
Tags: BMW, brand, brand value, Branding, Chris Bangle, Ford, London 2012 Olympics logo, New Subaru Impreza, Subaru, Wolff Olins
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