Why ESL is undergoing a 25th anniversary brand refresh

ESL’s brand refresh, announced yesterday at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2024 (an ESL-run “Counter-Strike” tournament), is the company’s first rebrand since 2019, when it adopted a green and yellow color palette. This latest brand refresh, which uses the tagline “Live Legendary,” maintains these colors but includes a new font inspired by traditional stone carvings, as well as classical marble statue imagery based on three-dimensional scans of actual audience members taken at ESL events over the past six months.

“The idea of ‘Live Legendary’ is to elevate the fans to the same level as the players, because there’s no players without fans, and there’s no fans without players — that’s what makes the community so special and unique,” said ESL/FACEIT Group head of marketing Fabio Tambosi. “So, another cool thing we’re doing is we will launch this fan gallery; fans are going to be able to go to our website and find themselves in the crowd and download pictures.”

Although the stated goal of ESL’s rebrand is to kick off a year-long celebration of the company’s 25th anniversary, it happens to have come alongside one of ESL’s biggest business deals in years — its multi-year agreement to operate the Esports World Cup, announced last week.

“The stars aligned, and it was the perfect time,” said Tambosi, who told Digiday that the parallel timing of the announcements was a fortuitous coincidence. “We’ve been operating the Esports World Cup from the inception phase.”

By maintaining the colors from its most recent rebrand and adopting a more historical, classical look, ESL’s new branding is intended to reference the company’s decades-long tenure as a leading company within the esports industry, as well as the consistency of ESL’s management and message since 2019.

“What we wanted to do was reinvigorate the brand, but bring along some of the equity in the old brand — the identity work that we had done that’s been around there for a long time,” said Marta Swannie, a creative partner at the agency Design Bridge and Partners, which created ESL’s new brand identities in both 2019 and 2024. “We had this infamous color palette before that was called ‘toxic green,’ and we just wanted to retain some of that going forward.”

Although publishers and advertisers have embraced Saudi Arabia’s investment in esports, the country’s growing connections to the industry have also resulted in pushback from some esports fans who have protested that nation’s human rights record. As ESL/FACEIT Group continues to expand across the esports industry, it is understandable that the company’s leadership is looking to stress its deep and longstanding ties to the space, which precede its acquisition by Savvy Games Group in 2022.

“The ‘Live Legendary’ brand campaign is a celebration of our heritage to continue to grow the esports industry since its dawn,” Tambosi said. “It’s an evolution of who we are and a reflection of our commitment to players and fans, and where we’re headed.”

Although ESL/FACEIT Group is one of Saudi Arabia’s most visible investments in esports, ESL executives have long maintained that their operations are entirely independent from the Public Investment Fund, and that the overwhelming majority of ESL’s upper management has remained in place following the 2022 acquisition. Yesterday’s brand refresh, which focuses on ESL’s long history within competitive gaming, gives ESL an opportunity to reinforce that message.

“Anniversaries present a pretty rare opportunity to remind your customers in the industry and give a nod to who you are and where you’ve been, but also turn it facing forward and put it in a more exciting modern look and appeal,” said Jim Heininger, the founder of agency The Rebranding Experts. “So it seems like a pretty smart strategy to nod to the past to remind people of what they liked and loved about the company, and now roll it forward into how they’re going to evolve in the future.”