Venice, that culturally rich city nestled on the northeast side of Italy and renowned for its water channels and historical heritage, is currently gaining attention as it plays host to a club with one of the most significant brand strategies in the sports industry in recent years.
What you need to know:
- 🙈 A chaotic management successions turned the club into an economic rollercoaster.
- 💡 A brilliant insight strategy transformed a football team into a global brand.
- 🆒 A Greek model and a jersey marked the before and after.
Before anything, let’s take a brief tour through the history of the institution. Venezia F.C. has consistently been a club engaged in fierce battles within Italian football. It has frequently moved up and down the ladder between the top tier of Italian football, where it played for 24 seasons, and lower divisions, including Serie B, and even participating in Serie C or D. Historically, it holds the 20th position on the chart of the most successful teams in Italy. The club’s only major title was achieved in 1941 when they won the Coppa Italia.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, Venezia F.C. has had different owners, and the club has constantly changed hands, being refunded three times in the last fifteen years due to financial troubles. At the start of the 2002/03 season, as the team was preparing to face the challenge of avoiding relegation from Serie A, owner Mauricio Zamparini sold the team, taking twelve first-team players with him to his new ownership at Palermo F.C., which he acquired for €15,000,000. A few years later, in 2005, the club went bankrupt and was relegated to Serie C. A new owner from the United States, Joe Tacopina, emerged. At the end of the 2018/19 season, while the squad from the city of San Marco’s Basilica lost its right to stay in Serie B due to losing play-out matches, a fast-forward movement addressing administrative defaults took the stage. In a turn of events resembling a typical fairy-tale ending, Zamparini’s side Palermo F.C. was found guilty of economic irregularities, resulting in their relegation instead of the Venetian team. Following this, Tacopina sold the club in 2020, marking the beginning of a new chapter.
Under the new leadership of Duncan Niederauer, the club embarked on a fresh strategy guided by contemporary brand management principles. Despite the fact that the winged lion isn’t a football blockbuster in traditional terms, the decision to leverage a new brand identity has significantly boosted its visibility and engagement. The impact has been remarkable: Nowadays, 96% of selling comes out of the abroad, so this means how much the institution have changed.
What makes the difference? Shifting from a traditional football entity to a distinctive brand. That’s the key to finding a competitive advantage for growth, but it’s not as simple as it might appear. Beneath the layers of communication, image, and inspiration lies a small detail that changes everything; an insightful perspective. Ted Philipakos assumed the role of marketing chief for the first time in 2015 under the previous ownership. However, certain differences and nuances led him to leave Venice before he had planned. He returned five years later under the leadership of Niederauer, and this time, he was given the opportunity to realise exactly what he had been dreaming about. With that point in mind, Ted got down to work.
Philipakos and its crew enlisted the services of the Bureau Borsche agency in order to redesign its visual identity. Renowned for collaborating with prestigious brands such as Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, and Balenciaga, the agency later extended its expertise to sports institutions, including Inter Milano. In the context of our Italian case, the entire visual design underwent a transformative process. Starting from scratch, the German agency crafted a stunning graphic direction, employing a palette with three dominant tones; arancioneroverde at its major expression. Composed a fresh logo and a pair of fonts which regards a glamorous trend. Alongside the visual impact, the key is sharing either a global and local vision.
In fact, blending local roots and a strong international allure is a perfect match to attract as many followers as possible. Sonya Kondratenko, who has served as the media director for around three years and is responsible for social development within the club, has played a crucial role in this area. Passionate about both photography and calcio, her Instagram profile (@sonyakarate) reflects these interests. Her unique approach to connecting with people goes beyond football, offering glimpses into daily Venetian life, various city corners, and stories from different neighbors. These narratives are shared across multiple channels, including Instagram, the website, and even a blog (Venice by Venezia). It’s undoubtedly a distinctive lifestyle approach.
