Summer 2019: the best female footballers are battling it out for the world championship title in France. But nobody in Germany was interested in the women’s football World Cup.

Even worse, our female players faced discrimination in the social web: “Women are just there to have babies ... they don’t belong on the pitch”.

It seemed that the debate about equal rights after #metoo was already forgotten. Or has never arrived in the conservative football world. Time to fight against this social injustice. Together with Commerzbank – Germany’s second-largest bank and sponsor of the women’s national team since 2008 – we wanted to create a strong statement for equality and against female discrimination.

We built our film around one key insight that grabbed everyone's attention:

The football crazy German audience did not know the names of their most successful football players which were not the male football stars but in fact their female counterparts which raked in more titles and success on the football world stage while earning almost no attention at all. This helped us to highlight the bias and adversity German women face not just in football but in everyday life. This helped us to reach a broader audience and make a stand for women in our society.

Instead of running the usual sponsorship campaign, we came up with the idea of giving the women’s national team a platform to raise awareness for the lack of appreciation – not only on the pitch, but in all areas of social life. That’s how we get the public attention and reach people's’ hearts.

With a courageous and self-ironic film, our players discounted hate comments and disarmed prejudices. To achieve this we let our female players speak and act by themselves and recorded a stunning commercial within a 4 hour timeframe.

Every scene tackled a known stereotype, fought a dirty comment from the web or a sexist point of view with humour. They came up with statements like “We don’t have balls. But we know how to use them”. Additionally this statement was supported by our campaign hashtag “Pferdeschwänze” which literally translates as “ponytales” but also suggests these ladies have got balls.

Our film was aired in social channels at the moment the German squad for the 2019 Women’s Football World Cup was announced. It ran from May till July 2019.

Within a short time, the polarizing video went viral. German and international press as well as TV broadcasters picked up our provocative film in their regular schedule. One bold and funny phrase from the film became a viral hit in social media. More and more prominent supporters, like the German Federal President spoke out for this self confident women's attitude. But that's not all. The message of the spot became a real movement and the #pferdeschwänze became a strong symbol for equality.

Our campaign raked in:

- More than 280 Mio. Media contacts (Online and TV)

- reached people in more than 47 countries

- and generated a PR Value worth 30 Mio. Euros