ThunderPower_14

10 minutes ago, El Segundo said:

The timing isn't particularly relevant, nor who he was replaced by.

I suspect you you as much as I do about whether it was a "real fan base or culture" or not, but it was a Football fanbase and a Football club and one of the main criticisms in the article is that Heck was totally ignorant about the Sport.  

And what exactly about him being ignorant about the sport do you think is relevant to the criticisms he's copping at the moment?

The decision to refresh the branding or whether to rebuild part of the stadium (which have both been made with the support of the owners) aren't specific issues to football and aren't particularly different between football and any other major professional sport.

The NY Red Bulls had been around for 5 years when Heck joined them, with Red Bull having completely taken over the NY Metrostars who were formed just 12 years prior to that. I'm sorry, but a 17yo soccer team owned by an energy drink conglomerate in NY in 2011 can have it's culture and fanbase dismissed, especially when the fanbase watched the club get rebranded under an energy drink 5 years prior.

Aston Villa and the Philadelphia 76ers in 2014 have a lot more in common with each other than either of them do with NY Red Bulls. Both are old clubs who were historically big and successful but have been in a period of dormancy.

25 minutes ago, ender4 said:

This basically confirms my worst fears about this bloke and his agenda. Just bulldozing thru what’s in his mind at a detriment to Villa fans, and at a benefit to his 2 year bonus before he moves on to the next project at a different sports club.

The NY Red Bulls stint was prior to the Philadelphia 76ers stint, where he spent 9 years, led a wildly successful rebrand and oversaw turning a nothing franchise into one of the most popular in the league. 

5 hours ago, nick76 said:

But the majority liked it, so majority wins which was the point of it all.

"Liked" is doing a lot of work here. 

The majority liked it better than the Lerner badge and the majority voted for it over the shield version of the design, but that's a long way from the majority being over the moon with it. 

It's a 6.5/10 design and that was reflected in the underwhelmed response when it released. If it was a knockout design, we wouldn't be having this argument and the club wouldn't be reviewing it. 

10 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

Funny you mention that, he was fired from a former post. Google it 

Not from the 76ers he wasn't. Which post?

I've been fairly supportive of a wait and see attitude towards Heck's rebrand given his previous work, but if we get another slightly modified Lerner badge I'll be furious. 

Lazy, low intensity garbage second half. Disgraceful. Every one of their goals stemmed from casual carelessness. 

Looking at the thread from when the badge was announced, the general feeling was that it's a clear upgrade from the Lerner badge while being fairly safe and unremarkable. Nice but not a knockout. 

A few were glowingly positive (nick76 leading the charge) and nobody hated it but there are lots of posts about it being nice but a bit of a missed opportunity.  

5 hours ago, villa4europe said:

Kind of... 

"new" younger fans being able to use that badge as avatars on social media and on various platforms and games is a thing, the digitalisation of the badge is important as is simplifying the badge as much as possible to make it more recognisable 

I doubt people are picking a club solely on the badge but it is still significant in trying to grow the fan base 

 

The badge looking cool makes it more likely for an Aston Villa fan to use it on their social media, but it doesn't make a random kid in Asia or America care about Aston Villa.

To attract those fans, we need exciting star players and we need to be playing in the champions league. 

You don't have to look far to see Al-Nassr badges on social media. It's not because they have a cool badge or cool branding, it's purely because they've signed one of the best players of all time.

Selling your branding soul for new supporters doesn't work. Look at Cardiff changing their shirt colour.

No doubt that the new badge will be designed to work in social media applications, but I have no doubt that the new badge will have been designed with generational Aston Villa supporters in mind. 

52 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Which would lead to the question is he doing it for us? And the answer is probably going to be no 

There's a sad reality coming that heck is going to make changes that aren't in an attempt at winning over season ticket holders and life long fans, it will be aimed at new people and markets 

We might be his client but we're not his target audience 

I'm not too sure about that. Sports branding 101 is that you're not trying to win over new fans, you're trying to drive engagement from people who are already fans.

We gain new fans by winning. We unlock new markets by playing in Europe and having star players. Branding isn't about that, it's about engaging existing supporters. We could have the greatest badge and shirt combination ever seen and it's not attracting new fans in any significant number. We only do that by winning.

