Goodwood – Racecourse

The image of horse racing is stuck in a rut. Brands competing in the space have become static, losing out on ticket sales and struggling to keep pace with audience expectations of event experiences.

Our full rebrand for Goodwood Racecourse aimed to overcome a decline in horse racing viewership and attendance. We activated a winning brand by crafting verbal and visual identities that hone in on what truly makes Goodwood unique, building a layered content architecture deployed on social media to activate a winning brand.

Bringing the classic, timeless appeal of Goodwood into the modern era with a bold typestyle that feels premium, yet dynamic enough to convey the energy of a new visual identity. The sloping characters evoke a sense of pace and speed, also making them well-suited for animation.

A refined the colour palette focuses solely on the two primary colours associated with Goodwood Racecourse, giving the brand a modern look and feel while powerfully reinforcing its ownership of this colour space the competitor landscape.

While many other racecourses use themes of tradition and ‘home of’ in their lead messaging, Goodwood Racecourse had a clear opportunity to embrace verbal differentiation in the market and charge ahead with a distinct identity.

Reinforcing and reflecting the known language of “The Glorious Goodwood” used over generations in the haydays of flat racing, we leant into bringing ‘that Glorious feeling’ into the new brand language. Through a tone of voice that dares to stand alone, go for glory and declare it is one-of-a-kind, that glorious Goodwood feeling became the overarching message for the brand. Glorious is a key aspiration and the emotion people chase at the races. Goodwood is the arena that glory can be found in.

Three distinct content pillars use structured messaging and visual style for each of the three elements of the Racecourse. ‘That glorious Goodwood feeling’ consists of fun, energetic, vibrant emotive content welcoming people to fashion, food, experiences and family events. ‘Feel the glory at Goodwood’ is heroic, empowering and aspirational content for sport, racing and DJ sets. ‘Glory’s hard won at Goodwood’ embodies the gritty and authentic behind the scenes shots of the venue.

This set the Goodwood marketing team up with clear guidance and content pillars to use across their social media channels, printed marketing collateral and event assets.

Through the delivery of structured brand language, a consistent visual identity and a campaign framework, this work created a consistent brand for Goodwood Racecourse to increase attendance and ticket sales. This includes 10% up year on year for ticket sales in the public enclosure and 20% up year on year for ticket sales in the exclusive Gordon enclosure.

The glorious Goodwood feeling was felt by over 12 million people on socials – up 693% on 2024. Along with the promotions for Three Friday Nights, Goodwood Racecourse’s social media engagement recorded 250% above category average for campaigns.