It’s been a big few weeks for women’s professional sports – from Marianne Vos winning the biggest ever Pro Tour bike race and French club Clermont Foot appointing Helena Costa as manager (the first ever professional female coach for a male team in the top two divisions of any of Europe’s big five football leagues) – but perhaps the most intriguing gender equality initiative this year came when Brazilian MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) organisation Shooto launched a campaign promoting the world’s first mixed-gender fight.
Shooto, a well established, popular and reputable Brazilian mixed martial arts rights owner, announced the fight through its usual publicity and scheduling channels and further boosted the hype around the event through social media work and a mock training video.
On the day of the fight, the two fighters entered the MMA’s octagonal fight ring and then, just as the referee was about to start the combat, they actually hugged one another and a banner was unveiled, informing the entire audience that there were enough fights going on between men and women right at that moment.
It was then revealed the event was all a stunt campaign against domestic violence for an anonymous tip line – Disque Denúncia.
The entire campaign, as explained by this case study video,
was an anti-domestic violence awareness campaign for Disque Denúncia that was developed by Rio de Janiero’s Agencia3.
The account team was Camilla Oliveira and Carla Maggesi, strategy was by Ana Alberine, Willian Rocha, while the agency copywriters were Cadu Vigilia and Gabriel Gil.
The art director was Durval Filho, the creative director Luis Claudio Salvestroni and the executive creative director was Jader Rossetto, with film production from Kombat Films, direction by Gabriel Mattar and music and sound was designed by Sonido.
Comment
The objective was to spread awareness of the unacceptable level of domestic violence in Brazil and the aim of the initiative was to generate debate and it did just that.
The story was picked up by many news and sports media outlets – discussing whether such as fight was in any way appropriate or fair.
The agency claims that the promotional stunt reached over 40 million people and achieved the equivalent of $3m in earned media.
Links
Disque Denúncia Website
http://www.disquedenuncia.org.br/
Agencia3
Shooto
http://www.shootosouthamerica.com/
MMA Website
http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/
MMA Fighting
