O'Neills - New Kit Supplier (Confirmed)

[mattjb]

39 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

I have defended the Club/kit/ONeils where I thought it was warranted , 
*not sure the quality was as bad as some made out. 
*The yellow isn't as bad as some said
*I like the City round logo
*O'Neils aren't a market stall knock off company that some made it sound like
*the splat Robin would make a great feature on kids ranges

Now the one thing that is wrong, and @RedM flagged it up earlier. While the 3 kits have to vary in colour, and I don't mind designs being different across the 3 , but there has to be some consistencies. 

The Club badge HAS to be the same, it's the Clubs identity . As it stands there are 3 logos across 3 kits, 2 have different badges , 2 with splat , one with just the badge. 
WTAF was the design team thinking ?? 
This is where I would question if O'Neils queried the jumble of badges, or if Jonny Crayon just demanded his drawings had to be used.

Stick with the Club badge on the front, it would have stopped a lot of moaning.
If you need to use the splat back of the shirt at most. Maybe the kids range as I said.
Then the round City in the 3rd kit isn't an issue for me.

This all feels a little Lee Johnson and his formations. Lots of ideas, but no focus. Just feels messy.

I do like the away kit though.

The splat robin on the yellow kit was a big mistake, would have sold many more if it had the round badge. I don’t think the yellow colour itself is so much of a problem 

[ChippenhamRed]

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

It has to be brand snobbery. 

I think people make the mistake of thinking that O'Neills have designed the kits and then just sent them to us. 

The whole design, branding or whatever is down to us. So all the criticism O'Neills is getting for those things is incredibly unwarranted. 

I believe that in normal circumstances kits have a year-18 months lead time. O'Neills have produced thousands of shirts and training wear of different designs for both us and the Bears in what, 7 or 8 months? For a relatively small British/Irish firm, that is pretty incredible. 

I have no doubt that their staff have been working around the clock to manufacture all these various kits and the negative criticism of O'Neills I feel is incredibly unfair on those staff. 

How many more times are people going to try to claim it’s “brand snobbery” without acknowledging the quality of the items being produced?

Look at the quality, fit and finish of the Oneill items and compare it to Hummel, Adidas or Nike. It’s miles off. It’s chalk and cheese. At one point Oneill weren’t even producing the kits consistently.

If Oneill were producing good quality items, people would not mind about the brand. They aren’t. Everything we’ve seen so far has been poor.

And that’s before we even consider the absolute lack of any consistent use of a colour scheme. Look at the range here. It’s shambolic mismanagement of the brand.

[phantom]

10 minutes ago, BCFCGav said:

All good man! Thanks for the write up of the meeting.

@thatcham red takes credit for that, but I try to post it on here as there sometimes are questions that can be answered from being in attendance 

[phantom]

3 minutes ago, mattjb said:

The splat robin on the yellow kit was a big mistake, would have sold many more if it had the round badge. I don’t think the yellow colour itself is so much of a problem 

I agree 

The yellow away kit (always think back to Soren Anderson at Sunderland) would have been OK 

[W-S-M Seagull]

4 minutes ago, ChippenhamRed said:

How many more times are people going to try to claim it’s “brand snobbery” without acknowledging the quality of the items being produced?

Look at the quality, fit and finish of the Oneill items and compare it to Hummel, Adidas or Nike. It’s miles off. It’s chalk and cheese. At one point Oneill weren’t even producing the kits consistently.

If Oneill were producing good quality items, people would not mind about the brand. They aren’t. Everything we’ve seen so far has been poor.

And that’s before we even consider the absolute lack of any consistent use of a colour scheme. Look at the range here. It’s shambolic mismanagement of the brand.

For the final time, the branding is down to US, not O'Neills. 

[ChippenhamRed]

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

For the final time, the branding is down to US, not O'Neills. 

I know that.

I’m saying the brand management by the club has been awful.

And I’m saying the quality of the gear produced by Oneill has been terrible, and that the complaints are almost entirely based on the quality rather than “brand snobbery”.

Two separate complaints.

