THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Exeter Rugby Club has decided to move away from its previous Native American-themed brand and introduce a brand icon that is a poignant and significant nod to the past.
The change in identity comes in the wake of the club’s board undertaking a full and informative review process over the past two years, as Chairman and Chief Executive Tony Rowe OBE explained: "As a rugby club we have been willing to listen, we have consulted far and wide, and now we are ready to invoke change."
The new Exeter Chiefs logo, which will be launched in July 2022, draws inspiration from the Celtic Iron Age Dumnonii Tribe, which lived in an area covering Devon, Cornwall and parts of Somerset for many hundreds of years before the Roman occupation (from 43 AD), as well as the later ‘Celtic Kingdom of Dumnonia’, which was established around AD 410 and continued for almost 500 years.
Exeter will retain Chiefs in their name, Mr Rowe said: “We are excited to welcome in the next era of rugby within Exeter. Exeter has and always will be the most important term in our overall identity. The term Chiefs, however, is equally entrenched in our make-up, going back to over a century ago when teams in this region would regularly call their first teams that of the Chiefs. We are Exeter, we are the Chiefs!”
In 2020 the supporter group Exeter Chiefs for Change led the calls for the club to get rid of their branding. The club subsequently dropped their 'Big Chief' mascot, but retained the rest of their branding including places such as the 'Wigwam Bar' at their Sandy Park ground.
