When will we see Uniteds next brand change?

[King7Eric]

I love the fact that we are called The Red Devils. It makes us stand apart and especially during Fergie's time, we literally were the devils of the league with a team full of cnuts( from opponents point of view anyway) like Keane, Stam, Cantona, Beckham, Scholes, Neville, Rio, Rooney, Ronaldo and so on that always won.

I don't think we need to change anything associated with the Man Utd brand.

 

[Deery]

Yeah, I've no idea!

I made a thread about the club crest over 10 years ago now. Surprisingly almost all the photos are still up: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/the-club-crest.294360/

Nice thread that.

 

[King7Eric]

Ethics moves along. Maybe we'll be getting calls that it's offensive to Muslims/Christians/Jewish people. Something like this

Pretty sure as society moves forward we'll be moving away from religious beliefs playing an active role in society, rather than the opposite as you are suggesting.

 

[Cast5]

Change the kit to purple, rename Old Trafford and knock down Sir Matt Busby’s statue. I find the the whole ‘Manchester United’ thing a bit cringe anyway..

 

[arthurka]

'I twitched my ass'

Sexy and horny for sure.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Change the kit to purple, rename Old Trafford and knock down Sir Matt Busby’s statue. I find the the whole ‘Manchester United’ thing a bit cringe anyway..

Now you mention it, never liked Carrington, the stadium, or anything about the club. Convert OT to a big multi-storey car park and we'll just play away games.

 

[Cast5]

Now you mention it, never liked Carrington, the stadium, or anything about the club. Convert OT to a big multi-storey car park and we'll just play away games.

Exactly I always found it odd that we even play football why don’t we just play Golf? We could just turn Old Trafford into one big driving range, just put a big net up in front of the Stretford End.

 

[Grande]

No, George Follows, one of the journalists who died at Munich had already introduced the Red Devils nickname. https://www.manutd.com/en/history/munich-remembered/the-men-we-lost/more-journalists


Thanks, you've saved me replying there!

I do like to spread your (and others’) work on this! It’s pure gold (not green).

 

[Carl]

Change the kit to purple, rename Old Trafford and knock down Sir Matt Busby’s statue. I find the the whole ‘Manchester United’ thing a bit cringe anyway..

I've never really understood this kind of attitude on this topic. I'd understand it if nothing had ever changed, but we've had crest redesigns several times throughout the history of the club. It's absolutely normal to freshen something up as time moves on.

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

I'd like to see you really lean into the Satanist thing.

Change the cartoon satan on your badge to the one from the film Legend, rename the stadium "the theatre of nightmares", change the music you come out to some death metal. That sort of thing.

This!! Totally and utterly this, and change Fred the red to jigsaw riding around the touch line on his little tricycle for the whole match.

 

[Gopher Brown]

I think we should rebrand entirely to get away from being known as ‘the club that signed Garry Birtles’ which is all I ever hear.

Move the team to Guildford to get closer to where the majority of our fans are from.

Nobody likes red either, too aggressive, so I think we should also change the club colours to light blue, which would also make us more commercially competitive in Micronesia, which is surely a market with unlimited potential.

 

[Raredaredevil]

People are always against change because of nostalgia and sentiment when that happens, we will live with it as time passes. There was a huge uproar over Juventus's logo change among their fans when the new logo was rolled out in 2017 but I was working in a company back and my colleague who was an Italian Juventus fan told me that he kind of agreed with the new logo change, as the club had to come up with a new design for their advertising and branding as the old logo makes it hard for them to sort of "blend in" with their design. He is a designer though so he understands the concept, which a normal fan wouldn't.

I thought Chelsea new logo was sort of copying ours. City's new logo is cringe.

 

[hubbuh]

From an older thread on this topic



That's really nice and modern. Though I probably wouldn't like that to be our full time logo, but maybe on an away shirt it would be good.

@Silverman started that thread as well

 

[Carl]

@Silverman started that thread as well

Hahaha feck, I didnt even notice that. So for exactly how long have you wanted a rebranding @Silverman ? We know it's at least 3 years..

 

[decorativeed]

Nice thread that.