You are defending Oneill by citing the turnaround times and how hard their staff must be working. But that’s not our problem as paying customers. If the club expect us to pay the same for a shirt that they would for a premium manufacturer such as Hummel, then the quality should be equivalent. But it isn’t - it’s miles off. If they can’t supply something to the usual standard, reduce the price. Supporters have every right to complain about that. 

[Davefevs]

19 minutes ago, RedRock said:

I think the evidence points to O’Neills being an issue, as well as our own designers.

The mis-match between the piss coloured shirt and mustard coloured socks was just unforgivable for a professional outfit. I just can’t believe the designers could have looked at a colour chart and ordered two different yellows. So that error/supply issue has to be on O’Neills. A supplier of kit to a Downs League side would have been embarrassed by that tbh.

or…..

maybe it was US?

or…..

maybe it was agreed between both parties to focus on shirts over production of the right shade of yellow for the socks.

 

So many assumptions, none of us know.

 

(They weren’t mustard either…they were a normal yellow, just brighter than the shirt)

[Sir Geoff]

8 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

For the final time, the branding is down to US, not O'Neills. 

But, O Neills are the so called 'experts' in this field and surely their desire is to make as much money on sales as possible. They would have had a large say in branding and would / should be advising the club that too much (confusing) branding waters down the effect of said brand.

[W-S-M Seagull]

Just now, Davefevs said:

or…..

maybe it was US?

or…..

maybe it was agreed between both parties to focus on shirts over production of the right shade of yellow for the socks.

 

So many assumptions, none of us know.

 

(They weren’t mustard either…they were a normal yellow, just brighter than the shirt)

I'm assuming that the sock issue was simply down to them not having the sock fabric of that shade of yellow. An issue that wouldn't be present if kits had a normal lead time. 

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, ChippenhamRed said:

I know that.

I’m saying the brand management by the club has been awful.

And I’m saying the quality of the gear produced by Oneill has been terrible, and that the complaints are almost entirely based on the quality rather than “brand snobbery”.

Two separate complaints.

You are defending Oneill by citing the turnaround times and how hard their staff must be working. But that’s not our problem as paying customers. If the club expect us to pay the same for a shirt that they would for a premium manufacturer such as Hummel, then the quality should be equivalent. But it isn’t - it’s miles off. If they can’t supply something to the usual standard, reduce the price. Supporters have every right to complain about that. 

Sorry, I’m in devils advocate mood.

or….

maybe club happy to sacrifice quality for a combo of lower cost (bigger profit margin) and speedier delivery.

 

We saw the collar issue early on, now resolved.  Someone made a decision to let that get put out there on the early batch(es).  That might’ve been poor QC at O’Neils, who knows, might’ve been poor designs passed from club to O’Neils?

[Sir Geoff]

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I'm assuming that the sock issue was simply down to them not having the sock fabric of that shade of yellow. An issue that wouldn't be present if kits had a normal lead time. 

Why not go for green socks to match the shorts then ?

[W-S-M Seagull]

Just now, Sir Geoff said:

But, O Neills are the so called 'experts' in this field and surely their desire is to make as much money on sales as possible. They would have had a large say in branding and would / should be advising the club that too much (confusing) branding waters down the effect of said brand.

I'm not entirely sure they do have a large say in branding. I think thats mainly down to JL. 

They can advise the club all they like but you have to remember that we are there biggest customers (I believe)

It's likely that O'Neills will design the actual shirt, but that the actual design on the shirt and the colours etc is more down to JL. 

[exAtyeoMax]

3 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I'm assuming that the sock issue was simply down to them not having the sock fabric of that shade of yellow. An issue that wouldn't be present if kits had a normal lead time. 

then why change the colour later? There wouldn't be an issue if it didn't change colour.

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I'm assuming that the sock issue was simply down to them not having the sock fabric of that shade of yellow. An issue that wouldn't be present if kits had a normal lead time. 

Indeed.  That’s is definitely a possible rationale, isn’t it?

 

What could’ve been better?

Maybe a simple Comms along the lines of - we’ve (Club / O’Neils) have had to work together at pace to get the kits ready.  To deliver quickly we’ve had to use an in-stock shade of yellow on the socks, but this will match the shirts when production settles down.

