Umbro lesson #2: Choose character over success as a brand

Athletic de Bilbao fans celebrating their last trophy

Usually, sports brands try to sponsor successful teams and players because it is a proven strategy that has worked for years. Consumers like to associate their identities to values of heroism, success, and triumph by purchasing the products endorsed or used by those winners.


The problem is that there are usually many more losers than winners. In a domestic league of 20 teams, there is only one winner and often the teams who win the league are always the same. Take the EPL in which since the 1995-96 season, the league has been won by either Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal.


Umbro sponsorship strategy has a very interesting twist. Instead of going after the winning teams (which are expensive and multiyear contracts), they will establish a consisting strategy which consists of signing teams that have a unique character or heritage regardless of winning or losing to reinforce image of a leftfield brand.

 
Umbro endorsed clubs love the game. Most importantly, they have higher aspirations than just winning. In these times when companies are run like cold cerebral enterprises wired to win and increase revenues, Umbro is going after those clubs that live and breath football. Those who their raison d’etre is to feel the colors and be proud of the colors. Unquestionable loyalty. Complete blind and unbridled passion. 


As an example of how Umbro is trying to highlight these distinctive aspects when speaking about its teams, you just have to look at the way they are described in Umbro’s website.



England National Team


"Nearly 1200 men have represented England at the highest level since 1872 but none is as universally revered as the late Bobby Moore. Apart from captaining his country to victory at Wembley in the magical summer of '66, and duelling so memorably with Pele in Mexico four years later, Moore also started and finished every single one of his 108 international appearances. He never came off the bench and was never substituted.”


Values: long history, honor, commitment, loyalty to the country




Athletic club de Bilbao

"There are richer clubs and there are poorer clubs but none that can rightly lay as much claim to the title "the most exclusive club in the world". In an era when teams routinely field first XIs made up entirely of expensive imports, Athletic Club, an outfit that traces its roots to the arrival of English miners and shipyard workers into the port town in the late 19th century, prefer to shop local. They only sign players born in the Basque region of north-eastern Spain and south-western France, restricting their selection pool to just over three million people yet still allowing them to compete with Europe's best. Badge-kissers need not apply."


Values: Modest roots, local pride, not-sell-outs, exclusivity







Manchester City

“[...] Manchester City, an inclusive name deliberately chosen to give all Mancunians, regardless of social status, a team to root for.
It’s fitting the club was founded by a rector’s daughter because following Manchester City has been a religion for generations of Mancunians. They have witnessed miracles (the 4-3 final day victory that clinched the 1968 championship), worshipped gods (Lee, Todd and Bell) and sometimes flirted with eternal damnation (relegation to English football’s third tier). Through it all their faith never wavered. Contrary to their own anthem “Blue Moon”, these fans do have a dream in their hearts and a love of their own. Blue are ya.”


Values: folk, across social strata, unifying, quasy-religion status, dreamy   




Santos FC


"The Santistas are die-hard supporters who, after being weaned on a relentless diet of Pele magic (eight goals in one game anyone?) at the intimate Vila Belmiro, had to learn the virtue of patience through the seventies, eighties and nineties. Their frustrations, sometimes expressed by throwing shoes on the field, were finally alleviated by the team of the new millennium, not only winning again but doing so while playing futbol-moleque. Best translated as cheeky schoolboy attacking football. The Santista way"

Values: endurance through calamities, loyal in spite of adversity




Blackburn Rovers



"In the 1950s, Jack Walker was a sheet-metal worker who liked to spend Saturday afternoons at Ewood Park rooting for the Rovers team of Ronnie Clayton and Bryan Douglas. By the early nineties, he was a steel industry magnate with a personal fortune large enough to allow him to buy his favourite club. Within five years of him investing, Blackburn went from languishing in the old Division Two to winning the Premier League with a team managed by Kenny Dalglish, bulwarked by Alan Shearer, and that embodied the club’s motto: Arte et Labore. By skill and hard work."


Values: humble working-class roots (pure spirit that give sense to the fans existence)



Northern Ireland




"The smallest country to have qualified for more than one World Cup finals, the Northern Ireland national team have made their name from upsetting the odds and surprising favourites. They're not just a team of giant-killers though. Showing steady improvement in each international tournament qualifying group, Northern Ireland's squad is made up of players from throughout the country's domestic leagues, Scottish and English teams, united by a great team spirit.
Not only are Northern Ireland the smallest team to have qualified more than once at a World Cup, they're also the smallest country to have won a match, to have scored and to have qualified for the quarter finals at the tournament. Norman Whiteside, who played for his country in the 1982 finals aged 17, remains the youngest player to appear at the tournament.”


Values: giant-killers, success in spite of size,other things to be proud of like overall contextual records