Following the brand’s relaunch spearheaded by Neymar da Silva Santos, Marcio Clare, and Gustavo Xisto, the brand is undergoing a revamp led by Guto Cappio, who is taking over global management of the operation; the new identity will debut on the Santos jersey at Vila Belmiro this Saturday (11)
A visual and values-based reference that represents one of the world’s leading icons—reaching far beyond sports—the Pelé brand is launching a comprehensive new branding project this April. Returning to the control of a team of Brazilian experts after decades, the Pelé Brand is now a structured asset, with clear guidelines for application, an international presence, and established protocols for robust partnerships with brands and partners of equal stature.
More than just an overhaul of its visual identity—which had been somewhat disorganized up to that point—the new ecosystem brings professional asset management, with a defined brand architecture and clear categories of operation. The process is based on three core areas: performance, culture, and legacy, which reflect the breadth of Pelé’s influence both within and outside of sports.
“There are very few global icons with the stature, influence, and positive connection that Pelé embodies. In contrast to his stature and potential, however, this brand was being underutilized and poorly managed, both in Brazil and abroad. Now, we will ensure that the brand lives up to what his name and identity represent around the world, in a professional and structured manner. The sensational work that NR Sports has already been masterfully doing with Neymar Júnior speaks for itself. “Now we’ll have the opportunity to do the same with the Pelé brand,” says Guto Cappio, global general manager of Pelé Brand.
One of the leading figures in the recent history of advertising in Brazil, with more than 30 years of experience in brand building and managing large-scale creative operations, Cappio founded the Sunset agency in 1994, which went on to become one of the country’s largest digital operations. In 2007, he joined the ABC Group, leading the agency’s merger with the global DDB network, part of the Omnicom Group, in 2018. He is now taking the lead in the institutional development of the Pelé brand, steering its long-term vision and commercial partnerships.
“A brand as big as Pelé needs a team as big as Pelé. Guto has joined us to build a framework that will take this brand to every market and across all borders,” says Neymar da Silva Santos, who repatriated the brand in November 2025 and leads the Pelé Brand board alongside statutory directors Gustavo Xisto and Marcio Clare. The project also includes Caio Germano, a brand strategist with over a decade of experience working across agencies and the corporate world, having collaborated with brands such as Itaú, Fiat, and Jeep, as well as building WeWork’s enterprise operations in Brazil as vice president of brand & licensing.
Inspiration and Application
The new Pelé brand is an effort to codify his legacy. For the first time, the entire symbolic legacy built around him over the decades has been organized with rigor and purpose, transforming cultural heritage into strategic infrastructure.
Symbols that were already part of the collective imagination and associated with the King—such as his signature, the number 10, the crown, and the fist pump—were mapped out and assigned clear, specific functions within the brand’s architecture: the signature as a seal of ultimate exclusivity, 10 as a code for performance, the crown as a symbol of culture, and the iconic gesture as an immediate presence. Each element can be consistently activated by partners in any context, on any scale, or in any market.
In addition, a meticulous research project analyzed more than 1,200 goals from Pelé’s career, mapping actual movements on the field—such as changes of direction, bursts of speed, and dribbles—and translating these trajectories into proprietary graphic lines that make up the brand’s visual vocabulary. The result is a system with the flexibility and breadth needed to honor his legacy while also supporting dynamic, new, and ambitious applications across any platform, category, or corner of the world.
"Home" Debut
The new Pelé brand will make its first official appearance this Saturday (11) at Vila Belmiro, during the match between Santos and Atlético Mineiro, part of the 11th round of the Brazilian Championship. In a special collaboration, Umbro, Santos’s official apparel supplier, is giving up its logo space on the jersey so that the King’s new icon can be officially unveiled to the public. The month of April is filled with historic milestones for Pelé and Santos, such as the club’s anniversary—it turns 114 on April 14—and the date of Pelé’s first contract with the team, on April 8, 1957.