We (the club) are either mute or reactive.  Why not be proactive?  You cut a lot of noise that way.

[1960maaan]

14 minutes ago, ChippenhamRed said:

How many more times are people going to try to claim it’s “brand snobbery” without acknowledging the quality of the items being produced?

Look at the quality, fit and finish of the Oneill items and compare it to Hummel, Adidas or Nike. It’s miles off. It’s chalk and cheese. At one point Oneill weren’t even producing the kits consistently.

If Oneill were producing good quality items, people would not mind about the brand. They aren’t. Everything we’ve seen so far has been poor.

And that’s before we even consider the absolute lack of any consistent use of a colour scheme. Look at the range here. It’s shambolic mismanagement of the brand.

Well to be fair, you say it's not brand snobbery, then list 3 main/top kit suppliers.

As for fit and quality, photos show or prove nothing. I went in to look at the shirts, no worse than many others and the fit on the 3 photos above looks fine. They did seem to have an issue with the collars at one time, but looking at other photos that seemed to be a batch of shirts.
As for the colours, I'm not really sure what you mean. You have to have 3 different colour kits , then 3 keepers kits that don't clash. The colours would have been signed off by the Club , then it becomes personal preference .
Not saying it has been an unmitigated success , but time constraints , mixed messages , bad choices and muddled thinking have led to the first two kits having issues. The away kit is the first one that has had roughly the "normal" amount of time given to the process, that's the one to judge O'Neils on IMO. 

34 minutes ago, phantom said:

My opinion from conversations I've had is that the club are "now" very aware of mistakes that have been made this season 

Yes, they could AND should have been avoided but the product is out there now for the rest of this season 

As much as a large majority don't like what is in front of us, sadly we just have to embrace it and ride the season out 

This is the way I look at it.
The away kit looks good and if the quality stands up , then I think everyone will be a little happier. In at least only not liking the design. We are contracted for at least another year I believe, but the process will have time to be done properly and with the lessons learnt (hopefully) next years kits should be better .

[W-S-M Seagull]

7 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Indeed.  That’s is definitely a possible rationale, isn’t it?

 

What could’ve been better?

Maybe a simple Comms along the lines of - we’ve (Club / O’Neils) have had to work together at pace to get the kits ready.  To deliver quickly we’ve had to use an in-stock shade of yellow on the socks, but this will match the shirts when production settles down.

We (the club) are either mute or reactive.  Why not be proactive?  You cut a lot of noise that way.

Again I'm assuming that they probably source their sock fabric from somewhere like China and that took a while to arrive here. 

For me, there is no way that they produced it and then realised they had the wrong shade of yellow as many have suggested. I don't believe that for a second. Nor do I believe it was purposely designed to be a different shade. 

So there had to be an actual logical reason as to why it was the wrong shade. 

But yes, you've absolutely nailed it. The biggest issue isn't with the kits, but it's with the communication which seems to be a common theme throughout the club as of late.

[Dredd]

34 minutes ago, ChippenhamRed said:

How many more times are people going to try to claim it’s “brand snobbery” without acknowledging the quality of the items being produced?

Look at the quality, fit and finish of the Oneill items and compare it to Hummel, Adidas or Nike. It’s miles off. It’s chalk and cheese. At one point Oneill weren’t even producing the kits consistently.

If Oneill were producing good quality items, people would not mind about the brand. They aren’t. Everything we’ve seen so far has been poor.

And that’s before we even consider the absolute lack of any consistent use of a colour scheme. Look at the range here. It’s shambolic mismanagement of the brand.

I don't remember any significant moaning when Bristol Sport were making our own kits. Surely if the fan base was a bunch of brand snobs we would have heard it all then too. 
FWIW personally I think the quality is worse than the BS stuff and at TFG levels

[RedRock]

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Indeed.  That’s is definitely a possible rationale, isn’t it?

 

What could’ve been better?

Maybe a simple Comms along the lines of - we’ve (Club / O’Neils) have had to work together at pace to get the kits ready.  To deliver quickly we’ve had to use an in-stock shade of yellow on the socks, but this will match the shirts when production settles down.

