What a Nylon Football Shirt Can Teach Us About Consumer Behaviour

It’s impossible to reduce human desires and decision-making to neat - and indexable - data points. As humans, we know this to be true, yet as marketers, we can leave our human brains behind as we seek simplicity and flee nuance.

Case in this point, why would I wear this piece of itchy (no doubt highly flammable) nylon crap more commonly known as a football strip?

It won’t surprise you to know that it’s nuanced.

I grew up loving football. I have a very vivid memory of sitting with my brother, tears rolling down our faces (he will deny this) as we contemplated England exiting Italia ‘90 to Cameroon - before Gary Lineker’s penalties saved the day.

My interest in football furnished with me an unusually thorough knowledge of European capital cities and provided the necessary cultural capital for a shy teen to navigate late-90s masculinity at its terrifying laddish highpoint.

So as the Euros take place, I am brought back to football: both to connect with my younger self and (at a moment of algorithm-driven division) to participate with others in a shared cultural moment.

But doing so isn’t without its problems.

Despite great strides since Italia ‘90, football culture remains tied up with elements of chauvinism, racism, and violence. Not to mention broader uneasiness around English nationalism: our imperialist past and our increasingly populist present. This uneasiness has prevented me from wearing an England shirt since the 90s.

But, in my rationalisation, this Palace x Umbro shirt subverts the narrative: enabling me to participate in the moment in a way that feels somewhat detached and a little more comfortable. 

A youthful, inclusive brand disconnected from undesirable nationalism and the people who subscribe to it. Part of a cohort of brands that are rewriting the rules of desirability: where status is not tied to price, signalling the end of Veblen goods or artisanal craftsmanship - again this is nylon crap.

Rather the value of this shirt is ephemeral and purely cultural – asserting status by ‘getting’ a variety of cultural references, and by being on the webpage, credit card in hand, 10 minutes before the drop.

And whilst I might feel uneasy embracing Palace generally - I’m in my 40s and have never been a skater - I ‘get’ football and the specifics of football culture this shirt references, the ‘World in Motion’ video, Gazza’s tears… which brings me back to crying with my brother on the sofa in 1990 and the truth that anyone’s purchase behaviour cannot be reduced to simplistic, linear motivations.

A segmentation or audience builder might attribute my purchase to being a skater (I’m not) or because I like football (it’s complicated). Or it might simply rule me out as a potential purchaser since I’d never previously bought from Palace and haven’t owned an England shirt for 25 years.

All of this demonstrates the necessity to build a richer and more layered understanding of consumers and to not get too carried away with targeting: remembering to cast the net wide enough to reach people whose cultural yearnings and adolescent baggage may draw them to your brand as much as their recent purchase behaviour or Instagram likes.

Oliver Egan​​​​ is a partner and the chief strategy officer, global clients for T&Pm