Fortunately we can look at the previous rebrand that Heck led and see that it was very strongly geared towards the existing 76ers fanbase. He didn't worry about the oversaturation of red white and blue in the US market, he used the colours that resonated with the fanbase. He didn't give them a slick, overly modern design, he played into the historic, traditional uniform aesthetic of the Doctor J era. He brought the classic identity of the team into the modern era. How he approached the 76ers rebrand is what makes me confident that he'll get this right.

Some of the vitriol surrounding a one-off 150th year logo is way over the top. The biggest takeaway should be the colours, something that has been complained about for my entire time on this forum, it looks like he's listened and got them right.

I want to hear the audio from the disallowed goal, did they even discuss the phase of play? Insanity. I was screaming at the television that it's a different phase of play and i'm sure every Villa fan was as well. Sheffield are running off with the ball FFS!

The handball is also criminal. It's a clear, deliberate handball in the box. You can't swing your arm at the ball and intentionally control it, it was nowhere near the shoulder and if he didn't swing his arm out, the ball maybe glances off of him. Nobody is complaining if that's given a pen.

Disappointing result but that VAR decision was complete bullshit. Sheffield United had clear possession between the foul and us scoring. Different phase of play. 

So, so frustrating

10 hours ago, burchy said:

Was bored at work this afternoon.

The way you've included the lamp is excellent

"Adding too many seats too fast" could be related to logistics as opposed to demand. 

If we're as good as we have ambitions to be, we'll have little kids all over the world jumping on the bandwagon. 

There's no point playing who is the better fan, just embrace anyone wearing a Villa shirt. Just be comforted in the knowledge that joy in sport is all about the contrast of the highs and lows. Those of us who were there through every one of those awful season under Lerner leading to the relegation will get so much more out of our successes. 

47 minutes ago, villaajax said:

Have Puma ever had a decent kit design? ugh...

Not sure about anyone else on this forum but I'm partial to the 2006 Italy world cup winning kit. 

Puma have had Borussia Dortmund since 2012 and I'd argue they've been the best outfitted team in world football in that time. 

2 minutes ago, nick76 said:

It wasn’t unpopular though, it was popular.  Just because a few on VillaTalk didn’t like it doesn’t mean anything.  People down the ground liked it and generally seen well accepted and liked without being wowed but generally liked.  The only people I’ve heard dislike it has been a few on here VT and some  in the cesspit that is social media but more like it than not.

Surely we're aiming higher than "not being wowed but generally liked" though. This is the Aston Villa badge. It should make us beam with pride, not just be an unspectacular design-by-committee that generally fulfills the criteria.

54 minutes ago, Captain_Townsend said:

Jamaican,  he scrapped the new badge and designated it a 41st anniversary badge for 1982 (insulting intelligence). Corporate in the holte badly handled. Then he announced casually we aren't going ahead with the redevelopment that was first mooted in 2000.

It isn't fair to dismiss the reaction as hysteria. It is based on a worrying track record and some are apprehensive that this man is going to mess up a big year for us.

If he didn't think the badge was right, isn't the correct time to fix it right now? It was hardly popular or inspiring, most people were basically shrugging their shoulders at it. It hadn't done it's job. The right decision was to rip the band-aid off and start again.

It's absolutely insane to me that he's being slagged off for changing a relatively unpopular badge. The fact that the most recent badge change was botched isn't Heck's fault.

If the redevelopment has issues, isn't delaying it the right move? I don't believe for a second that he's solely responsible for any delay, he's just announcing it because that's his job.

46 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I think in isolation it's shit. To be honest. Whatever they're trying to do with that specific logo doesn't work.

However, I think there are good things about it. The colours are great. The claret is a proper claret which we've been moaning about for years. The creamy/gold colour is a cool retro sort of look.

I think this has really been missed in this release, the colours, which will have far more bearing on our identity than a one-off 150th logo element. 

I've been on this forum for 20 years and in that time every time a new shirt or badge is released, people complain the claret "isn't claret" and is too purple. 

At the same time you've got people here and social media complaining that he doesn't listen to the fans. He's listening. 

51 minutes ago, DakotaVilla said:

We’re humming under Emery’s watch. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with Heck whatsoever. As has been made abundantly clear he has absolutely nothing to do with the football side. All Heck has done is sour the mood with a large section of the fans at the start of the season and also again now.

I’ll judge him on what he does at Villa and if “arguably the most qualified sports executive in the world” is so good at rebranding and he’s not said anything of note for 6 months and then his big tease is that crock of shit logo then god help us please when the new badge is unveiled in a few weeks time. 

