Orange is the leading telecommunications provider in France and a historical sponsor of French football. As a former public service, its mission has always been to unite people. However, while Orange equally supports both the men's and women's national football teams, women's football still faces significant gender bias among fans. Orange has chosen to confront this prejudice and capitalize on the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup to spark a global conversation. The strategy was then to make it the most popular and positive discussion possible in order to convert as many football fans as possible into supporters of women's football.

This summer, the French women's football team played in its 5th World Cup, in a unique context. Up until a few weeks before the competition, no media organization had stepped in to buy the broadcasting rights for the event.

In a country where football is a passion, women's football is left out of the fervor. One of the reasons is prejudice about its lack of technical skills. Many fans have a strong opinion about it, without ever having watched a match, or having looked at biased compilations ("The worst of women's football", "100% fails women's football”…)

This is why the WWC was a key moment for Orange, a committed partner of football for 24 years, to go beyond its usual support for the French Women's Team, via a CSR brief whose main objective was to tackle the prejudices that women's football suffers from.

In France, football is king, with a popularity that has been fueled by the succeses of the men’s national team : 2-times world champion, finalist of the last edition in 2022. But women's football is left our of the fervor, partly because it’s still a relatively young sport, only being officially recognized by the FFF in 1974. This 2023 Women’s Wold Cup was only the 9th edition, whereas it was the 22nd for the men’s. But this doesn’t mean the women’s team’s drive is less than the men’s : they have been #5 in the FIFA ranking for years, have reached the semi-final during the last Euro…

Before the WWC, the French should have been cheering for their determined team. Yet, 3 weeks before its start, no TV partner had agreed to cover it. This was a painful reminder of the lack of institutional support to the sport in France, while other countries have succeeded in bridging the gender inequalities in football, by investing. In this panorama, it was important for brand sponsors such as Orange to step in.

For Orange, the leading telecommunication company, as a former state-owned company, public service is a core value. It is one of the first French brands to provide extensive support for football, with a trackrecord of 24 years backing amateur, professional,women and men’s football. Since 2018, the brand has held the status of a Major Partner of the French Football Federation, supporting both the Men's and Women's National Teams with equal resources.

For Orange, investment in football sponsorship had never been an empty shell for branding. The brand, that has supported football for 24 years, and the French Football Federation since 2018, was always committed to investing the same means for men’s and women’s national teams, in line with its internal actions for women in tech.

The 2023 Women's World Cup’s tense context motivated Orange to go beyond its usual support for the French Women's Team, via a CSR brief whose main objective was to tackle the gender bias that women's football suffers from. The brand’s objective was to play an active part in the fight against part of what forbids women’s football to shine brighter. With such a negative context around the World Cup, being a committed sponsor needed to be more than it usually is.

After getting this CSR brief from Orange, our research started by gathering data regarding the perception of women’s football. A study led by the Zurich University Sociology Department gave us useful insight. By exposing a group of 613 participants to blurred goals, the research reached the conclusion that perceived quality of actions is heavily filtered through gender stereotypes, with women being pre-judged as less technical.

We complemented this sociological input with our own social media listening: online commentary about women’s football and its supposed lack of technicality is often violent. It’s heavily fueled by sexist compilations of women's actions that proliferate online: "The worst of women's football", "100% fails women's football", "Top 10 sexy women's football actions". This gave us the perfect playing-field to fight back, and to expose football fans to women’ skills, with the filter of their gender bias being turned off.

To challenge football fans' preconceived notions, we used their love of beautiful technical moves to create a Trojan horse. We created a never-before-seen compilation of actions from players of the French men's team. For 1 minute, we see the beautiful play of Mbappé, Giroud, Griezmann, etc..., in a sequence that borrows from the codes of sports best-of videos.

The reveal then unveils the ruse: the video was in reality a compilation of... women’s technical moves! Thanks to VFX effects, the appearance of the French woman's team has been faked in the 1st part of the compilation, to serve a strong message. These skillful women's actions, without VFX, are replayed in the 2nd part of the video, so that the audience can admire them, stripped away from the filter of their gender stereotypes.

The video went viral in only days, and successfully fueled debate the biases women’s football suffers from.

> +2B impressions

> +200M organic views

> +450 cross-media PR coverage in 91 countries : articles, TV & radio, podcasts…

> Influential relays from opinion leaders of all sectors: from the French Minister for Sport to Alexis Ohanian, from Daniel Storey and Gary Lineker to Dan Povenmire. Football players also shared and gave exposure to the video: Cascarino, Matuidi, Le Sommer, Guendouzi, Henry, Dembélé, Griezmann...

> Strong attribution to Orange, in media and social conversations. The brand was even mentioned at a press conference when a journalist asked the players their thought about the video.

> Reactions were overwhelmingly positive, and to this day, the Compil des Bleues continues to be relayed, as a piece of content materializing the issue of gender bias in sports and helping overcome it.

Gender equality is a core pilar of Orange’s CSR policy, with a strong focus around women in tech: the brand works every day to bridging the gender gap in tech, led by the vision of its CEO, who is one of the only women-CEO of a French companie quoted in the stock market.

This commitment for women in tech translates into the brand’ sport sponsorship initiatives: Orange invests the same amount into its support of the Men’s National Football Team, as in the Women’s National Football Team. This is, sadly, an exception. Orange’ support for professional women football extends to the amateur field: the young players of today are the future stars of tomorrow, and their passion for football needs to be nurtured, to grow strong.