A new video featuring girls performing slick dance spearheads the second phase of The Football Association’s (The FA) ‘There’s More To Football Than Football’ equality initiative.
The film, developed in harness with agency VCCP and directed by Courtney Phillips, sees a team of five youngsters perform a hip-hop style dance routine which turns out to be a goal celebration.
The ad aims to encourage girls to ‘Find Your Squad’ by driving them online to www.TheFA.com/ForGirls.
The spot debuted during ITV’s flagship Saturday evening The X Factor show (on 18 November) and it was further supported by activity across Sky Adsmart.
Social versions of the video are running on target-relevant platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
There's #MoreToFootball than football.
Find your squad: https://t.co/HKXuPtwAHK pic.twitter.com/wpxR3N0Qkb
— Lionesses (@Lionesses) November 18, 2017
Media planning was handled by Manning Gottlieb OMD.
The initiative, which promotes the friendships that can be made through the game, revolves around the The FA’s ‘Gameplan for Growth’: a strategic plan to double the player base and fanbase of women and girls’ football by 2020.
The campaign targets 11 to 16-year-olds and aims to inspire them to play and participate in the game and to drive interest in various strands of the initiatives such as FA Girls’ Football Week, SSE Wildcats and girls’ football clubs.
“The focus now is to help us inspire a change of behaviours – associated with our strategic objectives – bringing to life the wide ranging benefits that football offers,” explained The FA’s marketing head Georgina Lewis.
“This is an exciting, dynamic campaign which we hope will inspire a new generation to have a long-lasting relationship with the game.”
Jim Thornton, deputy executive creative director at VCCP added: “We want more girls to discover the joys of playing football. And most importantly, that playing football has never been just about the playing – it’s always been as much about the fun, about being part of a squad or a gang. That’s what we wanted to show in the ad – the camaraderie and the confidence that goes hand-in-hand with being part of a team.”
Comment:
The starting creative in the second phase of the work follows on from the initiative’s initial multi-platform re-launch back in March when The FA unveiled its new ‘For All’ brand purpose with two short films.
These spots, which feature England Lioness defender Casey Stone,
and James Blackwell (a star of the England Cerebral Palsy team) highlighted The FA’s commitment to diversity on all levels.
‘For All’ aims to unequivocally reinforce The FA’s position that football is open to everyone, regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, disability, faith or age.
This campaign happens to be running in parallel to a related inclusivity initiative from England Rugby called ‘I Am Rugby’ (see case study).
Links:
FA
https://www.youtube.com/user/fatv
https://www.facebook.com/EnglandTeam
VCCP
