New Stripes

Background:

The Bengals have always had one of the most iconic uniforms dating back to 1980 when they first unveiled the tiger-striped helmet. As Bengals wide receiver Cris Collinsworth said at that time, “When you wear a helmet like that, you better put up or shut up.” By the 2021 offseason, the current iteration of the uniform was 17 years old and a reminder of the uninspired seasons the team had while wearing them. It was time for a refresh that would reflect the new era of Joe Burrow-led Bengals football.

OBSTACLES:

The fans were demanding the 2004 uniforms to be retired, ASAP, but any uniform refresh is a two-year process through Nike. By the time of my arrival in 2020, the uniform redesign had been underway for more than a year, and at that time, we did not have a head of creative design at the Bengals and the project was without much direction. Perhaps the scariest prospect in all of this is the inherent scrutiny any uniform launch receives. This would be the content team’s first major project with national visibility and it was vital to get it right. We would just need to pray that the jersey wouldn’t leak on eBay via a crap photo of it on a hanger in front of a beige-white wall.

METHOD:

A year into the redesign, Elizabeth Blackburn, granddaughter of Mike Brown, joined the team and took over the project. With zero creative design experience, she saved the project by preventing some mistakes in the initial design, incorporating team history into the uniforms, and simplifying it overall. If the Bengals had a creative lead like they do today, the uniforms would have gone down a different path, but with Elizabeth's limited experience, the uniforms ended up being a success.

The uniform release was slated for a mid-April announcement, unfortunately, a leak on eBay would occur in early March. The poor lighting on an unironed misprint jersey would spark outcry from the fanbase that our next uniform was a disaster. The organization explored scrapping our April release and doing an impromptu photoshoot to show the uniform in a better light, but cooler heads prevailed and we continued with our plan for an April release.

For our video announcement, we would recruit the help of legend Chad Johnson who is notorious for wanting to still suit up and play, so obviously he had to be the first to wear the new uniform. Our set choice was an abandoned warehouse made primarily of concrete that we would dress up with real plants to mimic a “concrete jungle”, an ode to our notoriously concrete-heavy Paycor Stadium. Simultaneously, we created an exclusive experiential display where fans could be walked through the design process with Elizabeth Blackburn, see the uniforms for the first time, and even receive a professional picture of themselves wearing the new jerseys.

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Outcome:

Despite an additional leak from the NFL UK an hour before our unveil (timezones are tough for the Britts), our uniform announcement went live on April 19th, 2021. With a proper display, professional photo assets, a creative announcement video, and most importantly, proper context, the New Stripes uniform launch received positive national attention and tens of millions of impressions... a major benefit for the New Stripes partner, Tide, who offset all of the activation costs.

The uniforms are seen today as some of the best in the league and each pairing elicits a response from the fans as to which is their favorite. As I said before, New Stripes needed to reflect the Joe Cool era, and everything about the launch accomplished that.