Brandishing: Stade Francais

Ugly Beautiful, Non? There are many dimensions to the success of Parisian Rugby Club - Stade Francais - and pink shirts are one of them. Pink shirts, and sometimes pink shorts - stretched like delicate sausage-skins over the mammoth frames of their prop forwards.

In 1992 the radio-station entrepreneur Max Guazzini bought the club, then languishing in the lower orders and playing in front of deux hommes et un petit chien.
Today, with bold branding at the heart of his efforts, Guazzini has a club which regularly commands crowds of 50,000 - at family-friendly fireworks-dazzled games.
The marketing know-how is right out of the 'difference versus indifference' text-book (if / when I get around to writing the book). How better to redefine perceptions of a just-for-blokes sport than to clad the team in shocking / stunning pink kit. And to keep splashing the story with an annual update - Parisians are treated to a new take on bold rugby fashion every twelve months (along with an artful calendar that might make Helmut Newton's lens shake).
And - they're successful: showing that strong brands collect trophies, win euros and attract top talent. Like all good challenger brands, he has grown the category as well as his own share. Paris claimed only 5000 rugby fans when he started, now le ballon-parc figure is more like 80,000.

Vive le difference!