The League of Ireland is being given a serious design makeover for 2023 and we sat down with the FAI Director of Marketing and Communications Louise Cassidy to find out more about the new look, where it had come from, and how it will be rolled out over the coming weeks and months leading up to the season kicking off again in February.
What was it that prompted a fresh look at the branding?
There has been a lot of work done around the League of Ireland over the past few years, and there is a lot of ambition about where the League is heading.
The branding had not been looked at for a while and didn’t really reflect where the future is heading.
We have a great partner in the League with SSE Airtricity and they have been a really important part of this rebranding journey. We didn’t have the name of the League of Ireland, and that is what it is, what it is known as by fans and clubs, front and centre stage and that is what we wanted to do.
Was it important to bring the WNL in under a uniform look?
As an association, we are continually looking at ways in which we can bring the Men’s and Women’s games to parity so this was a key element of bringing the Women’s National League into the League of Ireland brand.
The new colour scheme is very vivid, will that be rolled out into other areas?
People follow a club that is in a division within the League and while we wanted a strong overarching brand we also wanted to create a clear identity for each individual element. That is where the colour scheme came to the fore and it can and will be extended into other areas that are coming down the line.
Was it a challenge to integrate the sponsor, and were SSE Airtricity and their teams involved in the process?
Yes, they were. It was a very in-depth process. We spoke to more than 50 stakeholders before we went and did this. That included everyone from the leadership team internally, to broadcast, sponsors, players, and clubs, and before we got to the branding we undertook the positioning work so that we would understand what the League was, where it was going and what it could be.
SSE Airtricity have been absolutely superb partners in this, understanding what we wanted to do with the League and their role as a really important support to the League.
Their brand will always sit very neatly beside our divisional logos.
Which agencies did you use to do the work?
We used an agency in London called LBA Lother Bohm Associates. They are a creative agency who do an awful lot of work with FIFA and UEFA, and a lot of other national associations, so they are extremely experienced within the world of brand strategy for football.
It was really important that we partner with people who had that level of experience. Their process and their rigour in terms of getting to the brand position, and the engagement piece they did with all of the stakeholders, meant that we got to a really good depth of knowledge in terms of what people were looking for and where we wanted to go go.
Then their experience in football meant that we got to a really good place in the end.
Were the Irish agencies you work with like Fifty-Three Six part of the stakeholder group, did they have an input?
They would have contributed their view on where the League was and now LBA and Fifty-Three Six are working very closely together in terms of how we roll out campaigns for next year.
You know, no agency sits on their own in silos. Everybody works together. The branding agency is now imparting their knowledge and the new brand identity to our creative and advertising agency, so you’ll see all of this come to life through the work that Fifty-Three Six will do on the League as part of 2023 campaigns.
Were there a number of iterations before landing on this?
Yeah, you know you never hit the nail on the head the first time but actually, we ended up in this place quite early and then it was a case of critiquing and refining.
I think because we had done so much work on the stakeholder engagement and the discovery process it did mean that the essence of what we were trying to do with the creative process was a little bit easier.
How would you describe what has been created?
We definitely would describe it as being very energetic, and dynamic, but also we wanted to create something that showed the passion and energy of what the League of Ireland is. We talk about it as being football that is so close you can touch as opposed to where other football is with people supporting Premier League clubs and that kind of thing.
We wanted to articulate that this is Ireland’s most compelling sporting talent and we really wanted to give an energy boost to the branding to reflect all this work that has gone in, maybe more behind the scenes to the League.
The League always does well in our Social Media Report, The look of the new branding looks especially geared towards digital and online, would that be fair?
Yeah, I think so. Our communications strategy is digital-first, that is where our conversation is with our fans and our clubs and the wider public. It was imperative that this work brilliantly across social.
Is LOITV included as part of the new look?
Yes, everything that the League of Ireland touches will be included in this new look and feel. LOI TV will look pretty special just before the main League launch on February 8th when we relaunch it.
It looks well, it will be a good look for clubs to go to fans with in the 2023 season, and is another key step on establishing local football as the place we want young fans to look first for their full football experience.