Perhaps, the cornerstone of the project lies in the kit and the impact it creates, all initiated by securing a new technical sponsorship. Every season, football fans worldwide eagerly anticipate the unveiling of new kits, donning the colours of their heroes on the pitch. This time around, the team from the floating city concluded its contract with Nike to embark on a new partnership with Kappa. Technical sponsors typically dictate the design for the majority of clubs, adapting it to each team’s colours. Only a select few are granted the freedom to personalize their kits as they wish, a privilege that often depends on the brand in question. Nike, for instance, is known for having a vast array of preset designs that apply to most teams, with only an exclusive circle of clients granted deeper customization options. However, the circumstances were different for the Italian side. In contrast, Kappa allows clubs to personalize their patterns in more instances. This Italian brand is renowned for its expertise in design, exemplified by bringing 90’s fashion to dress Real Betis or adopting a tight-fit style for Napoli. In the case of Venezia F.C., Kappa demonstrated a total commitment to detailing its jerseys.
Sunlight was bathing the façade of Stadio Pierluigi Penzo when, in the summer of 2021, the metamorphosis finally took root. The design that the team and sponsor had been crafting for nearly a year was ready to rock. A perfect symbiosis between fashion and a sense of belonging illuminated Venezia F.C.’s social media and its landing page. In no time, the club was on everybody’s lips, resulting in the jersey being sold out. The apparel design incorporated various symbols from Venice and its culture, but the highlight was the transformation of a simple kit into a couture item. Additionally, the communication strategy was extraordinary. The collaboration with Greek model Theopisti Pourliotopoulou, posing as if she were participating in a modelling photoshoot, resulted in widely trending content for weeks. It wasn’t just a society impact; it translated into an astonishing record-breaking sales. Yes, to be clear, the first-ever promotion to Serie A in twenty years played a significant role, but we’re talking about an average team achieving global recognition leaving football behind. People from all corners of the globe, especially from the United Kingdom, Western Europe, the United States, South Korea, and Japan, purchased kits inspired by the meaningful insight behind the message. That’s incredible. Nobody cares about the number on the back of the shirt or whether they win or lose; it’s all about the sense of belonging to a worldwide fashion brand.
Continuing with the topic of apparel, another marvelous idea from the marketing area was establishing a flagship store in a non-conventional manner. Clubs typically adorn their stores with a multitude of shirts, including names of top-team goalscorers or merchandise like scarves. However, Ted Philipakos went above and beyond and created a boutique. The main store located at Calle Larga Mazzini inspires elegance from every wall, providing a customer experience as if they were trying on outfits at Armani or Valentino. Moreover, in addition to the four kits per season crafted by Kappa and other club merchandise, Ted and his management secured additional collaborations with different brands to elevate the point of sale experience. One notable collaboration was with Lido, a local swimwear label that undoubtedly strengthened the brand’s ties to the Venetian roots in the brand strategy. But the most spectacular, from my point of view, was the collaboration with Nivelcrack, a Korean brand that seamlessly blends fashion and football. In this instance, products featuring the winged lion are sold in an intricately designed cafe, which functions not only as a football store but also as a unique business venture. Venezia F.C. props and even a stand painted with the club colours dominate this intriguing point of sale. Definitely, an amazing expansion for growing its fanbase.
Last but not least, continuing with sports results and fans, the team is currently striving for promotion to Serie A, despite the setback of relegation in the past year. The strategy is executed as if the team were playing at a top level, but it faces challenges when confronted with tense situations. Ultras, along with common fans, often find it hard to embrace modernities and new-era procedures. They seize any opportunity to blame CEO Niederauer, accusing him of being more focused on the business side than on the pitch. It’s challenging to keep everyone happy, and some criticise the executive management for seemingly abandoning the traditions of old football. I don’t blame them. The world is changing, and the needs are different. Football clubs are a way of life for many people, holding tremendous importance in their lives. Effecting change in a way that satisfies both fans and management is a complex challenge.
Venezia F.C. has undergone an incredible transformation over the last four years, gaining recognition worldwide. Making a sports institution famous not just for its results but for the brand itself is something admirable and accessible to only a select number of marketing experts. Completely revamping the club’s identity, securing a new technical sponsor, and taking it up a notch through social media channels and effective collaborations—all aimed at turning the club into a cool, fashionable lifestyle brand. Ted Philipakos, the driving force behind this achievement, left the club last February and is currently serving as the CEO at the Greek second-tier side Athens Kallithea FC, alongside Sonya Kondratenko, who is performing media chief executive as it did at Venice. Naturally, his success in Italy is reflective of his current work, influenced by the unique environment of the Pierluigi Penzo hosts. Perhaps we’ll be hearing about another fashion-forward club in the future.