By David Owen
June 3 – Real Madrid appear to have taken a leaf out of French rugby club Stade Français’s marketing handbook, introducing a pink change strip for the 2014-15 season.
Content promoting the new Adidas kit has started to appear, using a “wear it or fear it” catch-phrase.
While the move might turn the faces of traditionalists a similar “fuchsia” colour to the shirts themselves, and while you might argue that winning the European Cup for a 10th time ought to do more for merchandise sales than any amount of sartorial tinkering, Stade’s experience suggests that pink works.
When I interviewed Max Guazzini, then the Paris club’s President a few years ago, after it too had introduced a pink away strip, he told me that the pink gear accounted for 70 percent of Stade’s replica kit sales.
This was part of a calculated marketing strategy to make the once obscure club, situated well away from France’s rugby heartland, stand out.
Another well-known example of this was the nude calendar featuring Stade players that the club started publishing under the “Dieux du Stade” (Gods of the Stadium) title.
“In communications, it is always by trying something different that you attract attention,” Guazzini told me. “We have always dared…You have to seduce the public, especially in places such as Paris [with its many alternative attractions].”
One area where Real have always resisted any urge to try something different is in its first-choice strip, which has featured white shirts for well over 100 years. In this respect, 2014-15 will be no different.