The case for rebranding a football club

Last week, Newcastle United announced that they were taking the decision to update the club crest. According to the statement on the club's website, the current crest "was created in a different era" and "doesn't always translate well in today's digital world".

Let's explore what this means, why clubs choose to rebrand, and look at several recent rebranding projects to see what was involved.

Why would a club change its crest?

The reason given for Newcastle's rebranding is a common one. In the age of social media, clubs have more than one eye on their digital presence. A logo, as with any business's brand, should be instantly recognisable. The problem with things like phone screens is there's not much room for logos and they tend to be quite small, so the more intricate your design the harder it is to recognise quickly.

That's bad news for branding.

Speaking as a marketer, when you're rebranding a business - which is increasingly how football clubs see themselves these days - you want a logo that is simple, recognisable, and original. I was always told by designers that good logos should be designed to work in one colour, which is interesting to see in the context of Newcastle as they've tried a single colour version at times this season.

Ultimately, the club obviously feels like the current crest isn't suitable for their commercial plans.

Peterborough United are one of the more recent English teams to have also announced they're going down this route. Earlier in 2025, they said they were looking at a "brand evolution" that could involve a new crest.

Speaking to the BBC, the club's head of media and marketing, Clive Edwards, said they had to consider how the crest was used on platforms that didn't exist when the current one was created in 2008.

There is also the added production costs. More colours and intricate designs means merchandise can't be made as cheaply, which either eats into profit margins or increases prices for fans. Especially for embroidered logos.

Simplicity was also a goal for the Premier League when they did their own rebrand way back in 2016. Gone were the intricacies and multicoloured approach of the old logo, and instead it was replaced with something simple and instantly recognisable. Crucially, the lion's head could be used on its own as a logo mark without the league's name and it would still reflect the brand. This has been behind recent decisions from Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur to just use the Liver bird and cockerel, respectively.

While the digital era has been explicitly given as a reason for a lot of recent rebrands - like Norwich City, Juventus, and Cambridge United - there can be other reasons behind the decision too. Rebranding to position yourself differently to an audience, or shed a past reputation, is a common reason.

For a long time, the Czech First League would simply adapt the brand identity of the league's current sponsor. In 2024, they launched their own distinct brand so that they could have more control over their marketing and be "an attractive product for the younger generation".

The result lets them put their own stamp on their marketing and try to attract new fans who buy in to the new look and feel.

How do you do it well?

One of the better received rebrands of recent years happened at Norwich City. The club started with a consultation, rather than thrusting a design on fans. Design studio SomeOne won the work through a tender process and immediately started by consulting "5,000 supporters, club directors, club legends, fan groups, staff, first team, and academy players".

This ensures that fans feel they've been consulted from the beginning of the process, rather than at the end. Getting that early buy-in can be crucial to the success of the project as a whole.

It's a lesson Cambridge United learned the hard way in 2023 when they announced a new badge for fans to vote on, having had minimal consultation about the process. The club admitted they got it wrong, took a step back, and came back with a proper consultation process. They also published the results of the surveys with different groups to give full transparency.

And then there's the case of Aston Villa, who announced a rebrand, rolled it out, and then went back on it a year later due to it "not having the desired effect". The rebrand was revealed a week after the club hired a new president of business operations who has since said he wasn't aware of the impending change when he started.

If you're going to roll out a new identity, don't forget to make sure everyone agrees with it.

How Aston Villa are using Instagram to engage with an American audience

More news from the world of Aston Villa: at the beginning of April they launched a specific US-focused Instagram account. Given the club's increased profile this season thanks to their performances in the UEFA Champions League, this doesn't come as a huge surprise.

The club's original account has had a good level of growth this season, gaining 400k followers. Around half of that number joined following the January transfer window, boosted by some high profile signings. So now is probably a good time to capitalise (despite the fact this has probably been in the works behind the scenes for some time now).

One way they're differing content is by being more selective about what gets shared. In the US account's first 30 days there were 17 posts, compared to 381 on the original one. Information is being more carefully chosen, with final results being the main way match days are promoted overseas, rather than line-up graphics and updates.

When it comes to sharing match day information, they're very careful to tailor things to a US audience. This includes things like kick off times, as in the graphics below.

And they've leaned into the club's highest profile American fan, Tom Hanks. In this case, it's a collaborator post with the Premier League's US account - a good partnership, and one that can only help boost Villa's efforts to increase the account's following.

Speaking of followers, this has resulted in just over 7,000 followers since the account launched. Not a bad start.

Newcastle's increasing commitment to fan-focused content

Another repeat mention for Newcastle United here.

Over the past few months there's been a concerted effort to feature fans more in their content, whether that's through pre-match photography or showing the fans' match day perspectives with external content creators.

The latest example is this recent footage of supporters being filmed watching the games in the stadium with microphones attached, so we can experience first-hand the emotion of a game.

I'll never get tired of seeing fans front and centre of a club's content. If you spot any good examples of these - or if you're trying this kind of thing yourself - please send them my way.

Serie A subreddit set for first official AMA

More than a month since the partnership was first announced, we're finally seeing the first AMA (ask me anything) to be hosted by a professional sports league on Reddit.

Serie A's first Q&A will feature Christian Vieri and Ciro Ferrara. They'll be answering questions from 3pm CET on 13 May (today). You can see how it unfolds on Reddit here. I imagine there'll be quite a few interested parties checking it out.

Social media news and updates

Finally, some bits and pieces you might not be aware of:

• After testing out unlockable Reels from its own @design account recently, Instagram has allowed the Weeknd to use the feature to hide a clip from his new film behind a similar lock code. That particularly one has now expired, but there are some cool potential uses for this for kit reveals and new signing announcements.
• Threads has hit 350m monthly users. Someway off X (600m), but the gap isn't as big as it once was.
• Reddit Pro has some new profile tools for businesses (and they're all free).
• X is doing some testing of allowing upvotes and downvotes on content, similar to Reddit.

Thanks for reading. If you've made it this far, and you look after the social media channels for a football team, I'd appreciate it if you could complete the State of Football Social Media Survey. It's an annual survey where I attempt to understand the priorities for clubs over the next 12 months, with the results published anonymously.