Thanks. There was an interesting development with the below part of it:

Also, I tried my hand at designing a new version of the crest with Illustrator (and Photoshop) the other day as I'm trying to learn to use that program (click for full size 1680x1050 wallpaper):

Basically I was at the match back in 2015, and I saw a supporter wearing a shirt with what looked just like that crest I made, and a Sharp logo. Turned out someone had made a batch of custom shirts and used my crest image for it. Last year I stumbled across one on ebay and am now the owner of it. They did a nice job.

 

[Deery]

Thanks. There was an interesting development with the below part of it:


Basically I was at the match back in 2015, and I saw a supporter wearing a shirt with what looked just like that crest I made, and a Sharp logo. Turned out someone had made a batch of custom shirts and used my crest image for it. Last year I stumbled across one on ebay and am now the owner of it. They did a nice job.

Excellent I bet you were well chuffed with that outcome

 

[2 man midfield]

When I was a kid I used to think that ship was the team bus.

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

I quite like the devils tag, seems to wind up some religious people too which is a bonus

 

[Sandikan]

Well we can't be called the Reds as that's Liverpools nickname so we would have to come up with something entirely different and I don't see that happening.

 

[Sandikan]

Pretty sure as society moves forward we'll be moving away from religious beliefs playing an active role in society, rather than the opposite as you are suggesting.

Doubt it.
Society is moving more and more to stripping out anything that can possible offend anyone.
So you could very definitely see "devils" being slowly brushed into history. In fairness, I can't remember the last time I heard us referred to with it anyway.

 

[Jippy]

I'd like to see you really lean into the Satanist thing.

Change the cartoon satan on your badge to the one from the film Legend, rename the stadium "the theatre of nightmares", change the music you come out to some death metal. That sort of thing.

I hope Ed is reading this post. We've had the theatre of screams headline so many times since SAF retired, we might as well run with it.

 

[Rojofiam]

0 reason to change our badge, it's one of the best ones in football IMO.

Also, both Juventus and City had much better previous badges than their current ones

 

[Carl]

Well we can't be called the Reds as that's Liverpools nickname so we would have to come up with something entirely different and I don't see that happening. I'd like us to update our badge, the current one is fine but I think it's time to update it as most of the other big clubs have.

You've misspelled bin dipping cnuts.

 

[Botim]

I hate to break it to you guys, but the Belgian NT has been called The Red Devils (Rode Duivels/Diables Rouges) since 1906!

Current logo:

I see United moving to something much more simple like this as well. I really like the Juve re-brand, probably the most original in European football right now.

 

[Cloud7]

Changing a worldwide known advertising name is a dangerous and bold idea.
Imagine if McDonald's suddenly changed their name to David's Burgers.
The sponsorships would hate it as you are effectively throwing a major name in the bin and potentially ruining their profits.

Would people who already eat at McDonald's continue to eat at David's Burgers? I think they likely would but with skepticism.

As for United, it'd take a lot. There were the rumours years ago that if we were taken over by Saudis/Quatar that we would have to drop the devil imagery but we would have the financial backing to do so.
But when hundreds of sponsors know our brand and branding, it's a dangerous move.

It sadly has nothing to do with supporters or future supporters and solely to do with income.

I don't think we'll see it anytime soon

David’s burgers made me laugh a lot more than it should have

 

[Giggsy13]

Reality:

Manchester United is the most recognised sporting brand on the planet.

Caf logic:

"Let's change the brand"

100%. There have been some terrible threads lately. However this still doesn’t top the cringe of “would you rather city have Messi or Haaland”. Boredom is a SOB for the cafe.

 

[decorativeed]

Reality:

Manchester United is the most recognised sporting brand on the planet.

Caf logic:

"Let's change the brand"

Actually the New York Yankees are, according to Forbes.

Fact is, all sports clubs, big companies and brands refresh their branding fairly regularly.

Since we registered our current crest, almost every other Premier League team has changed their crest at least once. The world's biggest companies do it regularly too - Google has had seven different logos since 1997. Apple has changed their logo twice. Amazon three times. It obviously hasn't had a detrimental effect on their branding or visibility.

I'm not saying we should change just because everyone else is, by the way. We should change because our current crest is a pretty clumsy, outdated piece of design. That the club now almost exclusively use monochrome versions of it instead of the full colour gradient one shows they are aware of this. I don't think it needs to be as drastic as the Juventus crest, although I do like that a lot, but something sleeker and more modern would be great.

