The second week of January sees the Rugby Football Union (RFU) unveil a new ‘Meet Your Inner Warrior’ campaign that aims to encourage more women and girls to take up contact rugby within their communities.
The objective behind this new England Rugby integrated initiative is to ‘stir women’s inner toughness and unleash their inner warrior’ and it’s launch timing doesn’t just to leverage heightened interest in the sport ahead of the upcoming women’s (and men’s) Six Nations tournament, but also August’s Women’s Rugby World Cup (which will act as a key milestone for the campaign and as a catalyst to inspire a growth in participation in the UK).
The campaign, developed with independent creative and product experience agency RPM, is spearheaded by a central film posted on YouTube on 11 January.
and is being amplified through earned, owned and paid social media (using the #InnerWarrior hashtag) – including running across England Rugby’s own digital and social channels such as Twitter,
Women's rugby is going places and it's time to get involved Find your nearest Warrior Camp at https://t.co/VTOEPm9Q1j#InnerWarrior pic.twitter.com/fqF4SjXjXM
— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) January 12, 2017
Instagram,
and Facebook.
Additionally the campaign is running across out of home platforms, in-stadia advertising and it also includes around 100 experiential player recruitment activations, called Warrior Camps, hosted in rugby clubs throughout the country between 19 and 29 January.
These sessions will offer fun and informal taster sessions women who want to try the game before joining a member club or an organised team.
The Warrior Camps are essentially commitment-free taster sessions teaching participants introductory rugby skills and drills and all that is needed to take part is a pair of trainers and some usual workout gear.
Interested parties can sign up to attend a Warrior Camp through the initiative’s digital hub (click here).
‘We set ourselves an ambitious target when launching our women and girls strategy in 2014; to get 25,000 women participating in contact rugby,’ comments RFU rugby development director Steve Grainger.
‘Despite the ever-growing appetite for the sport that we have witnessed through achieving our target one year ahead of schedule, we know there is still work to be done to ensure women are aware of the opportunities out there for them to participate in rugby, whether for fun or at a competitive level.
‘Meet your Inner Warrior is a bold and ambitious campaign. We recognise that there is a lot of work to be done to ensure women understand the opportunities available to them across England to them to play the sport regardless of their age, location, aspirations and abilities,’ adds RFU digital, marketing and communications director Joanna Manning-Cooper.
‘We hope this campaign will help encourage more women to pick up a rugby ball and unleash their Inner Warriors.’
Comment:
Part of the current spike in women’s sports participation and its linked rise in rights holder and sponsor marketing activity, this campaign not only leverages spiking interest in rugby as attention turns towards the season’s flagship 6 Nations tournament, but also follows on from the October 2016 launch of the RFU’s new ‘Red Roses’ identity and its four-year strategic plan (see case study).
In its first 24 hours the campaign attracted more than 121,000 views: including 95,000 Facebook views (with more than 1,000 shares), 3,000 Instagram likes, 851 YouTube views, as well as 180 retweets and 208 Twitter likes.
But the key success metrics will surely be the number of women who sign up and attend the Warrior Camps.
Links:
RFU
https://www.youtube.com/user/officialRFUTV
https://twitter.com/EnglandRugby
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialEnglandRugby/
https://www.instagram.com/englandrugby/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+englandrugby
RPM Ltd
http://www.rpmltd.com/
