Responses by Athletics.

Background: With the World Cup approaching, soccer.com came to us with an ambition to stand tall and visualize its place in soccer with a striking brand campaign. soccer.com is the heart and soul of soccer in America, a brand that broke onto the scene a decade before the ’94 World Cup and has since helped the sport take root here and develop its own uniquely American culture.

The campaign speaks to the many sides of soccer that extend beyond the game into culture: kit collectors who might not even play, armchair tacticians, weekend warriors, halftime orange-slice providers and youth academy stars, among others. Rather than the rarefied air of elite professional soccer, it lives where soccer.com has made a name for itself and become indispensable at weekend youth tournaments and five-a-side pickup games.

Design thinking: We landed on a single idea to describe the all-encompassing culture soccer.com has helped build—Everything Soccer. soccer.com wanted to cement its legacy on the ground level, where its constant support and involvement have made the biggest difference. So, we anchored the campaign there.

As a brand innovation studio, we approach campaigns more holistically than a traditional ad agency might. We don’t just create custom assets to run for a limited period; we build the systems and tools to re-create, scale and add to them. For soccer.com, that meant Everything Soccer extends beyond digital banners and commercial TV spots to the brand identity, website and tools that make creating these branded assets more seamless.

Challenges: One inherent challenge was designing for range. The campaign had to speak to most teams and players in the world and shift across various geographic and team contexts while still holding together as one identity.

Favorite details: The color system. Because the campaign speaks to soccer’s range and fandom, we designed a punchy palette that lets us speak to most teams and players in the world. We’re also proud of the copy toolkit: a kit (no pun intended) of simple copy constructs and a library of headlines that speak to the variety of products available on soccer.com.

Time constraints: The only timing cue in the material was that the work was built around the approaching World Cup. We pushed the campaign toward building reusable modular systems and tools, allowing for a wide variety of use cases and activations.

Specific project demands: One thing that likely made it easier is that we are longtime customers and fans. Because we already understood the brand, our team jumped at the chance to help tell this story.

athletics.nyc