We (the club) are either mute or reactive.  Why not be proactive?  You cut a lot of noise that way.

Agree. I’m not in their trade … but would have thought if you have 24 shirts of one colour you would have 24 socks of the same colour. Basic stock control. Lummydaze, you could have walked into any branch of Sports Direct and managed to get some matching kit in those numbers at the time.

As you say, a little communication goes a long way. Struggling to understand why they don’t communicate as constant criticism damages the brand name.
 

 

[Olé]

44 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

It has to be brand snobbery. 

And what's wrong with brand snobbery? A brand is earned not just created. People have to identify the brand with the product.

O'Neils is not a sports brand. Sports brands have exotic and catchy names like NIKE and PUMA and HUMMEL and BUTKA and even NIBOR.

O'Neils was a pub on the triangle you went for a late drink and possibly an argument. It became a pub on Baldwin Street with sticky carpets and terrible service. 

This is like having kit made under a brand like "Hobgoblin" or "O'Malleys". It sounds crap, which means the shirt itself has to work extra hard to make it look good, and they don't do that.

[Davefevs]

6 minutes ago, RedRock said:

Agree. I’m not in their trade … but would have thought if you have 24 shirts of one colour you would have 24 socks of the same colour. Basic stock control. Lummydaze, you could have walked into any branch of Sports Direct and managed to get some matching kit in those numbers at the time.

As you say, a little communication goes a long way. Struggling to understand why they don’t communicate as constant criticism damages the brand name.
 

 

It’s bonkers isn’t it.  I’m no comms expert, far from it, but from a customer service point of view, I was always told to get on the front-foot, don’t wait for the customer to chase, update them, even if it’s “sorry, I’m working on it, but not sorted it yet”.

If they don’t do that because they don’t anticipate the reaction, I’d suggest they take the advice on here, and have a trusted fans panel to bounce ideas off of.

Had they done that, there is no way in a million years the splat ends up on the shirt.

Which suggests to me, that this design was someone’s pigheadedness.  The Apple does not fall far from the tree does it?

[MarcusX]

1 hour ago, Spike said:

Yesterday I was thinking for all the bad thing's O'Neills have delivered and how disappointing they've been I thought they'd reclaimed some credit with the away kit, yes it was late, yes it's not purple and lime like many expected etc but I think it's a very nice kit and although I've never been much of a fan of the round "CITY" I actually think it works in making our kit very unique to Bristol City. I'm not a big fan of the collar and cuffs but overall it's a very nice kit, it's unique to Bristol City and I don't see any sign of the bloody stupid splash Robin and so to me that's a credit to O'Neills.

I woke up this morning thinking, maybe at the end of the month I may buy this away kit only to see my size and many other are already out of stock and to me this is largely undoing all the credit that O'Neills built up with the kit. I belive credit when credit is due but how do you spend so long that you're the last team in the EFL to release their away kit only to not even build up enough stock to satisfy the demand? I can see why so many people have turned to the Chinese knock offs when not everyone has the time or money to be sat ready to pre-order a kit on day 1 of it's release or possibly never get one. I have a feeling my size won't be back in stock online for a while and it makes me question whether I should be buying the shirt when it could be October before I even have a chance which leaves 7 months before the season ends and the next kit will be getting ready to release.

I know City are a business, I know they need to satisfy the customer demands so why do they keep missing the mark? For every positive we've had with O'Neills we've had more negatives and I'm trying to be positive and yesterday I was thinking maybe they've turned the corner but I wake up and stock is already gone, it's a bit of a mess to say the least.

