Pielle Livorno

#vantiamocene: an identity-driven rebranding straight to the heart of the fans

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Pielle Livorno

Pielle Livorno: a new USA-style brand identity, built in full respect of the brand’s key identity traits.

Skills
Content creation
Digital product design
Front/back end development
Strategic branding

Services
Analysis and insight research
Brand strategy
Brand design
Content strategy
Content production
UX/UI design

Year
2022 - 2025

Website

Pielle Livorno: a new USA-style brand identity, built in full respect of the brand’s key identity traits.

In Livorno, being neutral when it comes to basketball is practically impossible. The rivalry between the city’s two basketball teams, Pielle and Libertas, is in fact one of the most passionate and heated in Italy—on a par with, if not even stronger than, that between Bologna’s two most famous and storied clubs, Virtus and Fortitudo. It’s a rivalry as old as the two clubs themselves, deep-rooted and passed down from generation to generation, which over the last two years—after the glory days of the 1980s—has regained momentum thanks to the fact that both teams are competing at the top end of the table.

With the sporting clash reignited, Livorno derbies have once again become a true spectacle of choreographies, chants, and banter—and, above all, they’ve been drawing record crowds that would make Serie A1 jealous. Building on this shared and deeply felt sense of belonging, we developed the new image of Pielle Livorno, aiming to engage the “Pielle” supporters in a renewal journey that still respects the brand’s key identity traits.

Website

The client

Officially founded in 1960 under the aegis of the Compagnia dei Lavoratori Portuali, Pielle Livorno (formerly Pallacanestro Livorno) is a historic name in Italian basketball. A key player in the 1980s—during the golden years of Livorno basketball—it helped build a movement that produced internationally renowned coaches and players.

After the highly contested merger with Libertas Livorno in 1991 and the subsequent financial and sporting collapses, the club disappeared from professional basketball for several years. It nevertheless managed to fight its way back up from the amateur leagues, reaching Serie B in 2020.

The challenge

After an analysis phase and discussions with Pielle Livorno’s management, we defined the main goals of the communication plan, all focused on the need to make the positive results achieved by the new ownership clearly visible—and to claim them with pride:

Goals:

Create Pielle Livorno’s new brand identity.
Increase Pielle Livorno’s brand awareness.
Provide Pielle Livorno with all the online and offline communication tools needed to engage with all its key audiences.
Package and support the season-ticket campaign and merchandising sales.
Make Pielle Livorno more attractive to potential sponsors and technical partners.

The solutions

Getting the fanbase to welcome such a major change—while even making them an active part of the process—was undoubtedly the most important success of a project that involved a complete overhaul of Pielle Livorno’s entire communication system:

Development of the brand strategy and content strategy.
Design of the brand’s visual identity, including a new mascot—tougher and full of character.
Support in drafting the written contents.
Video art direction.
Design and development of the new website.
Design of the format and the main communication tools.
Design and management of social campaigns.
Redesign and production of the entire merchandising range.
Design and production of the season-ticket campaign, supported by a “low-cost” viral video made by involving the local community in a basketball game among the fruit stalls of Livorno’s Piazza Cavallotti market—an identity-defining location for an identity-defining brand.