Fulham Football Club

A 365 destination

Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham FC, is a much-beloved, well-attended football stadium. However, due to the nature of the game, it was only well-attended for about twenty-five days a year. And, as proud as the local community were of their club, most of them had never set foot inside. Fulham FC wanted to change that.

The plan? To open up the river and transform their stadium into a riverside destination for the whole community, open 365 days a year–morning, noon and night. bandstand was tasked with writing the strategy, defining the brand, shaping the vision and crafting the creative foundation and launch of London’s newest waterfront destination. The result was ‘Fulham Pier’, a space rooted in joyful rediscovery.

As a seven-year project with only the promise of how it would look, we built a vibrant illustrative-led world to showcase the breadth of what would be on offer. Its fluid identity was inspired by the motion of water, shifts in light and the feeling of total immersion. The logo included a black line, representing the pier’s horizon, which flexed and moved to incorporate the myriad illustrations we created to showcase Fulham Pier’s full-to-bursting offering.

We created a looping animated film that hero-ed the stadium and its distinctive architecture, with various experiences and activities bursting out of the different spaces: from gigs in The Orange Box to fine dining in The Brasserie. It lived online, as well as DOOH and social, and on enormous, interactive screens on-site. The illustrations were splashed across press, PR and various OOH to help direct locals, Londoners and tourists alike to discover this exciting new destination. We also created a rich library of visual content to complement the campaign, including lifestyle cinematography; individual tenant films & animated bios; and a host of social teasers & cutdowns.

Guided by our philosophy — take the complex, make it simple, then make it memorable — Fulham Pier launched with massive impact. It opened not as a venue, but as a fully realised sensory world. F&B sales were nearly 7 times higher than forecasted, and it yielded 15M impressions and 1.6M website click-throughs across digital, social & search in six weeks, as well as gaining 17,000 Instagram followers in six months.