The club should look at this as a great opportunity to show that it can listen to the fans and that it cares what we think. A new design competition can be launched. I'd like to see the new design (never been a fan of Ridsdale's redesigned crest anyway) have: A White Rose "LEEDS UNITED" An Owl A Peacock. Keep the colours to a minimum too.
Focus groups lets say 5 (if they did them!) £10k to £20k. Larger scale research £10k to £30k ish Brand design agency fees £30k (v cheap) to £500k - depending (e.g. some finance brands spend 7 figs on rebranding, think manure spent £300k on theirs. Then you have costs of any other promotional work - the video, website graphics, PR launch, merchandise that may be under production Scrappage costs and go again to create the replacement! Where is the Leeds marketing team? Do they have one? As an experienced marketing professional, I'd run the project for them!!
Yes totally agree professionals getting paid exorbanate fees to come up with RUBBISH , and i have seen other clubs doing that action of fist to the chest when they have scored a goal , bet none of them have ever been to a game , i think it should have a peacock raising a cup above its head , not so serious is an image of calamity cooper scoring another own goal on the badge ha ha
An undoubted 10. However some of their insight work could still be valuable, it's just the interpretation was completely wrong. Normally you share concept designs with your target audience, in confidence, to try and refine a preferred route. I seriously wonder if this was done with fans - clearly 60k+ think not! I accept they are looking at a landmark change to mark the centenary and move forward, however the history of the club and iconic moments is not something you simply sweep away. You need to reflect on values, emotions, things that differentiate, heritage, mission, purpose and more. his attempt didn't even mark the centenary. We have the history of yellow and blue, the momentous change to all white, the yorkshire rose, the owl, the peacock, the LUFC script, smiley badge, the ethic of playing hard while adding flair players, the passion and commitment, an Associated Football Club, 1919, positive tradition, defiance when wronged (MOT) etc. There's a lot to work from there and a simplistic design does not covey this. With football clubs having such established legacies/heritage, it's difficult to see how a clean, simple crest recognises this. Often with fashion, modern designs and fonts go out of date. The trick is to retain a constant and represent it over the decades and to reinvigorate things if needed.
I’d say the interpretation of the brief and the execution were wrong. Somewhere in their desire to start afresh and suck up to the fans which is undoubtedly what the brief was, they forgot it was a centenary and spectacularly misinterpreted how to suck up to the fans. Double whammy. As a marketing guy you can easily see how this happened lee. Sh*t in sh*t out.
In my experience the process would be something like this: They research the brand identity, getting input from various stakeholders, they should research successful/admired competitor offerings, then they ‘brainstorm’ (an opportunity for the whole agency to have a few Starbucks with some nice muffins), then they come up with a creative brief, do ‘focus groups’ on some mocked up examples with their target audience, revise/repeat if necessary, pick a ‘winner’ and should then test public opinion on that winner to a larger group. They should be able to drag that out and make sure they have enough attendees at every meeting, enough creative hissyfits and changes of direction to charge many £000’s for something a Mac monkey could knock up in 20 minutes. There are variations to the above... some agencies prefer neros To Starbucks for example.. but that’s generally the process as I recall. If done correctly there will always be someone else to blame and your behind should be covered. Looks like someone Dropped their pants on this one. You’d think asking the right questions in the right way to the right people and interpreting the answers correctly without leading them, would be straightforward enough if that was your trade but it doesn’t always happen. I’d hazard a guess some smart guy/gal Would have shortlisted MOT, dismissed that as something a car gets, tried to pictorially represent ALAW, And then concluded that they can show the Leeds salute. Somewhere they chopped the guys head off because the image was too small. Lots of people will have been wincing as the titanic headed for the iceberg but that far down the line with all the time and cash gone into it, would be too scared to point out their concerns... and do their best to all blag the client into believing it’s a creative stroke of genius.
I'd also suspect that someone more senior and not necessarily a marketing and brand expert had too much influence. I've worked for a couple of wealthy individuals who couldn't help but get involved in projects outside of their expertise.
