May 3 – Olympique Marseilles has hired one of the world’s leading advertising and marketing agencies, McCANN France, to carry out a club rebranding, develop a communications strategy and lead the ticket marketing effort for the 2017-18 season.
The initiative comes out of the strategic plan for the club – the OM Champion project – instituted by new owner Frank McCourt.
The McCANN campaign will be designed to push the club brand on the global stage as well as wider in France, but without losing its roots in the Marseilles community, according to a statement on the club website.
“We are very pleased with this new collaboration, and very proud to be able to accompany a brand as prestigious and powerful as OM, in the writing of the next pages of its history,” said Bruno Tallent, president of McCANN France. “McCANN’s ambition has always been to accompany major brands and companies in the important stages of their lives. OM is a football club but above all an international brand, which engages and fascinates millions of fans.”
Frank McCourt took over control of OM at the end of last year for an estimated $45 million, promising to overhaul the club and restore it to its former glory. The US businessman was the former owner of Major League Baseball club the LA Dodgers.
McCourt bought the club from Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, the Russian-born chairwoman of Louis Dreyfus Commodities trading house, who controlled the club after the death of her husband Robert in 2009. Under Margarita the club had lost ground in the French league at the time that Qatari-backed Paris St Germain started a period of dominance.
Jacques-Henri Eyraud, President of the Management Board of Olympique de Marseille: “Our first objective is to improve our performance in the field and in all areas of club management. As we progress, we want to gradually take the floor to develop in France and internationally this brand OM whose identity is so strong.”
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