Juventus Logo Launch Jan 2017
The release of Juve’s new emblem has sent shockwaves around the world. Yet before falling into the trap o focusing solely upon the design it should be understood that this event goes well beyond the current rebranding. It is moreover one step of many of a journey the club embarked on several years back designed to promote the club, vastly improve its global standing and essentially monetise the brand with more zeal. We are already aware of the J-Museum. J-Village is another massive project, which will include an international school, hotel, state of the art training centre (J TC). So we best become familiar with such terms as J-Hotel. J-Restaurant. J-Medical. As they spread far beyond Turin and Social media…as is hoped.
I am glad for the apparently large reaction online to the rebranding episode, for that is the first aim of the marketing campaign. All publicity is generally good publicity for a product. The more who see it the better. So on that score the company are doing fine. Note I say company. There is a still a club, and it has the same roots and lo stile juve has not vanished into the J-Vault (just yet!). However Juve as a club are run as a sporting element of a company, with the aim being to succeed both on and off the field. To succeed on the field we need to raise our revenue, in fact even to continue to complete on the field anywhere near the top level we need to raise our revenue. Despite the amazing work Andrea Agnelli has presided over, and the success achieved both on and off the field, we are facing competition for players, which essentially win you success, from mid table and even lower ranked teams in the PL (and China!) because they can offer the players staggering amounts of gold…and a bigger platform.
On one hand we can say we have no interest in a player more eager for Stoke City than Juve just because they will earn an extra 2m per year. Which is fair, yet to play at Stoke for a year in the biggest shop window on the planet in the most exciting league, can also be seen as a logical stepping stone to both greater riches and greater glory.
The Beijing routine is not quite the same story…that is simply focusing solely upon money. No sporting glory or achievement, just money. In a culture alien to most but the orientals, with stadiums haggard, pitches awful, the standard of football appallingly low. That is for another discussion.
Essentially we cannot continue to blind ourselves to the financial realities of the modern game. We have remained 10th in the Deloitte Money League, and whilst we remain hanging onto the coat tails of the richer clubs, our growth remains steady.
To continue to seek success in a footballing sense, we need more money and also to keep up with the financial powerhouses ahead of us, and we need to accept that the modern supporter is a different breed to assuredly those of my own era as a more youthful supporter. Different to even those 5- 10 years younger than I assume. Yet at the same time I will say that I find even on juvefc.net where I contribute and hugely enjoy the community, at times, on occasion, a very different kind of ‘supporter’ to myself appears, hinting of this odd assumption that Juve should win every game, be the best in the world, basing discussion on statistics rather what is seen and felt by the gut and head…Just signs of the times. We live in an era where the young guns especially demand everything NOW NOW NOW at merely the stroke of a finger across a screen, and if they cannot get what they want, they wail, whine, bitch, or go elsewhere. Usually stick around as its all about ME ME ME…Selfie sticks morphed into forum rants.
Unfortunately we need to tap into that crowd, which is a market. We need to appeal to the cool kids of mong. For if we lack their support, it will go to a rival.
The rebranding is of no shock or major bother to me personally. It is part and parcel of attempts to improve our revenue and brand awareness globally and continue our progress towards remaining in the global psyche of supporters positioned as part of the elite, part of football royalty, not just of yesteryear but of now and for always. I do not see it as a death knell for the purists flagging interest in the sport…
We still have players at the club who would die for the cause. Admittedly this has been seen less often this season, but this campaign has been a weird one. So many injuries all over the first XI, tactical oddness from Allegri, barely any form, a stuttering, haphazard affair, yet we have done enough, as the squad created on the back of our amazing success on and off the field these last 5.5 years is not united, not blended, but stronger than many believe. The stats fans should be happy with our position, both in europe and domestically, but for me, its the performances as much as the victories that matter. The former have been horrid so often since the Summer, and it is this what irks me far more than a new logo to help promote the club to the younger, different generations of potential fans.
In a football sense…we continue to invest in the very best italian potential found domestically, most recently Caldara and Orsolini, we continue to retain a core of italians in our squad and starting XI and we continue to be run by the same family, an italian family of course, who have owned and managed the club since 1923. Our roots remain the same, the gate to the garden may look a little different though.
Recent Comments