Challenged to celebrate the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) women’s national team – The Black Ferns – and promote Adidas new tournament kit launch in the lead up to the 2021 Rugby World Cup, agency Augusto created an integrated, multi-strand campaign in harness with the ‘Dream Girls Art Collective’.
With New Zealand acting as hosts for the pandemic delayed 2021 Rugby World Cup (held between 8 October and 12 November 2022), the client’s brief for the campaign also sought to inspire the country’s next generation of young women by reinforcing the players status as female role models. So the agency worked with the art collective to capture each member of the squad and tell their own individual story via an empowering activation led by video and OOH executions.
Women’s rugby union largely kicked off in earnest in 1991 and the current Black Ferns are part of the beginning of the national women’s team’s story: having mostly pursued their own path to greatness and grown the status of the game with few existing female rugby role models to look up to or emulate.
To recognise this and to inspire future generations of young New Zealand women, the campaign kicked off with a hero film featuring the current team and showing the effect and influence female role models can have on young girls via an inspirational hero film.
The lead spot not only promotes the new Adidas black jerseys which the team will wear to take on the rest of the world in their own back yard, but also focuses on four current Black Ferns – Les Elder, Chelsea Bremner, Chelsea Semple, and Portia Woodman – and also features up-and-coming, 11-year-old drummer Zhene Soeira who delivers the spot’s punchy beat.
To further hero the players, Augusto worked with the ‘Dream Girls Art Collective’ to capture each Black Ferns player and their story via an outdoor campaign providing an empowering twist of the iconic All Blacks posters of old. These were further supported by social content running prior to and through the tournament.
With that last try, @PortiaWoodman now has the most RWC tries of all time!! #LikeABlackFern | #NZLvWAL | #RWC2021 pic.twitter.com/88P4llkOU0
— Black Ferns (@BlackFerns) October 29, 2022
What does 'sisterhood' mean to the Black Ferns? Let the players tell you.#RWC2021 | #LikeABlackFern pic.twitter.com/9KzEHqww5Q
— Black Ferns (@BlackFerns) October 31, 2022
“We’re so excited for the opportunities this iconic sporting moment delivers for current players and hope it can inspire the next generation of women’s rugby players to take up the sport,” commented Adidas Senior Manager of Brand Communications Andy Lane.
Augusto ECD Adam Thompson added: “The biggest stage in women’s World Rugby is the perfect platform to iconise our phenomenal athletes and showcase the role models they are. We’re proud to be able to deliver an Adidas campaign that will help give the Black Ferns the recognition they deserve.”
The campaign was briefed in by Adidas Senior Manager Brand Comms Andy Lane and Manager Brand Comms Oliver Connelly and created by a group at agency Augusto which included ECD Adam Thompson, Creatives Mitch Crowe and Ben Carroll, Commercial Director Amy Dufty, Account Director Lauren Oxnam, Senior Account Manager Ivana Mihaljevich, Head of Production Simone Goulding, Producers Amy Molloy and Brad Harvey, Production Managers Isabelle Graham and Lucy Caccioppoli, with Director James Solomon, DOPs Bevan Crothers and Tammy Williams, Art Director Ash Turner, Editors Corbin Dallas, Connor Farrell and Mariano Segedin, Post Manager Zoe Jones, VFX Artist Jon Baxter and GFX Artist Shaun Madgewick.
Music was handled by Rodney Fisher with audio mix from Liquid Studios with Head of Design James Davison, Designers Nina Vasiljevic and Katie Curd, Artwork by the Dream Girls Art Collective, plus Photographer Graeme Murray and BTS Director Sophie Black.
Comment
Leveraging women’s rugby union’s biggest international stage is the obvious platform to iconise these Kiwi phenomenal athletes and present them as female role models for the future generations.
This is a powerful campaign celebrating the achievements and abilities of the Black Ferns players and has echoes of other 2022 Women’s Rugby World Cup campaigns such as The RFU’s ‘Red Roses’ work and England team sponsor O2’s ‘An England Rugby Dream’ activation.
According to Adidas, with the women’s game finally getting the recognition it deserves, the bespoke Black Ferns Rugby World Cup kit was designed to help inspire the next generation.
The kit design and the campaign emerged from insights drawn from the current Black Ferns squad and both seek to celebrate the team’s unique and versatile heritage with the inclusion of a large, debossed fern graphic across the front and back of the jersey. To ensure maximum performance capabilities and comfort were achieved, adidas body mapped the entire squad to attain exact measurements for a tailored fit for each member of the squad.
Plus, as part of the sportswear giant’s commitment to help end plastic waste, the jersey, replica jersey and training range all feature a yarn containing at least 50% Parley Ocean Plastic (re-imagined plastic waste intercepted on remote islands, beaches, coastal communities and shorelines to prevent it polluting the ocean) and 50% recycled polyester.
The jersey also includes Adidas AEROREADY: which uses sweat wicking materials designed to keep the Black Ferns feeling dry, whilst maximising comfort.
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