We all know that squash is a wonderful sport. It’s a fun, social activity and a great way to stay active and healthy. It is a sport for everyone that can be enjoyed in different formats at any age, any ability, all-year round. Even more, squash in Australia has a vibrant and engaged community, dedicated to ensuring everybody has an opportunity to participate and have a positive experience within the sport.
However, the sport must have a more unified national profile within the Australian sporting environment in order to attract new and diverse audiences to the game. That’s why Squash Australia is adopting a new Marketing and Communication Plan focused on strengthening our community presence, providing a consistent experience of the sport across Australia, diversifying our audience and driving new participation.
As the first step of this new strategy, Squash Australia, alongside its State and Territory organisations, is excited to present a new brand identity for the sport in Australia.
The new logo is simple, yet modern and distinctive. It’s built around the iconic outlines of the key pieces of equipment of our sport, the ball and racket.
The centre circle, outlining a squash ball, is surrounded by eight moving lines, each representing one of our states and territories. Overall, the lines combine to make up an abstract shape of Australia, while the interplay between the main circle and the small squash ball at the bottom-right completes the idea of movement and hints at another of our most recognisable symbols - the dots on a professional squash ball.
The logo is built around the idea of dynamism and unity. We wanted to make sure it would represent both the fast-paced and fun attributes of our sport and the shared commitment, across all stakeholders at national level, to raise its profile.
The idea of unity was particularly important for us. A rebranding is a significant change for an organisation, but it’s not just a visual change. It marks the starting point for a new journey, in this case the implementation of our new Marketing and Communication strategy to bring squash back to that level of popularity it enjoyed in our country not that long ago. We’re proud and grateful that Squash Australia will embark on this journey with the support of all State and Territories Associations.
In fact, for the first time in history, squash in Australia will have a coordinated brand identity across all levels of the sport. This new look will unite us and will visually represent the commitment from all stakeholders to adopt a coordinated approach to the promotion of our programs and activities, delivering a common vision to drive participation.
We want to make squash more relevant and visible, changing the misplaced perception of squash as a sport that only rewards the fully dedicated and fit athletes, and presenting it as a healthy and accessible option for anyone who wants to maintain an active lifestyle and enjoy sport socially. With the support of the States, Territories, Clubs, squash venue owners and managers, we’ll make sure that our communication conveys to a wider audience the message that squash is a sport for life that can be enjoyed at all ages and by all demographics.
The new brand will identify all our programs from grassroots to high performance. It will grow to be a guarantee of quality and consistency as we deliver initiatives for squash and racquetball players, coaches and officials across the country.
For us it’s a statement of intent as much as a commitment to action. We want to see more people playing squash more often, continue developing the pathways and achieve international success, so that the heroes of our sport can inspire the new generation to embrace the discipline and create a virtuous circle.
We are proud of our history and the success that has led us to this point, but we believe a change is needed to ensure we can truly fulfil the potential of squash in Australia.
It’s a new chapter and there is a lot of ground to cover, but we’re looking forward to continuing the journey together.
Robert Donaghue,
Squash Australia CEO