Umbro are cool again. Well no, nobody told me either, but forget Gareth Southgate rocking the all grey ’96 look, apparently it’s now all about retro drill tops and ’70′s bare minimal football kits with 21st century in-built technology.
You may or may not have noticed that the nation’s favourite group of under-achievers are looking pretty dapper lately and it seems its all down to young designer Aitor Throup, the vanguard of new football attire. You can check out a short documentary on the development of the new England kit by Umbro here.
Here’s a video of Throup discussing his involvement with Umbro:
For me, the brand recognition revival of Umbro hasn’t been an overnight affair but a gradual realisation of the quality and traditional respect that Umbro have brought into their sports kits and clothing. Umbro has always been a childhood memory attached to cold Sunday mornings on Walthamstow playing fields running up and down the touchline waiting to get a kick about (I was one of those super-sub sort of players). And then comes the beautiful tailoring of the new England home and away shirts along with what seems a re-branding that takes the comapnies English sporting heritage to the forefront of their message.
Over at Site Inspire I came across an interesting interview with Paul Graham of Anomaly London where he discussed the design agencies involvement in the repositioning of the English sports brand:
we presented Umbro with a global digital strategy, at the heart of which was a living breathing “web-a-mag-a-log”, a website that could be constantly evolving and publishing interesting opinions on the world of football culture like a magazine or a blog, whilst at the same time being a catalog for product done in more intuitive, engaging, entertaining way. It was important not to take ourselves seriously, to play nicely with other web-dwellers, bigging up blogs we like, linking to other places on the web and acknowledging (even embracing) the fact that there’s nowhere to hide on the web – hence showcasing our lowpoints as well as our highpoints of kit design.
Taken from Site Inspire
The new Umbro website (www.umbro.com) feels like a lesson in modern online brand strategy. The library of rich media content along with the integration of Twitter, Facebook and Flickr makes for a rich web experience that certainly has the best chance of building a pretty meaningful connection with its users.
The comment from Paul Graham in the Site Inspire interview aboutgiving the brand a sense of personality about itself certainly rings true once you stumble across the gallery of what can only be described as ‘Umbro mistakes’. (Seen here). Now I owned three of these fashion Faux pas and I’m not going to divulge into which ones they were.
Umbro aren’t ahead of the game by a long way. With the Nike+ online campaign led by R/GA which has been racking up Nike awards and new customers left, right and centre the online sports brand sector is one of the most forward thinking, but for a brand like Umbro to make such a dramatic change is proof that its not just for the big hitters.