Top 10 Women’s Sport Campaigns Of The Year

Our hugely popular 10 Best Women’s Sports Campaigns of The Year is back for 2022 in what will be our 4th edition!

Revisit previous year’s winners here:
2021
2020
2019

What a year 2022 was for women’s sport with record attendances, viewership, sponsorship deals and sporting action!

Highlights for us included Women’s Euros euphoria, WNBA finals mania, the most ‘equal’ Olympics in history, Serena William’s ‘retirement’, the first ever Tour Des Femmes and more!

As well as jaw-dropping action in the sport’s arena, we saw marketing campaigns reach new heights in 2022 with activations, budgets, creativity and meaningful executions like we’ve never seen before.

Let’s crack into it! Congratulations to Team Heroine’s Best Women’s Sport Campaigns of the year.

Best Women’s Sport Campaigns 2022

This year was by far the hardest to pick just 10 winners as there were a number that could have easily claimed a spot so we’ve developed a new category of ‘Highly Commended’ for other notable campaigns that just missed the cut.

Highly Commended:

DAZN x Elite:
DAZN’ ‘This Is Elite’ promo brilliantly evolved last year’s winning campaign of ‘We All Rise With More Eye's’ to reflect the seismic shift that women’s football experienced in the past 12-months and superbly captured the cultural impact women’s football is having.

Black Ferns x Like a Black Fern:
‘Like a Black Fern’ was one of the few ‘brand ads’ that we’ve seen a sport’s organisation invest in and it so eloquently captured the unique Rugby World Cup winning, Black Ferns culture and entertained in a dynamic and fast-paced execution.

Guaraná Antarctica - Stuck In The 80's:
Brazil drink brand, Guaraná Antartica were at it again with their support for women’s football developing Cannes Lion winning campaign, ‘Stuck in the 80’s ’ which tackled the gender pay gap in a fun and nostalgic campaign which led to an equal pay bill being passed in parliament.

NWSL x Ally:
NWSL league sponsor, Ally used their media buying clout with CBS to get the NWSL final moved from a lower-rating afternoon TV slot to a higher viewing prime time slot that resulted in record viewership of nearly 1 million people and YOY growth of over 70%.

Ebay x Eni Aluko:
Ebay ran an out-of-the-box activation with former Lioness, Eni Aluko in their ‘Ebay Transfer Window’ which provided one local grassroots team with the opportunity to ‘transfer’ her to their club for a game as part of a £5 community raffle with proceeds going to a football charity.

10th Place: Adidas Euros - How to STOP sweden & shirt swap

Adidas used their UEFA Women’s Euro’s campaign to close the knowledge gap in women’s football in an innovative and interactive way via “How To Stop Sweden” which used interesting data collated from the team’s Lead Team Match Analyst.

Along with the different layers of team and player story-telling they embedded a seamless commerce element to buy Sweden shirts. I also loved the twist in the title of how they were helping other teams ‘beat Sweden’.

They continued their efforts by having the men’s German, Belgium and Spanish sides don the Adidas ‘women’s shirt’ instead of the ‘men’s shirt’ during international friendly matches in the build up to Euros in order to raise awareness for their women’s national teams in a best-in-class example of cross-promotion.

9th Place: Unfair play, unfair pay

This quirky campaign around Euro’s proved you don’t need big budgets to create impact.

With just £1000, Talented Ladies Club used the tournament to develop this simple yet eye-catching execution to highlight the pay gap within Women’s Euro’s corporate sponsors, whose marketing often centres on championing gender equality. It of course went viral and delivered far greater Reach than their £1000 media budget.

Booking.com got the biggest red card with women at the company earning just €0.58 to every €1 a man earns.

A great reminder that sponsor’s can’t just use women’s sport to ‘tick a box’ and must be genuine contributors to the cause.

8th Place: Heineken X UEFA CHampion’s league - Fresher Football & Cheers to All Fans

Heineken took a different approach to their UEFA Women’s & Men’s Champion League sponsorship with a clever campaign that looked to tackle the gender bias that exists around football statistics.

They created the first site in the world where statistics have no gender bias which was aptly named ‘Fresher Football’.

They recorded key moments like ‘which team or player had the most final appearances?’…not just the men’s players and men’s teams who achieved these feats but the players and teams overall….men or women’s full stop. It was refreshing to see names like Marta and Ada Hegerberg mixed in and alongside male players like Messi and Ronaldo.

Top marks for creativity on this one but for also helping elevate women’s footballers and highlight their outstanding achievements.

Heineken followed up with another clever twist in their campaign video beautifully titled ‘Cheers To All Fans’ which again tackled gender bias in football but this time the perception that all football fans are men.

The fun video showcases the many female football fans and settings in which women are passionately enjoying football and encourages everyone to celebrate and make space for female football fans.

7th Place: Rugby World Cup x Wā Poi

Rugby World Cup showed great campaigns aren’t only about the big emotive TV productions and that activations that uniquely capture and tell the story of that particular property can create as much buzz and talk-ability.

‘Wā Poi’- It’s Poi Time did just that by unlocking the unique Black Fern’s culture while tapping into the significance that Māori culture plays not only within the team but the wider New Zealand women’s rugby community.

Over 35,000 Poi were handed out during the tournament which fans embraced and twirled around to cheer on the Wahine toa playing in the tournament. Tournament organisers even encouraged people to make their own and bring them to the game with ‘how to guides’.

It was all topped off during the Rugby World Cup final with the iconic Patea Māori Club group performing Poi-E, an iconic Māori & Poi anthem.

The visual and story-telling impact of this activation has to be one of the best in-stadia examples we’ve ever seen.

