Game Over For 'Pink & Shrink' Kit Marketing
Women’s sport must ditch ‘Pink & Shrink’ approach to jersey releases
The final whistle has blown for sport brands and organisations treating the marketing of women’s kits as an after-thought.
Within less than a month we saw two major global sport brands run foul of their women’s shirt launches, causing backlash with fans and players.
The marketing of women’s sport kits has long been treated with a ‘Pink It and Shrink It’ approach, simply adjusting men’s products to serve women rather than approaching women’s sport with specific and meaningful consideration. This continues to harm the sports code, fans, players, society and ironically the companies themselves with irreversible brand damage and lost sales.
In response, I’ve created a Dummies Guide: 15 Rules for Marketing Women’s Sport Kits so brands and sport’s organisations can avoid embarrassing blunders that hurt everyone.
Repeated Women’s Sport Jersey Fouls
Canterbury’s jersey launch for Ireland rugby where they used models instead of women’s players in their marketing
While Canterbury were one of the most recent offenders when they used models instead of actual female athletes to launch Ireland’s rugby jersey, they are not the only ones making mistakes, with brands across the board getting it wrong.
Only 3-weeks after Canterbury’s blunder and subsequent backlash, Nike who at last year's Football World Cup told girls to “Dream Further” failed to produce the Matilda’s away kit in women’s sizes. An unforgiving error given Australia had just secured the FIFA Women’s Cup 2023 with a story centred around pioneering women and equality. On top of that the Matilda’s rank as one of Australia’s most loved teams (male or female). It’s not Nike’s first offence either, two years earlier the same thing happened with the New Zealand Football Ferns.
Nike’s biggest competitors, Adidas are guilty too, previously treating women’s sport jerseys as second rate. Only a couple of years ago it was impossible to buy a replica shirt of the most successful rugby team in the world - not the All Blacks but the five times World Champion Black Ferns. Thankfully a Black Ferns jersey is now available for sale as part of just 6 merchandise items compared to 195 All Black’s items.
5 Reasons Why Brands Are Getting Caught Offside
There are no clear answers as to why these types of errors are still taking place. Canterbury first blamed a production issue due to covid but to their credit later took full responsibility and have since instigated change. Nike avoided an explanation over the Matildas debacle saying only that they will do better. In my opinion, here are 5 reasons why brands are getting it wrong:
1. An after-thought
The promotion, distribution and even design can be tagged on to the men’s game without any bespoke thinking for women’s teams.
2. Resource scraps
Women’s sport often ends up getting funding last and often thrown scraps for tasks like design or marketing and worst case have no one championing the game.
3. Antiquated commercial perception
There’s a belief that because women’s products or teams have not been valuable in the past that they are still a cost rather than a revenue or long-term investment line item.
4. Knowledge gHosts
There can be non-existent research on fans and zero product testing that comes back to haunt marketers. Worst still someone may be ‘lumped’ with the responsibility for the women’s game but lack the knowledge to effectively execute initiatives.
5. Sponsorship hostages
Jersey releases can be held hostage by wider sponsorship deals and when it comes time to launch new kits, sports organisations can feel powerless in influencing production or marketing decisions.
The Matilda’s football shirt launch showcasing the two shirts with the ‘Away’ strip on the right unavailable in women’s sizes
Hanging Women’s Sport Out To Dry
People may think that these types of mistakes are just harmless oversights but treating women’s sport as an after-thought when it comes to kit launches hurts all parties and results in irreversible damage and missed opportunities including:
1. See her, be her
Leaving female players out of marketing means the next generation of aspiring players have no one to relate to and can’t see a path to making their dreams a reality.
2. Uncovering new Heroines
Showcasing female athletes helps potential fans become familiar with these players and strengthens connection with existing fans.
3. Planting money seeds
For many sports it already makes good business sense to fully support women’s replica jerseys and for other codes it’s just a matter of time before it delivers new profit streams (directly or indirectly). The USA women’s soccer team shirt became the most sold Nike soccer shirt ever (male or female team) after their World Cup success and didn’t even have male sizes available just 4 years earlier. Manchester United women’s stars, Tobin Heath and Christen Press shirts sold more than any male player in the days after their transfer announcement. In codes where creating or marketing women’s shirts (and other replica items) may not stack up financially right now, long term value needs to be kept in mind.
4. Spreading lies
Treating women’s sport jerseys as an after-thought is fueling a message that women and girls in sport are not taken seriously and they are not equal in certain areas of life. This is a harmful narrative given the vast benefits of having women and girls actively participate in sport (and in all areas of life generally).
5. A merry-go-round
Putting women’s sport kit marketing front and centre has positive effects that keep circling back around to deliver even more success. It can expose new fans to players, creating a tribal atmosphere which in turn creates more interest, more revenue, more sponsorship opportunities and so on.
Nike’s Fashion Week football shirt launch with a FIFA World Cup campaign telling girls to ‘Dream Further’ while failing to produce women’s sizes for the Matilda’s ‘Away’ Shirt and NZ Football Ferns
How To Launch And Market Women’s Sport Kits - 15 Must Do’s
To help brands and sport bodies keep women’s sport at the forefront of their jersey marketing, I’ve created this set of 15 rules to act as a checklist before launching and marketing any new kits. It is not exhaustive but should act as an absolute minimum for consideration.
Read my 15 Rules - Dummies Guide To Launching Women’s Sport Jerseys
Let’s eject ‘Pink It and Shrink It’ marketing fouls from the game and ensure all players win!
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Canterbury’s new marketing campaign for the Ireland women’s rugby team using players instead of models