In a society burdened by diabetes, the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee anticipated the need of leveraging sport as the driving force to embrace a better and healthier life. SAOC created SaudiSport, its new masterbrand, together with Interbrand, the leading brand consultancy, to represent a shared national vision of an even brighter future, with noble ambition for socioeconomic prosperity, working steadily to nurture and develop the practice of sport in everyday life.
Creating a winning brand with a social purpose
The new brand, SaudiSport, strives to enhance every individual’s access to greater enjoyment and well-being through the practice of sport, and this stems from the brand idea “Proud to achieve. Determined to win.” On a competitive Olympic level, with the development of the Team Saudi brand, SAOC is determined to win the hearts of the Kingdom as well as the Olympic medals that will recognize and reward their efforts. This ambitious spirit has been defined and delivered through the strategic and creative strategy built by Interbrand, which enables the SaudiSport masterbrand to overarch all other brands and lead all content and communications campaigns through its innovative new visual universe.
SAOC’s new strategy and identity will empower vision to create an even brighter future for KSA through continuous growth as a “national pride brand” with a strong and relevant purpose of contributing to Saudis’ healthier lives.
CALLIGRAFFITI: SaudiSport’s ground-breaking typography and brand experience
SaudiSport has bet on a new visual universe called Calligraffiti. It was born from combining Arabic calligraphy and urban art (graffiti). Together they have created an engaging symbolic visual universe around SaudiSport, which contributed to bringing the best out of tradition and novelty and envisioning SAOC’s future. In terms of the logotype of SaudiSport, it originates from three concepts: the palm tree as the national symbol of KSA, the wings of the falcon as a characteristic animal of the Kingdom and the hands of an athlete, ready to receive a ball. Based on Arabic roots, Calligraffiti is to be portrayed for the future.
From a color standpoint, SaudiSport is depicted in two main colors: dark green, considered “Rational Green”, which is inspired by the Saudi Arabian flag and represents the link between the brand and the Kingdom, and light green or “Emotional Green,” taken from the palm tree and standing for the active and dynamic part of the brand.
Interbrand has also helped the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee in defining its brand architecture, hierarchically identifying relationships amongst all its brands. This has encompassed visually redefining the brands for SAOC, the Olympic Team and its federation brands, and defining the brand applications, photographic style, layout and co-branding strategies for all of the above.
And this is just the beginning for SAOC which launched SaudiSport publicly on March 27. The new SaudiSport brand was launched publicly at an event in Riyadh celebrated by more than 700 attendees, including the Saudi Royal Family. All of the brands’ implementation (uniforms, stationery, collateral and merchandising) will be made public over the coming months. The Olympic Committee has a bright future ahead and it will be exciting to see what comes next. Sport plays a crucial social and economic role in our lives and SAOC has anticipated the transformation needed to be able to make it a truly relevant brand.
