October 13, 2015

Girl Powered

By Estelle Hakner, at Figaro Digital

Kate Dale at Sport England tells us how the organisation’s This Girl Can campaign, designed to get women engaged with sport, succeeded by keeping it real.

There are currently two million more men than women in England who play sport. This sustained gender gap persists despite the fact that 75 per cent of women say they want to do more exercise, according to Sport England. To reach these women, the organisation knew it had to address the anxieties and pressures associated with playing sports and use the insight to create a positive campaign that would engage, rather than exclude, women who feel restricted when it comes to sport. The resulting campaign, This Girl Can, used video and social media to inspire women of all shapes, sizes and abilities to dismiss their inhibitions and give sport a try. It focused on fun, friendship and fitness—not appearance.

Breaking down the barriers

To avoid being misconstrued as a government health campaign, explains Kate Dale, Head of Brand and Digital Strategy, Sport England talked to women about what might stop them exercising, and put that insight at the heart of the campaign.

“There were so many different reasons, but what it came down to was a fear of judgement,” she told delegates at the Figaro Digital Video Marketing Seminar earlier this year. “This could be judgement from others or, perhaps most cripplingly, judgement from ourselves.”

Sport England’s research brought three main issues to light.

“First, appearance. Worrying about looking red-faced, sweaty or silly can hold women and girls back from exercising. The fact that sport marketing is often completely unrealistic only amplifies the problem. Images are often airbrushed or just beyond the realms of most of us, which can be alienating rather than encouraging. Next, ability. Women might feel they’re not good enough to take part in sport, either because they don’t know the rules or they think they’re too unfit. Girls who are good at sport, on the other hand, may be put off due to the stereotype of being ‘butch’. Finally, priorities. Women might have conflicting pressures such as work, childcare or studies, and perhaps feel they’d be judged if they were to take time out for sport.”

Sport England tackled each of these barriers individually, creating content which took women’s negative anxiety and used it to build a positive attitude. They created short film clips telling the stories of real women who were enjoying sport regardless of busy lifestyles, gender stereotypes, appearance or ability. They all carry feisty slogans like ‘Sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox’ or ‘Hot and not bothered,’ and feature women who were street-cast to convey the campaign’s values.

“We spoke to anyone who was exhibiting an ‘I don’t give a damn’ attitude,” says Dale. “None of them have been airbrushed or Photoshopped. We didn’t put people into unusual positions. They’re doing the sports they’d usually be doing, in the clothes they’d normally be wearing. It’s all very authentic and real, which is a crucial part of This Girl Can.”

All of these individual stories were brought together for a full-length TV ad, which first aired in January 2015. But it was the activity that Sport England engaged in prior to the launch that ensured there was a ready and waiting audience for the film once it went live: an audience that had already invested in the objective and tone of the campaign. By the time the TV ad hit, This Girl Can’s video content had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

This was largely due to key media partnerships that Sport England had set up with The Telegraph, Grazia and Stylist. Ahead of launch, each publisher was given an exclusive piece of content to release in an editorial, which meant they could generate conversation and interest around it. Interviews were set up with journalists from Sky Sports and the Daily Mail, and vlogging activity was arranged with SprinkleofGlitter to reach a younger audience. In addition influencers such as Clare Balding and TV presenter Helen Skelton were briefed, encouraging them to get behind the campaign.

Real content for real people

While video was at the heart of This Girl Can, social media was its driving force. “When the ad went out for the first time on TV, we also released it on YouTube. We had all the influencers, newspapers and media we’d been priming for three months ready to Tweet. That evening, our Twitter traffic took off.” But Sport England didn’t just want people to see the campaign, they wanted them to talk about it. And they themselves wanted to talk to the women who were engaging.

“We needed to create conversations that charm, not criticise. You want to be that person at a party that everyone gravitates towards because they ask questions and they’re interested in what people have to say. Our social media had to do the same. There was a real danger that our campaign could be seen as just another government campaign telling you you’re doing something wrong.

“We used social analytics software to join the conversations women were having about their exercise routines, even if they were talking about having gone for a coffee instead. We didn’t mention anything to do with This Girl Can. We let conversation build up organically. We wanted to sound like a supportive friend, not somebody wagging a finger. We used the hashtag #ThisGirlCan rather than the URL, which allowed our partner organisations to link themselves to the campaign and join in too.”

After the campaign launched, Sport England made sure they remained loyal to their supporters. For women that had invested time in uploading content and Tweeting with the hashtag, being rewarded with a retweet or a comment added credibility and authenticity to the campaign. Picking up on the fact that people were already sharing their homemade This Girl Can videos, they also launched These Girls Can—a web app where women can make personalised versions of the campaign posters and share them on social media.

“This may not be something you’d expect an organisation like Sport England to be doing,” says Dale. “We certainly don’t normally appear in Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan. But we knew we needed to reach the women and girls that don’t normally do sport, and we had to be disruptive if we were going to cut through everything else out there. Be brave on social, even if that means changing the way you think about things.”

sportengland.org


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By Estelle Hakner, at Figaro Digital