It is identifiable with entertainment and the King's Road"."Recognition in China of a football club is around the naming and recognition of a town," he says. "That's where we think Chelsea has another advantage, in that Chelsea is synonymous with London That's one of our differentiations from other clubs. What they are buying into is a successful football team and one with stars and with charisma through its manager and the way it plays."One London club is named for an armaments factory, others for unfashionable suburbs. Chelsea's first target may be London but we do [look to] the UK for national support. There are more and more kids starting to support Chelsea and they don't know the boundaries of Fulham or Kensington.
That is not Kenyon's concern."I don't think there are any boundaries in terms of attracting supporters," he says. "The penetration of shirts is a good indicator and we are selling shirts far and wide nationally. Doing those things in an innovative and first-mover manner is what will ultimately associate us with a broader constituency than just Chelsea," says Kenyon. "Our whole community programme and CRM (customer relationship management) programme is about broadening the base of activities away from just Chelsea and Fulham." The full impact of Chelsea's London-wide community programmes will kick in next summer with the launch of a major project in conjunction with Adidas aimed at football-crazy kids and intended to inspire future loyalties to Stamford Bridge in all areas of the capital.It is not a strategy that is likely to help Chelsea's relations with Arsenal (already strained after Kenyon and manager Jose Mourinho were caught talking to Gunners defender Ashley Cole), especially when the Highbury club is looking to fill its expensive new ground at Ashburton Grove. When we talk about internationalising the brand the first thing we want to do is get critical mass within our own territory." An element of this strategy was Chelsea's very public support for the London bid for the 2012 Olympics, which will be based predominantly in eastern areas of the city, the traditional turf of West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal."Chelsea was the first football club to come out and support the Olympics, followed by the Premier League and all the other football clubs, which was right.
There was a great groundswell that the previous badge [showed] no identity towards football," he says.He also had to consider how such a badge would look not only on screens and on merchandise but also in black and white in terms of newspapers in China. As Kenyon outlines his plans for Chelsea, China is a recurring theme. Kenyon, who was criticised by United supporters for taking the words "football club" off the Red Devils' badge, has made sure the same words (and a pair of small footballs) are reintroduced to the Chelsea logo (previously a lion and the letters CFC)."The biggest part of my postbag when I arrived was the badge, which was the manifestation of how people see Chelsea. Ultra-conscious of branding, he has also changed the club badge, hiring brand design company Blue Dog to undertake a review of past Chelsea badges to ensure there was "emotional attachment" to the new logo. Since being headhunted from Old Trafford by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich two years ago, he has clinched a five-year kit sponsorship deal with Samsung worth £11m a year and an eight-year tie-up with Adidas valued at £12m a year. The television channel and the official website chelseafc are run by a Chelsea subsidiary called Chelsea Digital Media (in which BSkyB has a 20 per cent stake).
