dear nike,
i am writing in regard to your latest football kit designs currently being showcased by many club and national football teams.
although your business model is to make a profit, you are also in the business of making quality usable product and (dare i mention) customer satisfaction. i know which one of the preceding values i hold highest, i wonder, looking at the kits on offer, which one you do?
the scale of your company and, by extension, the size of your design department dictates that you have the resources and talent in your staffing to provide excellent bespoke cutting edge designs for each of your 'partners'. furthermore, im sure your designers would also want to showcase their talents if given the chance.
alas, i believe that you have misunderstood the footballing community and the people who follow their football teams. coming, as nike do, from a non-football industry you may have misread the core values of these football supporters.
football is not just about a game, its not just about winning, its not just about support.....its about identity. its about an association with those around you, those who pull for the same goal (literally and metaphorically). its about friendships and sacrifice and dedication. its about recognizing a fellow supporter in a crowd, or in the street, or even on the other side of the world and knowing that they are a kindred soul.
i dont like your new football strips, its not that i dont like the design per-se, its the generic design that does not provide individual identity to a football team, to MY team, it provides a brand...YOUR brand. its not all about YOU, you are only a part of the football sport process, a necessary partner. the football strips you are producing are just that, you are literally stripping teams of their identity and stamping your own.
you will not see any great love for these football strips from true football fans, why do i want to wear a top that looks the same as another teams? why do i want to be mistaken for a fan of a different club to help your bottom line profit? why on earth would i wear a strip that looks on the whole like football uniform......a nike football uniform?
a part of me thinks that maybe its me and my generation who are out of sync with new trends, maybe the younger generation dont fully understand what is happening with this standardization development, or maybe they dont care....if this is the case then football truly is lost.
i wont be buying your new football uniform, not for my beloved club nor for my beloved country, instead i will sink headily into the nostalgia of a retro kit that takes me back to the days when identities were passionately preserved and the football clubs crest was more relevant than the sportswear manufacturers brand.
yours,
a football fan.
cc english FA
cc premier league
thats that got off my chest, thanks for listening!!
