Sports Branding

For a sports branding agency, the number of stakeholders involved can be daunting. Beyond the emotional quotient inherent within the sporting world, there is an entire gamut of leagues, teams, athletes, cities, countries and yet other organizations that host sporting events. At Elephant, our motivation is to create and further, maximize business value for all partners involved in the sports domain – be it conducting an event, reviving a line of sports goods or launching new sportswear. All of these are aimed towards reaching the organic, long-term goals of creating a loyal fandom and gaining sponsorships/endorsements to create a robust sports business.

Sports Branding Agency services in an omnichannel world

As far as media consumption is concerned, we’re constantly experiencing a shifting, changing landscape – and sports media is no exception. Recent patterns of sports viewing and interaction have ensured that sports branding agencies need to go beyond traditional media to cultivate an omnichannel approach.

At Elephant, we focus on capturing the essence of the fleeting and the visual through the creation of highly relevant design collateral for our clients. But beyond tertiary collateral, we engage in the more foundational aspects of developing sports brand strategy and more. The services rendered under our vertical match those that would otherwise be offered by a dedicated, top sports branding agency. These include, but are not limited to:

Developing a comprehensive, omnichannel focused Sports Brand Strategy
Sports event identity creation
Stadium Branding solutions
Creating peripheral brand assets
Developing a look book for social media, TV, print & more
Implementing the installation of sports livery and other elements in the realm of space design
Pre-production & artwork development

Eliminating Fatal Guesswork

Trial and error is something that a sports branding consultant/agency simply cannot afford. The reason is glaringly simple: sports events are conducted and consumed in real-time with cutthroat competition in the mix. Once executed, a sports branding strategy has to be potently effective – which means that guesswork has to be eliminated with the help of a comprehensive, design-based plan.

At Elephant, we specialize in the development of a well-researched, strategic approach to sports branding. Our team comprises seasoned veterans and fresh talent – each a sports branding consultant in their own right – and has considerable experience in working with major national and international events. With time being even more of the essence in this domain, we strive to create collateral and strategy that handholds brands to ensure a successful event – all in the first go with minimal, tertiary iterations in the mix.

Translating Brand Values into the Arena

The culture of sports doesn’t simply take organizational, or sponsor-based culture into account. In fact, that might even be minimal if we are to gauge the impact that cities, countries, and even sporting personalities have when it comes to developing a fandom of loyal, die-hard fans.

At Elephant, we are trained to ask questions like: How well do the client’s organizational/brand values align with the team? How can they effectively be translated in terms of design when we go about creating a visual system, replete with collateral? Does the brand need to play it safe and not drastically alter the message they’re putting out via this sports branding campaign, or do they need to rethink certain things from a foundational level?

These questions are, of course, not easily answered – even a dedicated, top sports branding agency shall falter if made to answer in absolutes. But that’s where Elephant’s research-based approach comes in. We don’t simply study brands, but also the cultures within which their target audiences are situated – in addition to the things they absolutely are fanatically passionate about because, at the end of the day, sports is about creating that immortal moment more so than any other domain.

From utilizing a brand’s extant heritage to creating a shiny, new, well-aligned identity that speaks volumes in the arena – every step needs intensive research to strike true in the first stroke in the interest of making the sporting event a real-time success that it needs to be for maximum impact.

Cultivating Madness and Passion through Due Process

Any sports branding agency worth its salt need a set of carefully devised processes to ensure success in both the short and long term and we at Elephant are devoted to following our own.

Research Matrix Formulation: Blending both qualitative voice-of-consumer-based research in tandem with ethnographic, cultural, demographic and yet other fields of study, our process begins with a research matrix that is exhaustive in its scope. As any sports branding consultant worth their salt will tell you, the sobering realization always is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will satisfy every die-hard fan (stakeholders aside). However, that is not to say that pure data holds no merit – it simply takes a backseat since the associations and interactions people have with sports and sporting moments are so subjective and personal.

Visual Design Development: At Elephant, our strategy takes this subjectivity into account – but does not leave other objective elements to chance either. The development of logos, related livery, associated brand colors, crests and the entire visual system takes multidimensionality and implementation into account because there is simply no second chance. Depending on the context, our designs focus on simplicity, adaptability, uniqueness, dynamism and ultimately, the sport.

Alignment: Here, we focus on studying the organization’s goals, objectives and ethos and align it with the event at hand – be it at various touchpoints around the built environment or in the communication design that goes into the event. No peripheral element is left behind.

Technological Leveraging: The external spaces of today increasingly see the involvement of digital touchpoints and other interactions – why should sports arenas and environments be any different? In our capacity as a sports branding agency, we suggest leveraging AR/VR tech, in addition to other modes that lie at the intersection of the physical and digital realms to maximize impact.

Taking everything into consideration, we also borrow from the following disciplines when providing our services that sets us apart from the conventional sports branding agency: