Case study: How 'This girl can' got 1.6 million women exercising

Sports participation in the UK suffers from a significant gender gap; 2m fewer 14- to 40-year-old women than men play sport regularly.

The problem

Sports participation in the UK is suffering from a significant gender gap. Research carried out by Sport England reveals that by every measure, fewer women than men play sport regularly. Two million fewer 14- to 40-year-old women take part in sport when compared with men, despite the fact that 75% say they want to be more active.

The insight 

The "This girl can" campaign is based on a powerful insight: that the fear of judgement by others is the primary barrier holding women back from participating in sport. This fear covers concerns over their appearance, ability, or the simple fact they are choosing to spend time on themselves, rather than on their families. Tackling this fear was seen as key to tackling the gender gap.



Jennie Price, chief executive of Sport England, explains: "Before we began this campaign, we looked very carefully at what women were saying about why they felt sport and exercise were not for them, Some of the issues, like time and cost, were familiar, but one of the strongest themes was a fear of judgement."

Sport England’s research reveals that, from an early age, appearance is a concern for women when it comes to exercise; 36% of the least-active schoolgirls agree that they feel like their body is on show in PE lessons and that makes them like PE less. Furthermore, one woman in every four says they "hate the way I look when I exercise or play sport", and women are more likely than men to say they aren’t confident about their body when doing sport.

According to Price, across the board, women identify with the fear of not being "good enough" in some way; whether not being skilled enough, fit enough, or the right size. Sport England’s insight team also identified that women feel alone in this fear, instead of viewing it as the universal truth that it is.

Ability is also an ingrained concern, with more than a quarter of girls saying they don’t feel they have the skills to do well in sport. Women also tend to take a more conservative view about the level of their abilities than men and are particularly negative about their running speed, whereas men over-estimate their hand-eye co-ordination; more than half of men think they are better than average.

The insight team also identified mothers as a core audience for the campaign; the research reveals that while many mums would like to exercise, the fear of being judged for putting themselves first is a barrier. A massive 81% of mothers with children under 15 prioritise spending time with their families over getting fit, while 44% of mums feel guilty if they spend time on themselves. In some cases men have ‘hobbies’ which are to be encouraged, while some women instead engage in ‘me time’, which can easily be dismissed as something of an ‘indulgence’.

Research and insight was at the heart of the campaign, and came from Sport England’s internal team, its creative agency, FCB Inferno, and proprietary findings from the ongoing ‘Active People Survey’, its ‘She Moves’ research and the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation’s (WSFF) ‘Changing the Game for Girls’ report.

The process

Sport England spent nine months on research and talking to a range of stakeholders as diverse as big organisations, such as the FA and football clubs, to new mothers.

Sport England then invited the six creative agencies on the Crown communications roster to pitch for the business; five of which responded with initial ‘creds’.

"Having spent a lot of time agency-side myself I know you get the best out of a pitch if you spend a lot of time talking to the people involved. It isn’t just about the 45-minute presentation," explains Sport England’s director of business partnerships, Tanya Joseph. FCB was head and shoulders above the competition and won the brief. Subsequently, Blue Rubicon was appointed to handle PR and Carat to the media-planning and buying brief.

From the outset, research was at the heart of the process, and FCB invested significant time in studying the 600-page summary of Sport England’s research. FCB quickly realised that this would be a project based on ‘campaigning’ as opposed to a stand-alone single campaign.

"When we hit upon this insight we developed a manifesto, rather than a traditional creative brief. The reason being that we knew we had to create a powerful emotion and the creative team needed a strong strategic springboard," explains Sharon Jiggins, managing director of FCB Inferno.

In line with this insight, FCB created a manifesto, as opposed to a strapline, to guide the creative process. The manifesto was: "Women come in all shapes and sizes and all levels of ability. It doesn’t matter if you’re a bit rubbish or an expert. The point is you’re a woman and you’re doing something."

Right from the start, the relationship between client and agency was exceptionally transparent and the agency was encouraged to push the boundaries. From a practical perspective the campaign was tightly managed with in-house management from Sport England and an all-agency weekly meeting.

The results

Here is a campaign that is genuinely changing consumer behaviour and inspiring women to make a positive difference to their lives. As a result of the campaign, 1.6m women have started exercising. Moreover, the number of women playing sport and being active is increasing faster than the number of men.

The gender gap between men and women who exercise regularly has begun to narrow – from 1.78m to 1.73m – a sign that the campaign’s approach of focusing on the target audience as individual consumers is starting to pay dividends.

The increase in the number of women playing sport has driven an overall increase in the number of people regularly playing sport. This stood at 15.74m in the 12 months to the end of September 2015, up by 245,200 compared with the previous figures published in June. Overall, there has been an increase of 1.65m since London secured the rights to host the Olympic Games.

The 90-second "This girl can" spot has been watched more than 37m times on Facebook and YouTube alone. The campaign has an active social-media community of 500,000 and there have been 660,000 tweets about it.

In relation to the feminist publication in which I am devising, it is evident that change can be undergone if successfully targeted. It is also apparent that women have large issues with the way they look from an early age.