6th Place: Adidas x Support is everything

Adidas took us to an iconic location on the Thames to showcase their support for women’s sport with their ‘Support Is Everything’ campaign activation to launch their new Adidas sports bra collection, which tackles the impact of poor support on sports participation and performance.

It centred around the clever insight of “There are more statues of animals than women in London” by which Adidas displayed 8 eye-catching statues of ground-breaking women in sport, fashion and culture including footballing personalities, Vivianne Miedema,Eni Aluko, Francesca Brown and rugby star Emily Scarratt.

What I loved more than it being a conversation-worthy stunt was how it told deeper personal stories via QR codes on the statues in conjunction with developing video executions that delved into the problem and amplified Reach

It’s visual nature made the campaign instantly understandable and set itself up for being widely shared but most importantly it demonstrated ‘actual support’ by highlighting a core issue around the lack of recognition heroines like female athletes receive.

5th Place: Nike x Serena Legacy

When GOAT, Serena Williams announced her likely retirement after the US Open there was a flurry of emotive and high production ads dedicated to celebrating the 23 X Grand Slam champ, activist, mother and super heroine.

Long time supporter, Nike’s powerful ad focused on how Serena wasn’t afraid to stay true to herself while smashing down barriers to become the best.

The central idea and end frame copy; “By changing nothing, she changed everything” was spine tingling.

4th Place: BBC x we know our place - summer of live sport

BBC consistently feature in our best campaign lists and this year it was their promo showing where a sportswoman’s place is that won our hearts.

“It’s on winner’s podiums, on billboards, in the history books. It’s wherever we say it is.”

They also had numerous outdoor executions around each specific event that tied into the campaign and had comprehensive coverage, particularly around Women’s Euros with a power-house line-up of presenters and ancillary content.

It yet again established BBC as a leader in women’s sport (regardless of what women’s sport broadcast rights they own) and entertained with a clever play that pokes fun at traditional stereotypes.

Brilliantly timed, they launched the promo in football’s men’s and women’s FA Cup Final as the countdown began for a huge summer of UK women’s sport with UEFA Euros, Commonwealth Games, Wimbledon, The Hundred and more.

3rd Place: BundY Mixer x NRLW

Bundaberg Rum score Team Heroine’s bronze medal this year for their innovative campaign around Australia’s NRL and NRLW with their world’s first gender-neutral fantasy league and entertaining videos to promote it.

Bundaberg Rum helped elevate the women’s game and put it on equal footing with the men’s league.

‘With Bundy Mixer, you can bring together the best of the best, not just the best of the blokes’.

It wasn’t just lip service as they did more than just raise awareness around NRLW but rather helped increase familiarity with the NRLW players by also delving into their playing traits i.e. averages 126 running metres.

As well as pulling in new fans to the women’s game via NRL and gaming fans they executed this in a meaningful way with numerous promotional videos like ‘Bundy Mixer Explained’.

This was all done while seamlessly integrating their brand via product give-aways and the brilliant ‘Bundy Mixer’ title (not Bundy NRL Fantasy!).

Runner up: Gatorade x For Serena, with Love

After Serena Williams announced her pending ‘retirement’ Gatorade put out a tear-jerker of an ad titled ‘Love Means Everything’ which was beautifully shot, beautifully cast and beautifully narrated (by Beyonce).

It celebrated not just Serena’s tennis talent but what she has done for women, particularly black women.

What we loved most was how it opened as a love letter ‘For Serena, With Love’ and cleverly delivered the insight around ‘Love’ equating to zero in tennis but being everything in life.

They also made the ultimate Marketers tribute by changing their iconic logo across their channels from ‘G’ to ‘S’ to honour the sporting great.

WINNER: Nike x Euros (Home, Never Settle, Never Seen, Rebel Girl Stories)

Nike were the clear winner in our eyes for their campaign around UEFA Women’s Euros. Not only because of their unique, share-worthy and meaningful ‘Never Seen’ campaign but because they went all in with 3 additional campaigns centred around the tournament.

Nike’s Never Seen campaign leveraged iconic landmarks and clever media placements to showcase the England Lionesses and their playing traits via projections on the eve of kick-off.

They used taglines like “You’ve never seen power like this” featured alongside an image of Lucy Bronze on a power plant or “You’ve never seen speed like this” featuring Lauren Hemp on a billboard in a train station.

Why this took our top spot:

1. The visual scale and impact reflected the quality and impact of the tournament.
2. Telling player stories through creative use of landmarks was not only visually unique but enabled fans to learn more about the star’s playing traits.
3. Clever use of budget with the operational and media costs only required for one night but the reach earned from editorial and people sharing being significant.

Nike didn’t stop there though. They created ‘Never Settle, Never Done’ which was a high octane video alongside beautiful social content that captured the intersection of sport and culture and called for women’s football to keep pushing forward through a brilliant showcase of elite and grassroots talent.

They continued the Euros party through a collaboration with iconic girls book series, Rebel Girls which featured 12 of Europe’s best women footballers that were accessible via audio book, as digital books in Nike’s site and as limited edition books in Nike stores across London.

Lastly, it was the perfect ending for Nike when the Lionesses ‘Brought it Home’ and they had the foresight to prepare a number of marketing material including press ads, projection billboards, t-shirts and even flags that they handed to the players on their victory lap all carrying the words ‘Home’ which replaced the valuable Nike trademark.

An all-round impressive effort by Nike and a well-deserved Gold in Team Heroine’s Best Campaigns of 2022.

Congratulations to all the winners and bring on 2023 for more ground-breaking women’s sport action both in the sport and marketing arenas.

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10 Best Women's Sport Campaigns of 2022