Umbro bolsters global brand presence with new digital platform

Umbro has reinforced its brand presence in the international sports apparel and footwear market with a new global web platform.

Umbro.com has been designed to showcase Umbro’s wealth of brand stories from around the world and all content will be managed by Umbro’s UK-based central marketing team, which is headquartered in Manchester, who led the creation of the new media platform.

The new site was redesigned and built by Manchester agency Absurd

Helene Hope, Umbro’s Head of Global Brand Marketing, said: “With a rich brand history, an expanding product portfolio and our entry into new sporting sectors such as rugby we have a wealth of content to share with our audiences worldwide. Our site showcases new projects and sponsorships that span the globe, and we’ve maintained a strong focus on telling our brand story and celebrating our deep history. In addition to internal efficiencies the new site visually maintains our marque’s values and style.

“The design and user experience takes inspiration from social media channels, that our audiences are visually familiar with, to drive greater engagement with our content wherever anyone is visiting from in the world.

“Site updates and campaigns can be implemented across all local sites with speed and ease and content is translated into multiple languages using Microsoft Azure.”

Oliver Bailey, co-founder of Absurd, says: “With design and features baked in consumer insight and user testing, the new Umbro.com delivers an enhanced user experience. The move from WordPress to an Umbraco CMS has increased site speed, wherever visitors are accessing it from. This is further enhanced with server-side rendering that delivers a fast download experience.

“Operating on an Umbraco CMS, global brand content can be created and deployed with ease. All content is curated to represent the brand in a consistent way and bespoke features can be added as necessary.”