Team Heroine’s 4C’s to Supercharge Women's Sports
A New Framework for Marketers to Apply to Women’s Sports Campaigns
Last week I was afforded the opportunity to present on the prestigious Debussy Stage at the epicentre of creativity, the Canne’s Lions Festival where I coined a new model to supercharge women’s sport; Team Heroine’s 4C’s to Supercharge Women’s Sport.
In my keynote presentation I talked about how historic systems and structures that were originally set up with men in mind have created bias (conscious and unconscious) and despite all the recent hype and growth around women’s sport these bias continue to ripple into all parts of the sport’s landscape and hold the women’s game back.
Like everyone I love seeing the viral videos of Caitlin Clark shooting 3 pointers flood my Instagram and witnessing record-breaking headline after record-breaking headline and while it is imperative we celebrate the success and build on these moments we also can’t progress-wash things or down-play how far we still have to go.
The reality is that women’s sport still remains years behind the men’s game in all aspects including pay, media coverage, sponsorship, participation and even recognition on the internet (which Correct the Internet looked to tackle).
This nice little graphic fresh out of the Female Quotient is a timely reminder of just how far we have to go!
During my keynote speech in Cannes, I also raised concerns around the impact AI will have on women’s sports given AI takes existing bias and inaccuracies and amplifies them further through society. My worry is that we may never ‘close the gap’ and reach where we want to get to.
My argument is that while we can all agree progress has been made around women’s sport, the status quo is not going to get us to where we want and need to be fast enough.
Instead, we need to hi-jack the system to supercharge growth.
On stage, I coined the 4C’s to Supercharge Women’s Sport, a re-work of a familiar framework that many Marketers use to inform their strategic direction called the 4C’s, where we look through the lens of our Customer, Company, Category and Culture to help inform our marketing strategy.
After years of studying successful women’s sport campaigns, understanding the nuances of women’s sport and working in the field on a daily basis I continue to see 4 recurring and connected themes shine through when it comes to successfully marketing women’s sport.
These 4 themes or pillars are;
1. Courage
2. Creativity
3. Community
4. Collective Action
I believe these 4 pillars are central to driving successful women’s sport brand campaigns, and at the same time supercharging growth of the women’s game.
Introducing Team Heroine’s 4C’s to Supercharge Women’s Sport, a framework for Marketers to apply to their own women’s sport brand campaign planning process which has these 4 pillars at the heart of thinking and planning.
I see Team Heroine’s 4C’s Framework acting as an overlay to run your ideas and thinking through in order to supercharge your brand campaign (alongside supercharging women’s sport).
For example, place your brand proposition, campaign strategy or even objective in the centre and then work through each box asking yourself how you can be more courageous, better use creativity, leverage the community and drive collective action to support and supercharge that brand proposition, campaign strategy or objective.
Below I explain each of the 4C’s using context, the goal of each, application and a real-life example of Correct the Internet to illustrate the point.
1.Courage
Context: We have years to ‘catch up’ when it comes to women’s sport thanks to the decades long head-start men’s sport has had but also the hangovers from the historic systems and structures that were originally set up for men. The status quo isn’t going to get us to where we need to be, fast enough.
Goal: We need to be bigger, bolder, more provocative and more courageous in our thinking, voices, actions and visions in order to leapfrog the women’s game ahead.
Application: At every stage in the planning process, Marketers need to ask themselves how can we make this idea, this execution, this copy, this roll-out, this aspect bigger, bolder, more provocative and more courageous?
Correct the Internet Example: When it came to Correct the Internet, a bunch of New Zealanders at the bottom of the world dreaming up a global movement to take on the tech power-houses, leading sports bodies, media and governments to change the internet was more than courageous, especially on a media budget of $0. But at every turn we asked ourselves, what would make this idea bigger, what would make this execution more bold, what could we say that would capture greater attention and not only did UK parliament and search engines take note but they too took action around Correcting the Internet with Google announcing a raft of changes to increase the visibility of women’s sport and a conversation occurring with UK politicians.
2.Creativity
Context: We can’t simply follow the same path as men’s sport to fast-track the women’s game. Women’s sport is a different product with different audiences and different brand values plus the step’s men’s sport took are no longer relevant in an ever-changing market and world. The good news is women’s sport is ripe for experimentation and innovation as we don’t (yet) have the same red tape, gatekeepers or tradition to hand-cuff us.
Goal: We need to create our own rules and our own path. We need to think outside the box and unleash the power of creativity to make bigger bounds forward, faster.
Application: How can you better leverage creativity to fast-track growth? How can you use emotive storytelling, create compelling content and unlock innovation to deliver greater leaps forward?
Correct the Internet Example:
a) While our key objective was to increase the visibility of women’s sport we went about it in an out-of-the-box, surprising and unconventional way by looking to give sportswomen the recognition they had earned on the internet.
b) We used emotive storytelling in the hero film to cut through, captivate people to come on our journey and apply pressure from the ‘top-down’; on the decision makers like search engines, politicians and sport’s bodies.
c) We created a unique and innovative tool that turned the internet’s feedback button on itself and allowed the masses to flag incorrect search results directly with the search engines to apply pressure from the ‘bottom-up’.
3. Community
Context: Community is one of the most over-used terms in Adland but women’s sport literally has one of the most tight-knit and supportive communities out there. The community also has unique and highly desirable traits like being action-orientated, loyal, optimistic, digitally savvy, social-led, a desire to be part of something bigger and they are sitting there waiting to get behind the right cause and brand.
Goal: Tap into and leverage the unique traits of the women’s sport community to supercharge you cause and campaign.
Application: How can you put community at the heart of your campaign or cause and look to get them involved? What traits can you lean in to in order to create bigger impact and momentum? What assets, tools and incentives can you provide them with to help you? How can you make these easily accessible? Who are the influences or early adopters in the community and how can you get them involved?
Correct the Internet Example: We knew if we could get a message out to the community they would drive awareness with the wider population but also take action to help ‘fix the internet’. We tapped into their unique traits and feeling of ‘community’ in 2 key ways:
a) Targeted key community members before launch to garner early support and mass impact. We had dozens of partners sitting alongside us ready to spread the word about Correct the Internet as we launched.
b) Created share-able and open-source assets that anyone could access so everyone could feel involved and would take ownership over the campaign. We let go of control so others could help drive the direction. The video below was created by one of our partners, Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) to support Correct the Internet using many of our campaign assets but adapted to their own tone and sport of tennis.
4.Collective Action
Context: When it comes to brands playing in the women’s sports space, of course they want to sell more gear, more drinks, more financial services or whatever but in order to play an authentic role, brands have to first work out what they are going to contribute to the women’s sport ecosystem to help it thrive.
A nuance within this model is that people may think Team Heroine’s 4C’s Framework to Supercharge Women’s Sport only applies to ‘social cause campaigns’ (like Correct the Internet) working to supercharge women’s sport but when it comes to the women’s game, brand campaigns are one of the same as if brands are not contributing something positive to impact the women’s ecosystem (to supercharge growth), be it as simple as raising the profiles of players, better equipping athletes with financial skills, increasing visibility or improving the access and discoverability of women’s sport, they are doomed before they even start!
While ‘brand purpose’ is a hotly debated topic in the world of brand marketing my belief is it is essential in these fairly early stages of women’s sport commercialisation to be a genuine and authentic supporter and not just a performative brand in the game to drain its current hype value…women’s sports fans will smell fraud and call you out!
Secondly, as WNBA legend, Sue Bird puts it in her ‘Dare to Dream’ trailer, we are more powerful together. As a united and co-ordinated group, we can create more impact when we move in the same direction to amplify and achieve a common goal.
Goal: As a brand, first work out what part you are going to play to help supercharge the growth of women’s sport (ideally in a territory that naturally aligns to your brand or industry) then work out how you are going to unite, co-ordinate, incentivize and get people to participate in that cause.
Application: How can my brand create a clear and strong call-to-action? How can my brand leverage the masses to help deliver on our cause and call-to-action? What partners, collaborators and allies can my brand bring in to amplify and build on our message and to co-create initiatives?
Correct the Internet Example:
a) We created a single-minded action-orientated proposition; “Correct the Internet”
b) We created tools for people to get in on the action; a mass search engine feedback tool and a submission function so anyone could submit incorrect search results that they had found to garner the support of others to change the algorithm.
c) We produced ‘Evergreen’ assets - we never saw Correct the Internet as a one-off ad campaign but as an on-going movement to illicit long-term participation. One of these ‘Evergreen’ assets was a school resource so students could get in on the game and it’s still in use in classrooms 18-months on today. We also created hundreds of different social media assets like the below that linked to different athletes and sports so at any given time we could tap into relevant cultural moments and people’s different passion points.
Team Heroine 4C’s Framework Question Prompts
I hope you found this useful and look to utilise Team Heroine’s 4C’s to Supercharge Women’s Sport on your next women’s sport brand campaign. Below is a summary with questions you can use as prompts to help satisfy each 4 of the key pillars or quadrants within Team Heroine’s 4C’s Framework to Supercharge Women’s Sports.
For example, when evaluating whether you can make your campaign or proposition more ‘Creative’; ask yourself questions like
a) How can we unleash greater creativity to drive greater cut through and action
b) How can you leverage emotive story-telling to better engage existing and new fans to supercharge the game?
c) How can you unlock innovation to create more impact and drive greater leaps forward?
*One word of caution, remember Frameworks act as a prompt and are only as good as the thinking that goes into them so spend time on quality thinking to ensure quality outputs!
I’ll be taking a look into different brands and how their campaigns tie back to Team Heroine’s 4C’s so follow me on Linkedin to uncover more examples of how this model can be used!