 

[King7Eric]

Doubt it.
Society is moving more and more to stripping out anything that can possible offend anyone.
So you could very definitely see "devils" being slowly brushed into history. In fairness, I can't remember the last time I heard us referred to with it anyway.

I think this is more a consequence of the cancel culture we have seen in the last couple of years but already it is starting to face backlash. But anyway this is a discussion for another forum.

Long story short I hope we stay the Red Devils, otherwise I'm got to be mighty offended and through an online strop.

 

[Sandikan]

I think this is more a consequence of the cancel culture we have seen in the last couple of years but already it is starting to face backlash. But anyway this is a discussion for another forum.

Long story short I hope we stay the Red Devils, otherwise I'm got to be mighty offended and through an online strop.

You'll just go and support whoever is winning, like you did when attaching yourself to United

 

[acnumber9]

Are badge changes etc not just ways to protect trademarks anyway?

 

[mark_a]

A lot of these sort of traditions and associations are quite arbitrary really, when you look back at the history.

You'll never walk alone" - I believe this was commonly sung at quite a few clubs back in the 60s, Liverpool ended up "owning" this tradition, but it wasn't really theirs when you go back. I think when that show tune was sung by Gerry & the Pacemakers the association was made stronger. It still slightly annoys me that one, for those reasons. Though City adopted "Blue Moon", and the relevance of "...you saw me standing alone" just makes me chuckle about their stadium!

United wore all red before Liverpool did. I think they used to play in red and white and it was probably Shankly who introduced all red later. United played Real Madrid in 1957 and wore all red at Busby's insistence. As a "practice" we wore that kit against Bolton (I think) in the league.

It might be nice to get "Football Club" back on the badge? But aside from that, what seems to have happened at other clubs is that they're redesigned their crests in the 80s/90s/00s to something sh*t and are now going back to something more classic and timeless, with reference to their history. Ours has been largely unchanged, save for minor variations. The 1968 Manchester Crest is great -it might be fun to reference that somehow with new kits/branding.

I suppose my point is that "branding" has a more legal/formal/corporate feel about it now, going back these things were fairly loose, but when looked back on people seem to feel like they were "always like that". In terms of "branding", I'm still slightly confused why the club seems to barely mention the founding year, 1878? 2018 was the 140th year of United, I'm sure I don't remember much about that?

Personally I'd like us to go back to having more interesting (mad) mascots, in the 30s and 40s we had "Hoppy" Thorne, a bloke with one leg who before games, according to wikipedia ".. would strip off his clothes, down to his running gear, jump over the fence around the playing surface, and hop or run around the pitch, depending on whether he'd attached his false leg or not. Then there was Billy the goat, an actual goat, who actually travelled with the team (really wikipedia?!) in 1905/6 and 1909. He met his end from alcohol poisoning after hitting the celebrations too hard after our 1909 FA Cup win! You couldn't make this stuff up!

I might write to Adidas and suggest our next kit has a badge with a resplendent Billy the Goat, and some kind of "Never forget" or "G.O.A.T" type inspirational phrase added. We've got a brilliant and wonderous history and we might as well have fun referencing it!

Branding now leaves the humourless taste of PR companies and lawyers copyrighting stuff. Didn't Liverpool try and copyright the Liverbird?! Wow, that must annoy the other 50% of football supporters there who support Everton and indeed the vast majority of people who I won't give a monkeys about football! Presumably to clamp down on counterfeit goods? What a shame to deprive people of classics like the 2013/4 Premier League Champions shirts !!

 

[Deery]

A lot of these sort of traditions and associations are quite arbitrary really, when you look back at the history.

You'll never walk alone" - I believe this was commonly sung at quite a few clubs back in the 60s, Liverpool ended up "owning" this tradition, but it wasn't really theirs when you go back. I think when that show tune was sung by Gerry & the Pacemakers the association was made stronger. It still slightly annoys me that one, for those reasons. Though City adopted "Blue Moon", and the relevance of "...you saw me standing alone" just makes me chuckle about their stadium!

United wore all red before Liverpool did. I think they used to play in red and white and it was probably Shankly who introduced all red later. United played Real Madrid in 1957 and wore all red at Busby's insistence. As a "practice" we wore that kit against Bolton (I think) in the league.

