The second week of March saw global rugby sportswear brand Canterbury release the first video in a six-part ‘Changing The Game’ film series which shares the stories of a set of trailblazing women in rugby union and leverages spiking interest ahead of the TikTok Six Nations tournament.
The films all tell the stories of Canterbury female rugby athlete ambassador – including players, officials and coaching staff – and discuss the various barriers they have faced and how they overcame them to drive the women’s sport forward in terms of awareness, accessibility, skills and growth.
Launched to coincide with International Women’s Day (8 March) and deployed across YouTube and the brand’s other digital and social channels, the first story focused on player, filmmaker and activist Victoria Rush and explores how young girls aren’t offered equal opportunities to play rugby at school, and focuses on fitness, defying traditional expectations.
Rush explains how she has defied traditional expectations of how a woman should look and how they should exercise, describes lifting weights as ‘empowering’.
The second short film, which was posted on 11 March, starred rugby player, nurse and mother of three Zainab Alema who grew up in London and who has spent her life breaking down barriers both on and off the pitch. Alema’s ambition is to become the first black female Muslim to play professional rugby for England and she hopes to inspire greater accessibility and representation across the sport for everyone.
“Rugby is available to boys at a very young age but very rarely available to girls before they are at university,” commented Victoria Rush in the long-form spot. “Most people I know didn’t start playing until a PE teacher introduced it to them – usually as a one-off session at school.”
The other five films in the series will roll out throughout the month of March ahead of this year’s TikTok Women’s Six Nations which runs from 26 March to 30 April.
Canterbury’s objective behind the initiative is to use the stories to inspire and encourage the next generation of female players to take up and continue to play rugby. This aim is further enhanced through a linked incentivisation strand which sees the sportswear brand offer up to £10,000 worth of kit and equipment to new, young players through a social media mechanic running throughout the month of March.
Canterbury Vice President Jack Richardson commented: “Many female players face a multitude of barriers to getting into the sport and we wanted to tackle these head-on and try to break down as many as possible.”
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Part of a world-wide increase in campaigns backing women’s sport – from awareness and ticket sales, to ambassador fronted initiatives and sponsorships – this campaign comes hot on the heels of new research by Women In Sport which reveals more than one million girls in the UK lose interest in physical activity as a teenager each year.
In recent years Canterbury has been a strong supporter of gender equality in rugby union, as well as of grassroots and development level rugby through several initiatives including supplying playing apparel to clubs, schools and institutions globally.
Plus, through it ‘Give It A Try’ initiative with the IRFU, Canterbury has helped 4,000 young girls in Ireland to take part in introductory rugby lessons, while the brand also supports up-and-coming female athletes with funding and kit through its charity partnership with SportsAid.
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