Early June sees the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) launch a major new integrated campaign, called ‘Go Boldy’, to raise the profile of the England women’s cricket team.
The core of #GOBOLDLY is led by a cinema advertising (https://www.ecb.co.uk/tv/405799) strand in harness with summer blockbuster Wonder Woman.
The time to #GoBoldly is approaching…#WWC17 pic.twitter.com/jcDrmIs7Fq
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) June 2, 2017
In addition to being shown in selected cinemas across the UK ahead of the female super hero summer spectacular, the spot also spans social media and digital advertising from Twitter to Facebook.
The ECB developed the campaign with creative agency Matta, while the media and PR side of the initiative were run by ThreePipe.
The ECB’s core brief was to develop a campaign to communicate the journey England are on as they take centre stage on home soil this summer (as the host nation of the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017).
“We wanted a campaign that celebrated this young team, their positive attitude and inspirational passion for their sport,” explains ECB marketing manager Jenny Smith.
“The ICC Women’s World Cup on home soil presents us with a fantastic platform to raise the profile of this England team. We have worked closely with the players and team management from the outset to build a campaign that reflects their personality and culture, and which will have a longevity beyond the world cup.”
At the campaign launch, England opener Lauren Winfield added: “The team behind the campaign spoke to us to understand what motivates us and how we approach our cricket. We wanted a campaign that reflects us as players and #GOBOLDLY does just that. It was a lot of fun filming the cinema advert, which looks fantastic, and we can’t wait to see it in cinemas.”
“The campaign communicates the attitude of the players who will ‘Go Boldly’. Creatively it showcases the players’ individual trademark cricket skills while hinting at what they could possibly achieve this summer.”
The initiative is timed to leverage cricket fever around the Champions Trophy (also hosted in England and Wales in the early summer) and build up to the ICC Women’s World Cup – which runs from 24 June to 23 July (the final being held at the Home of Cricket, Lord’s.
England’s own first match will see the hosts take on India’s women’s side on 24 June at the 3aaa County Ground in Derby.
Activative Comment:
The launch of this ECB initiative comes at the same time as UEFA’s ‘Together ‘WePlayStrong’ campaign – which leverages the Women’s Champions League Final and aims to make football Europe’s number one women’s sport by 2020 (see case study).
Thus the growth of women’s cricket and women’s cricket specific campaigns is part of the wider women’s sport revolution.
Indeed, according to Sport England’s December 2016 figures, the number of women playing sport regularly in England reached an all-time high of 7.21 million.
This ‘Active People Survey’ showed the number of women participating in sport has increased by 250,000 since the launched of Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’ campaign in 2014 (see case study) and that the difference between the number of men and women playing sport has narrowed to 1.55 million.
This ECB campaign builds on the previous ECB women’s cricket work – much of which was activated in tandem with the men’s team: such as the joint ‘Rise’ campaign from back in 2013 and the Ashes ‘Smashing Boundaries Together’ campaign in 2015.
Check out the new 'Smashing Boundaries Together' campaign for #WomensAshes!
Info: http://t.co/kLYr3kePPH pic.twitter.com/HvsnzMhzjn— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 13, 2015
It also follows on from the ICC’s own campaign promoting the 2017 Women’s World Cup, launched last year, called ‘Who Runs The World’ campaign (see case study).
Indeed, as the summer season has approached it’s been all change for cricket in England.
Not only has the ECB already rolled out its youth-focused ‘All Stars Cricket’ programme (see case study), but it has teamed-up with sportswear supplier New Balance for the #MyFutureSelf new kit campaign (see case study), while principal partner has launched its #NoBoundaries initiative (see case study).
Even the ICC is taking a modern, fresh focus on the game with its Intel alliance introducing a series of new tech into the ECG-hosted 2017 Champions Trophy (see case study).
Links:
ECB
https://www.ecb.co.uk/new-balance
https://www.facebook.com/ecbcouk/
https://twitter.com/englandcricket
https://www.youtube.com/user/ecbcricket
Matta
ThreePipe
