In what was a wonderful evening for Eintracht Frankfurt, the long-established sporting club from the banks of the River Main was awarded the ‘Goldene Brandeisen’, or Golden Brand, for outstanding performance in brand leadership. The award was part of the Brand Gala held by the Weimer Media Group and the Marketing Club Frankfurt, with an expert jury selecting brands each year which have successfully either launched or progressed.
Speaker and last year’s winner Ulrich Klenke, global head of branding for Deutsche Telekom, praised the Bundesliga football club’s development from a local team with humble beginnings to one of the best-loved and most successful sides in Germany. Eintracht is now one of the biggest football clubs in the world, he said, and one that has remained true to its values of “diversity, tolerance and openness”. The club’s management has been able to turn a traditional club into a successful future-orientated business, whilst maintaining its place in the hearts of its many fans.
This award is a great honour for us.
Axel Hellmann, CEO of Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG
“This award is a great honour for us,” said Axel Hellmann, CEO of Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG, who accepted the prize on behalf of the club. “When I heard that we were being recognised as a brand, my first thought was: ‘We’re not a brand in the traditional sense – we’re more a way of life’.
“The concept of the brand is the sum of all the impressions that are created by a brand name or image,” Hellmann continued. “What is so special in our case is that people have ongoing, very individual and thus very different lives and experiences when it comes to Eintracht Frankfurt, yet all of them in their various ways identify with the club. The challenge for us is to maintain a clear brand image that still encapsulates this fundamental diversity.”
Award-winners this year included former German international and EURO 2024 tournament director Philipp Lahm, and businessman Ludwig Fresenius. The gala also highlighted the key pillars of branding, namely ‘freedom’, ‘joy’ and ‘creativity’. “We support the courage of those who think positively, and who bring creativity to companies and agencies, bringing light to what has become a dark world,” said publisher Christiane Goetz-Weimer at the start of the evening.
About the Brand Gala
Every year in autumn, Germany’s creative minds come together in the heart of Frankfurt to communicate and exchange with one another. The Brand Gala, held in the country’s economic and financial hub, is a major and exclusive event which for more than the past two decades has connected people looking to design, shape and drive the future. As Goetz-Weimer, who is a publisher at host company the Weimer Media Group, put it in her opening address: “The Brand Gala is for those who do things better, rather than those who merely think they know better.”