I've seen Coventry are having issues with Hummell but for all the issues they've had they at least have a reason, that being that the company who distributed in the UK went under and they've had to work incredibly fast to remedy that issue. I also seen some people complaining about the quality of their Coventry shirts but looking at the Hummell site the production has never changed and I never had any issues with any Hummell kits I've bought (I own a few non City ones too). Their production isn't in the UK at all as it says here and it's Coventry themselves that apply the names and numbers etc using the heat pressing machines which appear to be the cause of many of the complaints so that would be an issue with whoever is applying names, numbers, badges etc at their end.
I'd still happily go back to Hummell but it's clear that ship has sailed which makes me hope that O'Neills is not a long term deal and that someone like Umbro, or even Reebok who have made a bit of a comeback and done some nice kits, comes in and wants to work with us or even the club approach them. Hell, I wouldn't complain if we had a less favoured one like Castore or Craft if the designs are right for us and they work to create unique kits and so long as they can supply what we need.
I just hope when change comes we avoid Nike, Adidas and Puma, great quality but their pricing is crazy and they don't really produce nice stuff for their "smaller deals".

S,M,L and XL all in stock?

[ChippenhamRed]

24 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

Well to be fair, you say it's not brand snobbery, then list 3 main/top kit suppliers.

As for fit and quality, photos show or prove nothing. I went in to look at the shirts, no worse than many others and the fit on the 3 photos above looks fine. They did seem to have an issue with the collars at one time, but looking at other photos that seemed to be a batch of shirts.
As for the colours, I'm not really sure what you mean. You have to have 3 different colour kits , then 3 keepers kits that don't clash. The colours would have been signed off by the Club , then it becomes personal preference .
Not saying it has been an unmitigated success , but time constraints , mixed messages , bad choices and muddled thinking have led to the first two kits having issues. The away kit is the first one that has had roughly the "normal" amount of time given to the process, that's the one to judge O'Neils on IMO. 

This is the way I look at it.
The away kit looks good and if the quality stands up , then I think everyone will be a little happier. In at least only not liking the design. We are contracted for at least another year I believe, but the process will have time to be done properly and with the lessons learnt (hopefully) next years kits should be better .

I was making a comparison on the quality of the clothing they produce. That’s not the same thing as brand snobbery which makes a judgement purely based on the label.

Regarding the colours. Usually a club will use a limited colour palette in any one season to create a strong identity. Obviously the home kit is always red. There would usually be a range of red-predominant training wear to sit alongside this.

Then you would have an away kit with another colour scheme, and a training range to compliment this. Likewise the third kit, although clubs don’t always produce a range alongside this.

The keeper kits, granted, tend to be a bit of an outlier. But even these can broadly align with an overall colour scheme and use colours picked from a limited range. It all helps to create an identifiable brand.

But look at our range. We have a red home shirt with stripes. The warm up range is a different shade of red, shares no design elements with the shirt and uses the splat instead of the club badge. We have a yellow third top with a splat. We have a black away top with purple and lime accents and the club badge - and yet another different logo as part of the design. We have turquoise, pink and multicoloured keeper tops. And then we have a training wear range…which is sky blue…some of it with a splat, some of it with the crest, some of it with both.

It all makes for a very muddled brand with no identity and no consistency. It’s absolutely terrible from a marketing perspective.

[Norn Iron]

1 hour ago, phantom said:

I'm renowned for not making sense on here recently 

I've a habit of typing as if I'm talking to someone, my bad

Now I know why half way through one post you said you wanted a biscuit with a cup of coffee.

[exAtyeoMax]

42 minutes ago, Olé said:

And what's wrong with brand snobbery? A brand is earned not just created. People have to identify the brand with the product.

O'Neils is not a sports brand. Sports brands have exotic and catchy names like NIKE and PUMA and HUMMEL and BUTKA and even NIBOR.

O'Neils was a pub on the triangle you went for a late drink and possibly an argument. It became a pub on Baldwin Street with sticky carpets and terrible service. 

This is like having kit made under a brand like "Hobgoblin" or "O'Malleys". It sounds crap, which means the shirt itself has to work extra hard to make it look good, and they don't do that.

I used to go there! :laugh:

Very true!

[Sir Geoff]

28 minutes ago, ChippenhamRed said:

I was making a comparison on the quality of the clothing they produce. That’s not the same thing as brand snobbery which makes a judgement purely based on the label.

Regarding the colours. Usually a club will use a limited colour palette in any one season to create a strong identity. Obviously the home kit is always red. There would usually be a range of red-predominant training wear to sit alongside this.

