The United States Tennis Association has a solid heritage in supporting women’s equality and to promote the opening day of the 2019 US Open – which was also Women’s Equality Day – the rights-holder chose to roll out a campaign driving awareness of the gender imbalance.
The initiative sees the USTA address gender inequality in sports media coverage and the objective of the campaign is simply to persuade the world that women’s sport is worth watching and to encourage equal media coverage of men’s and women’s sports.
The creative is a call to arms and uses the hashtag #WomenWorthWatching and serves as an invitation to spread the word.
The core message is delivered by Billie Jean King who narrates the campaign’s spots which are led by the spearhead film called ‘Women Worth Watching: Who Inspires You?’ first posted on 14 August.
.@TeamSheIS x @USTA Embrace All
The biggest names on the @wta, past and present, and @andy_murray unite as one voice on the importance of supporting female athletes in a daring statement: “She Is. We Are. Embrace All.”
Learn More: https://t.co/WGPwvSq6rm#SheISUSTAEmbraceAll pic.twitter.com/bqQ0MzQMQ4
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) August 27, 2018
The USTA’s platform may be tennis, but this campaign challenge extends to all women’s sports and it emerged after agency Mcgarrybowen Chicago research found that of all sports covered in the USA only 4% features female athletes.
The initiative also saw the USTA expand its existing partnership with SheIS – a not-for-profit group whose goal is to ‘leverage the power of women in sportsto create a future of, by and for strong women’ – to amplify and extend the reach of the campaign.
The campaign was created for USTA CMO Amy Choyne, Managing Director (Marketing) Nicole Kankam, Marketing Manager Carrie Ehorn and Marketing Coordinator Noelle Hickey by an agency team at Mcgarrybowen which included Chief Creative Officer Kurt Fries, Group Creative Director Lee Remias, Creative Directors Lara Herzer & Mike Wegener, Head of Production Steve Ross, Executive Producer Mark Olson, Music Licensing Supervisor Libby Morris, Director of Business Affairs Joann Baker, Business Manager Karen Blatchford, Group Strategy Director Chris Robertson, Group Managing Director Tom Smith, Account Director Kristen Eglitis, and Account Executive Grace Harding.
The production company was Cinema Libertad and the editors were Robert Stockwell and Lindsay Rynne, with assistant editor Kathleen Bracke and finishing editor Olivia Curry.
Post Production was handled by Nice Shoes, the Post Producer Serena Bove, the Color Artist Ron Sudul with a voice over by Billie Jean King.
Comment:
It was back in 1973 that the USTA ensured the US Open was the first Grand Slam tournament to award equal prize money for men and women and in 2006 it named the whole tournament grounds after Billie Jean King herself.
Last year King fronted an Adidas ‘here To Create Change’ campaign which launched to leverage the 2018 tournament (see case study).
Links:
United States Tennis Association
https://www.youtube.com/user/USOPEN
https://www.facebook.com/usopentennis
https://www.instagram.com/usopen/
Mcgarrybowen
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