The brief

The prevailing wisdom in sports marketing is that your team has to become a snarling, ferocious  beast before your target audience can engage and identify with it. Where you’re creating a new professional team from scratch, such as at Sale Sharks or Newcastle Falcons this may be  true - but what if you have a club rooted in its community for over a hundred years?

A new city

The issue was marketing the club to a city that had changed profoundly over the last ten to fifteen years. The club may well have been around for over a hundred years, but over 40% of Bristolians are under 35. More and more ABC1 individuals are relocating to the area. More and more Bristol students stay on after graduation. So the challenge was to reach out  to this new affluent consumer, to raise awareness of the club, generate trial and repeat visits.

New brand values

We worked with the club management to devise a new brand positioning, personality and values which helped us to root the club in its proud tradition, yet also appealed to the new generation of potential supporters. Our next step was to develop a visual expression of the brand that encapsulated these values.

C’Mon Bris!

The ‘C’mon Bris’ identity captured  the close, passionate relationship that both the players and the supporters have for the city where they live. It brings these together through the pride that the players have in the shirt that they wear, and the cry that goes up from the terraces when they take the field.

Since launch the C’MON BRIS campaign has been very high profile across the city (and indeed beyond), and has been extremely well received by both the committed supporters and those new fans who have been drawn to come and watch us play. Used across all our communication it has acted as a rallying cry for the whole city to come and support their team.