Then you would have an away kit with another colour scheme, and a training range to compliment this. Likewise the third kit, although clubs don’t always produce a range alongside this.

The keeper kits, granted, tend to be a bit of an outlier. But even these can broadly align with an overall colour scheme and use colours picked from a limited range. It all helps to create an identifiable brand.

But look at our range. We have a red home shirt with stripes. The warm up range is a different shade of red, shares no design elements with the shirt and uses the splat instead of the club badge. We have a yellow third top with a splat. We have a black away top with purple and lime accents and the club badge - and yet another different logo as part of the design. We have turquoise, pink and multicoloured keeper tops. And then we have a training wear range…which is sky blue…some of it with a splat, some of it with the crest, some of it with both.

It all makes for a very muddled brand with no identity and no consistency. It’s absolutely terrible from a marketing perspective.

Not to mention the round 'smiley' CITY logo

[KegCity]

It’s crazy seeing people complain about the circle logo considering it’s literally a reused bit of the club’s branding. It’s bristol city because we used it before.

Same with the “Arsenal shirt” last season. It’s literally a reproduction of an old City shirt!

Edited September 15, 2023 by KegCity

[bcfc01]

3 minutes ago, KegCity said:

It’s crazy seeing people complain about the circle logo considering it’s literally a reused bit of the club’s branding. It’s bristol city because we used it before.

Same with the “Arsenal shirt” last season. It’s literally a reproduction of an old City shirt!

Surprised people haven't realised it, some calling the logo "melons" 

Although it is a long time in the past since last used, reminds me of the DAS logo we used to have.

The comments about brand snobbery always makes me smile, as if anyone could be snobbish about a high street brand like Puma/Adidas etc etc which is mass produced crap sold in down market sports shops and worn by unpaid walking advertising bill boards. Now THAT is snobbery.

Anyway, I've bought one for my nephews birthday as he said its lush.

 

 

 

[westonred]

I thought people said they had sold out ? I've just ordered two medium adult away shirts online

[1960maaan]

1 hour ago, ChippenhamRed said:

I was making a comparison on the quality of the clothing they produce. That’s not the same thing as brand snobbery which makes a judgement purely based on the label.

Regarding the colours. Usually a club will use a limited colour palette in any one season to create a strong identity. Obviously the home kit is always red. There would usually be a range of red-predominant training wear to sit alongside this.

Then you would have an away kit with another colour scheme, and a training range to compliment this. Likewise the third kit, although clubs don’t always produce a range alongside this.

The keeper kits, granted, tend to be a bit of an outlier. But even these can broadly align with an overall colour scheme and use colours picked from a limited range. It all helps to create an identifiable brand.

But look at our range. We have a red home shirt with stripes. The warm up range is a different shade of red, shares no design elements with the shirt and uses the splat instead of the club badge. We have a yellow third top with a splat. We have a black away top with purple and lime accents and the club badge - and yet another different logo as part of the design. We have turquoise, pink and multicoloured keeper tops. And then we have a training wear range…which is sky blue…some of it with a splat, some of it with the crest, some of it with both.

It all makes for a very muddled brand with no identity and no consistency. It’s absolutely terrible from a marketing perspective.

I personally don't think the warm up or training colour shirts are an issue, they don't clash with the first team shirts. Totally agree about muddled branding and if it was Club crest on all the shirts chest, I don't think there would be nearly so many complaints about the rest. 
The first year with Hummel we had Red/Purple/Black the crest & sponsor tied them all together, they also had a similar collar. Might not be great in some peoples personal taste, but that's always going to be the same. 
The big bollock drop is splat . Without that I really don't think people would be slagging the kits so much. It is confused thinking and confusing for fans. I don't care if they paster the thing over teeshirts in the shop, that ID has to be simple and obvious . We have a newish club Crest , that Jon had a hand in, I wonder if he was just trying to prove he did something as Chairman so feels he needs to change things. 

[exAtyeoMax]

1 minute ago, westonred said:

I thought people said they had sold out ? I've just ordered two medium adult away shirts online

they weren't available first thing this morning