But I guess expectations are now so low we’ll accept anything that doesn’t look like a 4 year old off their face on fizzy pop has scrawled it with their crayons during arts and crafts. 

There’s not much we can do though so here’s hoping you’re right and that he lives up to the stellar billing that you have given him. It will be fairly easy to assess how good he is in a few weeks as we can just compare his new badge with the one he dumped as soon as he got here. 

The mood among large sections of the supporter base simply isn't sour. The people who are moaning now would be moaning if we won the Champions League.

It's absolutely fine if you don't want to give him any credit for the direction of the club at this stage, he's been here 5 minutes in executive terms. But you can't then also slam him for having achieved nothing. What should he have done? What would a significant success look like at this stage?

He should absolutely be judged on what he does at Villa, his past record has simply earned him the opportunity to do the job and perhaps some patience. But I feel like a few on here have decided that he's failed before his first assignment is due.

48 minutes ago, DakotaVilla said:

And what did they win during his period there? Absolutely nothing of note from the looks of it. it could be argued he was just there at the right time when the value of us sports franchises exploded. 
 

And what has he achieved here in his 7 months in charge? Absolutely nothing from the looks of it. 
 

And if branding is his strong suit and he comes out with that crap abomination of a logo after 7 months I dread to think what he’s been doing in his weaker areas. 
 

So far all he’s shown is that he can put up ticket prices, convert fan seats into commercial seats, sign off crap logos and royally piss off fans in the process. Literally any single one of us on this forum could have done the same.

Your argument here has gone completely off on a tangent, but you're just wrong on these points.

The 76ers went from one of the most forgettable teams in the NBA to one of the biggest during his time there, they're now perennial contenders with one of the best players in the league.

Their rebrand under his watch is one of the most universally lauded and successful rebrands in professional sport, notably bringing a classic aesthetic into the modern era in a way that probably hasn't been done as well anywhere else.

He's been here for 7 months and we're a point off of top of the table after 17 games. If you're not going to give him any credit for that, fine, but you can't then slate him for having done "absolutely nothing" either. We're absolutely humming under his watch.

If he's here to oversee a brand refresh, and it does seem like that's why he was hired, he's arguably the most qualified sports executive in the world to do it. Surely we can give him a crack at it without declaring him a failure before he's done anything?

33 minutes ago, sidcow said:

This is exactly what I fear. 

He's American. He won't respect the tradition at all. If he thinks he can get a new bowl at The NEC that's exact what he'll do. 

I think this is unfair.

American sport honours tradition like nothing else, occasionally to a fault.

There is a repeated theme with criticisms of Heck that he's American so he won't get it, but look at the big 4 sports over there. While they have plenty of brand new stadiums, they also have a lot of historic old teams in very old stadiums that they've stayed in because it's important to the fans.

The rebrand Heck did for Philadelphia brought a classic aesthetic into the modern era to basically universal acclaim. It showed a clear understanding of what the fanbase wanted. It's worth giving him a chance here.

I don't think that execution is a home run, but i'm generally positive moving forward. The colours are perfect and I can absolutely see a branding package that I love with this as a component.

Feels like we're just kicking the can down the road a bit, we'll need those extra seats if we kick on.

On 15/12/2023 at 15:58, Zatman said:

I dont believe the Premier League is that competitive. As a comparison though its just a random comparison but the gap from 4th place to the relegation zone is currently 24 points the same as La Liga, Serie A is 13 points, Ligue 1 is 15 points, Bundesliga is 19 points 

That for me suggests its not that competitive

I think that particular measure is heavily influenced by the fact that that the PL bottom 3 are quite weak this season. 

If we do another arbitrary measure and say the gap between 1st and 14th (and I've used that because 14th was the bottom of my phone screen when I loaded the table),

Premier League 18 points

Bundesliga 23 points

La Liga 25 points

Serie A 22 points

Ligue 1 22 points

If we do 1st to 8th for the teams on the hunt for Europe, it's

Premier League 11

Bundesliga 15

Serie A 15

La Liga 17

Ligue 1 13

Now admittedly this is also heavily influenced by the weaker bottom 3 or 4, but I think it reflects that there are less easy games in the Premier League. There's more teams with genuine CL aspirations. People may say that PL player values are overrated, but the extra money in the league all the way down makes a difference.