Amazon’s Prime Video promoted its new women’s baseball series, ‘A League of Their Own’, through a campaign that brought together female athletes and women’s sports trailblazers to play an exhibition game and to write an open joint letter to inspire young girls in sport.
The marketing campaign promoted the streamer’s ‘A League of Their Own’: a new series based on the classic 1992 film about women’s professional baseball during the World War II era during which women’s replaced male players who were in the armed forces.
To celebrate the show’s premiere, Prime Video hosted a baseball game at Los Angeles Valley College’s Monarch Stadium. 95-year-old Maybelle Blair, who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during the 1940s and inspired ‘A League of Their Own’ threw out the opening pitch to series star and co-creator Abbi Jacobson.
Working with agency Newhouse, a US physical and digital campaign revolved around the game led by a piece of creative that fused the message and the medium on the Southern California baseball film by using 30,000 baseballs to write a letter of empowerment for all young female athletes.
This was turned into a promotional trailer titled ‘A Girls’ Letter to the Future | A League of their Own’ which was amplified across Amazon’s channels from 11 August (a day ahead of the series debut) and which honoured the female sports trailblazers who defied conventional society by pursuing their passions to be professional baseball players.
According to the streaming service, the letter aimed to act as an ‘indelible message of empowerment and support for new generations of female athletes’ 9as well as urging viewers to watch the show and subscribe to the service.
Among those women who took part in the exhibition game and wrote the letter were:
> Abbi Jacobson (actress/producer)
> Haley Cruse Mitchell, Rachel Garcia & Paige Halstead (professional softball players)
> Kelsie Whitmore (the first woman to appear in the starting lineup of an Atlantic League game)
> Amy Rodriguez, Illona Maher, Tamrya Mensah Stock and Ibtihaj Muhammad (US Olympians)
> Katelyn Ohashi (All-American gymnast)
> Crissa Jackson (Former Harlem Globetrotter)
> Mariah Duran (Pro skateboarder)
> Alysia MontanÞo (Track & Field Champion)
> Brenna Huckaby (Snowboarder & Paralympic Gold Medalist)
> Layshia Clarendon (the first openly non-binary WNBA player)
> Mackenzie Dern (UFC Fighter)
The letter was also created in partnership with non-profit Baseball For All (BFA): an organisation which creates opportunities for girls to play, coach and lead in the sport.
After the event, Amazon donated the balls to BFA, the San Diego Waves, Culver City Little League and other organizations.
The campaign was created by a team at agency Newhouse which was led by Creative Director Erik Blair and included Producer Amy Castellano, Copywriter Tim Greene, Executive Producers Andy Robbins and Robert Nuell, Project Managers Amy Castellano, Maddy Peirce and Melissa Hope, Project Coordinator Emma Guido, Senior Editor Frederick Snyder, Assistant Editor and Motion Designer Nick Barreda and Graphic Design Ally Svurud.
“While brainstorming and thinking about the 1940s, the era of A League of their Own, we realized that a lot has changed for women,” explained Prime Video and Amazon Studios Influencer Marketing Manager Jazmine Chase. “But when you think of the world of sports, specifically baseball, not much has changed. There aren’t any women playing in major leagues—and just recently, the women’s soccer teams won their fight for equal pay. So, we wanted to bring together all of the athletes who are doing the work in their respective sports, breaking barriers and making a better future for the generations to come. Representation is so important, and you have to see in order to be. This letter and our inspiring new series, A League of their Own, provides hope and inspiration for a better tomorrow.”
“Girls aren’t not playing baseball because they aren’t capable,” added BFA founder Justine Siegal. “They aren’t playing because they see no viable future in the sport for themselves.”
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The tactic behind the project was, according to Amazon, built around using the promotion of ‘A League Of Their Own’ as an opportunity to make a point about gender equality in sports and was informed by research showing more than 100,000 girls aged between 6 and 12 currently play baseball in USA.
2022 also saw Title IX celebrate its 50th anniversary of reshaping the sports landscape for women and girls, championing sports equality on and off the field is becoming an essential part of rights owner and sponsor activations and recent interest initiatives range from Ally Bank, Diageo-owned Johnnie Walker’s ‘Running With The Angels’ anthem activation around its sponsorship of Angel City FC, Busch Light’s female NASCAR driver ‘Accelerate Her’ initiative, plus a strong set of standout campaigns leveraging UEFA Euro 2022 and PepsiCo’s Women’s 2022 Champions League campaigns.
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