Bowls rebrands for a new age

Bowls Australia and five State and Territory Associations have today unveiled new corporate brand identities, in an effort to better align the sport’s branding across state and territory borders.

The new branding, which has been adopted by Bowls Australia, Bowls ACT, Bowls NT, Bowls WA, Bowls SA and Bowls Tasmania, features consistent elements that tie the brands together as part of a suite of logos, while also incorporating individual icons and colours specific to each region.

It is envisaged that the initiative will help the organisations’ brands transcend state and territory borders, creating greater brand affinity and awareness among the 180,6730 registered members across 1,902 clubs, while also revitalising the sport’s brand that is presented to the marketplace, to boost the appeal of the sport further than the 623,281 annual regular social participants.

The primary element of the new-look logos is a tear-drop style enclosure, which represents the paths forehand and backhand bowls deliveries take towards the jack, while also boldly displaying the three most prominent aspects of the sport; a bowl, a jack and a green, to ensure greater recognition among the unconverted.

In honour of one of the nation’s most iconic symbols, the jack in Bowls Australia’s logo has been subtly replaced with a Southern Cross star.

A statement from Bowls Australia advises that “the flexible nature of the brand will allow the governing bodies to utilise the core elements of the design in sub-brands, including the suite of national and state events and high-performance programs, reinforcing a focused commitment to establish a consistent brand for the whole sport.”

The adoption of the consistent element in sub-branding is already publicly visible in two logos recently launched by Bowls Australia; the Bowls Premier League and Australian Jackaroos logos.

While the new logos can be seen in the six organisation’s corporate communications from today, the rebranding won’t impact the grassroots level of the sport, or effect the sport’s National Merchandising Program.

The National Merchandising Program logo, known to pennant-level-and-above bowlers nationwide because of the stipulation that it appear on competition clothing, will not be affected by this rebrand of Bowls Australia’s corporate logo.

Players can continue purchasing and wearing attire featuring the NMP ‘A’ logo.

Bowls Australia Chief Executive Neil Dalrymple said the move to contemporary, consistent branding will provide the sport with numerous benefits, stating “this initiative is a conscious effort to better brand the sport and align more closely with our strategic direction of collaboration and innovation.

“The new branding will enhance recognition in the marketplace and provide greater opportunity for commercial partnerships, which will benefit the sport as a whole.

“Through research, we discovered that our state and national bodies brands weren’t contemporary or aligned and lacked relevance, so the guiding principles of this rebrand was to establish a modern design, that could be incorporated into different tiers of sub-branding, such as teams and events, and visually articulated both bowls and the individual qualities of each region.”

The new logo is only one element of the rebrand for Bowls Australia, who also announced their intention to transition to the new website URL of www.bowls.com.au.

Bowls.com.au will become the main corporate homepage for the organisation, with www.bowlsaustralia.com.au redirecting to the new, shortened domain name.

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