US based Fintech brand Ally Bank promoted its new pledge to boost support for women’s sports by promising male/female equal gender sports investment through a new campaign called ‘Watch The Game, Change The Game’ which aired on broadcast, cable, connected TV, plus on digital and social channels.
Launched in late June on the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex-based discrimination, the work restates Ally’s support for women’s sports and its June pledge to commit to give equal advertising and sponsorship dollars to both women’s and men’s sports programming.
The Detroit-based digital bank campaign was spearheaded by a hero, 60-second commercial featuring female baseball, basketball and soccer stars which includes the copy “when you watch me play, you support all of us,” and closes with “Ally is committed to equal investment in women’s sports media”.
‘At Ally, we believe investing in women’s sports means investing in women’s futures. Which is why we have committed to equal media investment in women’s sports media. You can help, too, by investing your time. The more we watch women’s sports, the more we change the game for women on and off the field. Help us spread the word by sharing a photo of yourself watching women’s sports at home or the game with the hashtag #WatchToChange. After all, we’re all better off with an ally.#
Created with creative agency Anomaly and Activista LA, the work features Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris – two players from the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) side NJ/NY Gotham FC.
“There’s a vicious cycle that exists in women’s sports,” said Ally Chief Marketing and PR Officer Andrea Brimmer. “Networks don’t give women’s sports prime coverage because there isn’t advertising support, but there isn’t advertising support because it’s not prime coverage, she noted, adding that as a result, women’s teams don’t receive higher revenue and their female athletes don’t receive salaries on par with their male counterparts. We decided somebody’s got to blink and end the vicious cycle,” Brimmer said. The company is matching its spend between women’s and men’s sports dollar for dollar over the next five years.”
But, as part of its 50/50 pledge, Brimmer admitted it will cut some of its men’s sports investments to even things out.
“The way we’re looking at this, if we’re buying five spots in the World Series, instead of buying five, we’ll buy three and re-invest the money from the other two into women’s sports,” she said.
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The online-only, financial app, which specialises in home and car loans, aims to correct a marketing gender imbalance in terms of brand investment in men’s and women’s sports and advertising spend. In May, at the espnW summit, it pledged to reach equal spending in paid advertising across women’s and men’s sports programming over the next five years.
This campaign follows hot on the heels of the May 2022 announcement of Ally as the presenting sponsor of the 2022 Women’s International Champions Cup: expanding its women’s sports sponsorship footprint and deepening its three-year tournament sponsorship.
Ally places sport as a core part of its marketing mix and has sponsorships with the National Women’s Soccer League, as well as several other properties and events including Nascar and the PGA Champions Tour.
Ally’s isn’t by any means the only brand giving women’s sports more attention and more investment. Last year, for example, Michelob Ultra’s ‘Save It, See It’ project pledged to give $100m to women’s sports over the next five years in support of gender parity.
Whilst Twitter also hosted its own campaign and content celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX through a series of sporting conversations with women from the WNBA, NASA and ESPN.
Depressingly, a 2019 Purdue study in the USA found that women’s sports coverage is the same as it was 30 years ago. Coverage of women athletes on televised news and highlight shows totalled only 5.4% of all airtime, a small increase from 5% in 1989. According to Unesco, only 4% of sports media content is dedicated to women’s sport.
On a more positive note, many women’s sports have set new records or seen increases in viewership. From record women’s football crowds in Europe to the Women’s NCAA Basketball Championship Game being the most-watched college basketball game—4.85 million viewers—on ESPN (men or women) since 2008 and the 2022 NCAA women’s gymnastics championship becoming the most-watched college gymnastics meet ever on ESPN networks (with a broadcast peak of 1.1m viewers – an 11% increase over 2021).
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