Ahead of the 13th annual ‘espnW: Women + Sports Summit’ – sponsored by Toyota – the US media giant teamed up with agency Arts and Letters to create a promotional spot that assures viewers that ‘Change Is Coming’.
In a continuation of espnW’s ongoing ‘That’s A W’ brand campaign, the ‘Change Is Coming’ commercial debuted during ESPN / ABC’s ‘Monday Night Football’ on Halloween (31 October) in the game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns.
The 30-second spot showed how the increasing visibility of women on the pitch is helping change the industry for the better: describing each forward-moving, female-featuring action and programme as its own ‘W’.
The ad highlights career-defining moments from a strong team of high-profile female sports professionals – including Carson Pickett, Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles and Sydney McLaughlin and WNBA Championship-winning coach Becky Hammon – and the spot leans into the equality sporting evolution at every turn. As the copy stated: “That’s breaking records. That’s breaking your own records.”
The promo was set to a new track written by Erin Bowman and Colby O’Donis and performed by Erin Bowman and which is available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, TikTok and YouTube.
“The song is about giving it your all and seeing where that takes you! You can go amazing places and do amazing things when you push yourself,” explained Composer Bowman. “To have your song play in a promo that’s all about inspiring female athletes is incredible. Powerful women doing their thing, pushing themselves, it’s truly exactly what the song is about. Also, the 10-year-old me, with her insane love of soccer, is very excited.”
“Our campaign continues to showcase that a ‘W’ is so much more than a scoreboard win,” said espnW VP Of Marketing & Female Audience Expansion Rachel Epstein. “Every day, women in sports are driving change and are a force on and off the field—espnW celebrates those stories and the impact they have. We knew ‘Change is Coming’ would be a perfect fit for this work because there is so much powerful momentum in the space – a change is coming!”
“Major strides have been made in women’s sports, and we wanted to create a spot that is an ode to those women who have fought and are fighting just as hard for their team, their sport, as they are for our collective community,” added Arts & Letters Creative Alex Brusko. “We chose stories of resilience, courage, strength and authenticity to highlight that the ‘we’ is always greater than the ‘I.’”
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The summit itself took place between 1 and 3 November in the Ojai Valley Inn (Ojai, California) and the campaign’s roots lie in the October 2021 ‘That’s A W.’ launch campaign which introduced the media company initiative’s empowering message aimed at supporting women’s sport and reshaping the conversation around it.
It took mainstream media a long time, far too long a time, to really begin championing female sport and engage around the rising global interest in women athletes, but finally women’s sports and female athletes are beginning to see a notable rise in media coverage ad consciousness.
But there is still a long way to go before they receive equitable media treatment.
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