Member Article

This Girl Can.

We’ve all seen the new Sport England promotional campaign, featuring a catchy tune, jiggling bums and the ‘This Girl Can’ stamp to help encourage more women to take up exercise (if you haven’t, you can watch it on the This Girl Can website) What makes the ‘This Girl Can’ brand so good is that it has a clear aim. Knowing exactly what you want from your product makes it so much easier to develop and create something amazing.

Research carried out by Sport England found that 75% of women said they wanted to be more active but had fears of being judged for how they looked. They now had the goal for their brand: getting as many women of all shapes, sizes and ages involved in sport. However, instead of imitating the glossy, lycra-clad sports adverts like Nike and Adidas, Sport England chose to do the exact opposite and ‘tell the real story of women who exercise’, which involves sweating, jiggling and messy hair.

‘This Girl Can’ aims to appeal to every woman. This is why the typical role models for women in sport, such as Jessica Ennis-Hills or Victoria Pendleton were not used for their campaign, as they make the average woman feel like their physique is unachievable. Instead, they ‘streetcast’ ordinary women to front the advertising campaign. Popular sports presenter Clare Balding says she finds it staggering that nothing like this campaign has ever been done before, claiming, ‘we are all imperfect, let’s celebrate that’.

The brand celebrates women who are getting active, and embracing how they look and who they are.

Thus, setting itself aside from recent, preachy campaigns that encourage healthier lifestyles. It is realistic and inspirational. Because the brand is so clear in its aim, it can rely on simple and authentic slogans including ‘sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox’, and ‘I jiggle, therefore I am’, to support the varying sized, shaped and aged women wearing ordinary gym kit.

The ‘This Girl Can’ hashtag has seen the campaign go viral, with over 8.8m Facebook views, 123,000 shares and 6m views on Youtube since its launch on 12th January.

The success of the brand shows that once you have your goal, it becomes a lot easier to build upon it and create an effective campaign, especially when you get involved with the right people.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Wonderstuff .