Quotes
What measurable results have you seen post the brand work? Sales, Turnover, Website traffic, Enquiry, Social media?
SOCIAL
Following the brand work, our rate of growth in followers on social media, Instagram in particular, has increased. But more importantly, we’ve seen a big increase in the engagement followers are having with Instagram content – likes, comments, shares and saves. This is continuing to grow.
ENQUIRY
We’ve had our highest number of interested players enquiring about a trial with us via the website in the last 4 months, and we’ve even started
having people from around New Zealand enquire about trialling with us through social media as they’ve been seeing and engaging with us there.
PARTNERS
We’ve also seen growth in external partnerships, being approached by 3-4 different organisations/businesses in the last 5 months who want to partner with, or sponsor us. Nothing like this was happening previously – we were having to approach people! “The new brand provides clarity, and aligns what we signal with what we actually do. It’s resulted in less questions about who we are and what we do.”
Feedback from staff
The staff love it… I think it’s as simple as that?! Here are some quotes from staff members:
“It’s incredible. It’s brought to life visually what the organisation stands for. It freshened everything up and given the organisation more pride in our look and feel, while relating to the academy philosophy and our way of doing things.”
“From a marketing and communications point of view, it’s made everything more coherent, streamlined and clean for the organisation both internally and externally. The clarity has resulted in more efficiency. We now have a brand which matches the tone we are trying to set as an organisation, something we are now proud to stand by and put out into the world. We have a clear “look and feel” for our players, partners and stakeholders – People know it’s us.”
“Look good, feel good, play good.”
“There’s a whole new level of professionalism with the new brand. This is important for staff, players, parents and the overseas market. We look like we can be taken seriously.”
“I think the new branding is simple to view, yet is highly detailed and I think that sums up a lot of what we’re about here. As a player who has been here for nearly 8 years, I think this rebrand makes so much sense to who we are and really represents Olé well!”
The director’s testimonial
My name is Blake Jones and I am CEO of the Olé Football Academy. In short, the Olé Football Academy is a full-time ‘high performance’ sporting institution based in Porirua. Over the past 20-years we have established a proven ‘track record’ of youth development. Our educational approach is long- term focused, relationship first, with the player at the center. This approach has produced many professional footballers, New Zealand youth
and full internationals, and many leaders inside of communities across the country.
Since 2018, our organisation has grown substantially. Internally, we say we have ‘become a victim of our own success’. We have more students and staff than ever. The standards of service are demanding. The day-to-day can be a grind. This forced us to turn every stone to ensure we handled the growth responsibly, and that we could remain at the forefront of our industry for the next 20-years and beyond. As part of this internal review, it became evident that our external communication, and how we portray ourselves to our players, families, and the greater community was outdated.
There was a disconnect between what we were actually doing in 2021 and what our logo, website, and brand said we did. Our brand has become one of the most well-known sports organisations in the country, and we are known across Scandinavia and the United States, as a leader in New Zealand Football. We needed to act like it! This is where ‘rebrand:’ came into the picture.
From day-1 they were brutally honest. They asked us questions that we did not have answers to. They challenged us. They made us better as an organisation. Through this process we realised where we wanted to go and how we wanted to get there. ‘rebrand:’ then helped us separate the wheat from the chaff. They built a practical plan forward. They told us what we needed to get done, how to do it, and walked with us (sometimes crawled) through the entire process. With their experience and leadership, they understand in their soul how difficult a rebrand can be. It’s long, not efficient, and sometimes circular. CEOs and other executives of organisations have egos, we love the past, and can be hard-headed.
There were probably times where we weren’t doing our part, but they stuck with us. Because of this, the final product has revolutionized a part of our organisation that needed help. We accomplished what we set out to do, by providing clarity to our stakeholders. Additionally, it’s given us a new fresh look that fully encapsulates everything that we do best as an organisation to prospective clients.
In the 21st century, being able to connect with all your different stakeholders in the way you want is an art. An art, that if you can get right, will help assist your organisation in flywheel gains to your mission.
Don’t get me wrong, branding is not everything. It is just 1-thing. But where our organisation was, it was exactly what we needed. We have reBrand to thank for this.
How has the brand work helped your business?
The new brand has helped the business in so many ways in such a short time. Right from the first step in the process, we’ve been forced to really look at ourselves as an organisation, ask difficult questions and reflect. The power of this in itself cannot be underestimated. Rebranding has helped us to more deeply understand and solidify our unique position in the market, who we are, and more importantly who we are not. We have a clear what, how and why, which we know is grounded in research and evidence, to guide us in our decision making processes on a day-to-day basis and on a strategic level. Our internal and external communications have drastically improved. Our previously outdated look is now fresh, clean and progressive.
To us, the “feeling” is measurable. Since the new brand launched, there has been a tangible shift in the frequency within, and surrounding, the academy. The new brand, and the story it tells, has united us as an organisation. Right from our CEO through to our youngest player, parents and players who have graduated from the academy – everyone can see themselves reflected in the new brand, and everyone is connected through a logo which tells the story of the journey every single player takes with Olé. As an organisation who places high value on relationships and culture, this unity and mutual understanding is a crucial part of us performing at a high level and supporting the players we work with to do the same. The new look is clean, modern and professional – everyone is excited to pull on their training kit or tracksuit every day and do their work as part of this organisation every day.
Client/customer feedback
The players we work with were buzzing about the new brand. They love the new look and the tangible things, like their slick new training kits and the stickers and the new signs around the building and the pitch. But many of them were also quite thoughtful about the “why” commenting that they “like the story behind the new logo” and that “it’s cool that there is actually a meaning we can understand now.” It’s difficult to get too many actual words out of teenagers – But things like “it’s sick,” “it’s dope,” and “it’s fresh as” were used… I think the smiles on their faces told us what we needed to know 🙂
“Olé has successfully mixed its tradition with a new brand that goes beyond football; it’s bold enough to make a statement but also flexible enough to bring a wide range of new experiences. As a partner, we believe it will assist Olé to sustain its growth both on and off the pitch and extend its influence over domestic football landscape.”