It might be nice to get "Football Club" back on the badge? But aside from that, what seems to have happened at other clubs is that they're redesigned their crests in the 80s/90s/00s to something sh*t and are now going back to something more classic and timeless, with reference to their history. Ours has been largely unchanged, save for minor variations. The 1968 Manchester Crest is great -it might be fun to reference that somehow with new kits/branding.

I suppose my point is that "branding" has a more legal/formal/corporate feel about it now, going back these things were fairly loose, but when looked back on people seem to feel like they were "always like that". In terms of "branding", I'm still slightly confused why the club seems to barely mention the founding year, 1878? 2018 was the 140th year of United, I'm sure I don't remember much about that?

Personally I'd like us to go back to having more interesting (mad) mascots, in the 30s and 40s we had "Hoppy" Thorne, a bloke with one leg who before games, according to wikipedia ".. would strip off his clothes, down to his running gear, jump over the fence around the playing surface, and hop or run around the pitch, depending on whether he'd attached his false leg or not. Then there was Billy the goat, an actual goat, who actually travelled with the team (really wikipedia?!) in 1905/6 and 1909. He met his end from alcohol poisoning after hitting the celebrations too hard after our 1909 FA Cup win! You couldn't make this stuff up!

I might write to Adidas and suggest our next kit has a badge with a resplendent Billy the Goat, and some kind of "Never forget" or "G.O.A.T" type inspirational phrase added. We've got a brilliant and wonderous history and we might as well have fun referencing it!

Branding now leaves the humourless taste of PR companies and lawyers copyrighting stuff. Didn't Liverpool try and copyright the Liverbird?! Wow, that must annoy the other 50% of football supporters there who support Everton and indeed the vast majority of people who I won't give a monkeys about football! Presumably to clamp down on counterfeit goods? What a shame to deprive people of classics like the 2013/4 Premier League Champions shirts !!

Good post! In 2018 we brought out the 68’ jersey instead after 50 years of winning the European cup..

 

[Jam]

Oh god, this is definitely going to be an argument over the next 20 years isn't it. Like the redskins.

I like Red Devils.

This is nothing like the Redskins.

Unless I’m incredibly stupid and there’s a historically oppressed native population of Manchester called Devils.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

Oh god, this is definitely going to be an argument over the next 20 years isn't it. Like the redskins.

I like Red Devils.

Nothing like that. Red Devils is a bit silly but it’s not remotely offensive.

 

[stevoc]

Personally I'd like us to go back to having more interesting (mad) mascots, in the 30s and 40s we had "Hoppy" Thorne, a bloke with one leg who before games, according to wikipedia ".. would strip off his clothes, down to his running gear, jump over the fence around the playing surface, and hop or run around the pitch, depending on whether he'd attached his false leg or not. Then there was Billy the goat, an actual goat, who actually travelled with the team (really wikipedia?!) in 1905/6 and 1909. He met his end from alcohol poisoning after hitting the celebrations too hard after our 1909 FA Cup win! You couldn't make this stuff up!

You're onto something there it'd be great if we replaced Fred with a one legged alcoholic goat.

PS by Fred I mean the Red not the Brazilian midfielder. Though given his recent form a drunken one legged goat might just be an upgrade.

 

[decorativeed]

... Then there was Billy the goat, an actual goat, who actually travelled with the team (really wikipedia?!) in 1905/6 and 1909. He met his end from alcohol poisoning after hitting the celebrations too hard after our 1909 FA Cup win! You couldn't make this stuff up!

It's likely someone literally did make that up, which is why there's no reference on Wiki. The goat wasn't even called Billy, it was called Union. It was presented to Charlie Roberts in 1903 (even though the text says 1909, you can see the plaque actually says 1903), and unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) the story about the alcohol poisoning seems to have been a myth. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/472526185885854049/

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Maybe we should rename ourselves ‘The Holly Rollers’ to appease the religiously inclined.

 

[stevoc]

Do people really have a problem with the devil on the badge based on religious beliefs?

 

[MU655]

Does anyone even refer to Manchester United as the red devils, anymore? I haven't heard that term for ages.

I think its more of an American thing to call teams by names like that. I much prefer Manchester United; I only shorten it on here because I'm lazy.

I don't think it is impossible for the emblem to change. So long as the name remains.

Football is a bit different from normal companies. I don't think it would take long for the new logo to become recognisable. I think everyone knows Juventus's logo now, which only changed in 2017. The old one is almost forgotten.