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In late 2017, Rare was engaged to rebrand the West Coast Eagles for the first time since 1999. Working to a tight brief provided by the Club, Rare developed a series of creative territories underpinned by the Club’s newly endorsed brand proposition – “Live it all”.
Ranging from ‘refinement’ through to ‘transformation’, the brand territories were presented to a range of key stakeholders – including marketing, events and hospitality, corporate communications, merchandise and operations – all with varying requirements around the brand.
Two preferred territories were then comprehensively tested with Members, fans and representatives from the community across a range of key brand attributes.
The favoured territory was then narrowed down to two final proposed brand identities, which were presented to the entire West Coast Eagles staff, the Leadership Team within the playing group, the Board and a select group of West Coast Eagles members of varying ages and backgrounds – to determine the final brand identity to be refined through to approval.
The engagement undertaken by Rare was extensive, and necessary to ensure the approved brand would be embraced by West Coast Eagles Members and supporters across the state.
In addition, the level of intricacy associated with the design – in line with the Club’s newly refined brand proposition, was also comprehensive, with key considerations including:
— A desire to return to gold and Royal blue as the Club’s primary colours, with gold to be the hero;
— A recommendation from Rare to increase the prominence of “Eagles” within the brandmark vs. “West Coast” to better reflect the Club’s broad supporter base Australia-wide;
— The desire for the Eagles icon to be as realistic as possible as a reflection of its significance to the Indigenous community; and
— The practical requirement for the Eagles head to face east towards the MCG.
Working through the Christmas 2016 holiday break Rare was able to deliver a brandmark that met all of these aforementioned requirements.
The outcome was exceptional, with the Club posting record merchandise sales, boosted further by the Premiership win in September 2018.
“We needed to strike a balance between realism and dynamism to create a modern brandmark that was also true to the heritage of the Club.”
