Hayley Read.
For the sake of the country, Hayley Read reckons Australia’s World Cup team needs to ditch the coat of arms and double down on the kangaroo.
The biggest winners of the World Cup won’t all be decided on the pitch. Off the field, the tournament has already reshaped how millions of people see the countries behind the teams.
With global attention, brand salience and tourism dollars at stake, should Team Australia’s brand have a more singular focus for the next World Cup? I reckon it’s time to send the emu to the bench and go all in on the kangaroo.
Battle of the brands
World Cup exposure, with audience numbers in the billions, carries with it not just a chance to tell a story about soccer, but a chance to communicate a broader story about the essence of a country’s culture. Take a look at the Vikings from Norway – arguably the winners of this year’s Country Brand World Cup.
In such a media frenzy, a team’s branding must be instantly recognisable and attributable to the country. For Australia, alongside the green and gold is a brandmark that closely replicates the Australian Coat of Arms, with a soccer ball in the middle.
Perfectly recognisable for us Australians. But it begs the question: is this the strongest visual asset that the rest of the world naturally associates with our country? And does it have strong storytelling potential?
Australia’s famous kangaroo. Plus an emu
Among the 48 team crests in this year’s World Cup, there are proud lions, birds of prey, a shark, an elephant. Only Australia has two different animals.
Yes, yes, because it’s the Coat of Arms. It equally features two animals.
But should our soccer team?
The team’s official nickname is the Socceroos. The under-17 Australian side is the Joeys.
Far beyond soccer, from the America’s Cup to the Olympics, to RAAF planes in WWII, Australians have found courage by sporting a boxing kangaroo.
Australia’s country brandmark is the kangaroo. Around the world, a product made in Australia is denoted by a kangaroo. In 2022, Tourism Australia made a CGI kangaroo the hero of its G’day Australia campaign.
CMO Susan Coghill explained at the time, “The use of famous and recognisable Australian icons, such as a kangaroo, reinforces existing memory structures with consumers, and reminds them of what they already know and love about Australia.”
Australia is synonymous with the kangaroo, pure and simple. So do we need to leave room for an emu? Is it time to keep the Coat of Arms a separate entity, and focus the Socceroos team crest on a single, proud kangaroo?
This wouldn’t be breaking with tradition. In fact, the opposite. The very first logo for the Australian soccer team in 1922 featured a single kangaroo. It’s time to bring it back.
The salience of a single story
The Norwegian football team have had a single narrative this year: ‘the Vikings are coming’.
From the team photo, taken with authentic armour on the actual fjords of Norway, to the viral videos of the crowd’s Viking row, the team created many of the tournament’s most memorable moments.
Norwegian Football Federation President Lise Klaveness is proud of the strategy. She told The New York Times: “We recognised early on that the Viking narrative would follow us regardless. That’s why we chose to take ownership of it and fill it with what truly defines us.”
The single-minded storytelling is already having results. The attention is described as ‘incredibly valuable’ by Norway’s Director of Tourism, who stated an 80% boost in Viking-related searches on the Visit Norway channels.
Who knows what famous brand moments and stories Australia might be missing out on.
A single story that starts with a kangaroo
Team Australia must recognise that to the world, we are the kangaroo-toting Socceroos from the land Down Under. We need to take ownership of the kangaroo and, like the Vikings, fill the narrative with what truly defines us.
For the next World Cup, imagine a green and gold brandmark with a single bold kangaroo. It has a fighting spirit and a steely determination, with a dose of Aussie optimism. It has a similar authority and pride to the Coat of Arms but is the seed for a new era of Australian sports team storytelling. Who knows how far it could take us in 2030?
Hayley Read is a Senior Strategist at branding agency Principals.