1 out of 2 Belgian women feels anxious during their running session outside, many of them often avoid certain streets or take shortcuts. And the rising number of sexual harassment cases made women think twice about whether they should exercise at all outside. This fear causes women massively quit sports or not even consider starting with it. Although this disturbing issue needs to be addressed towards men and raise awareness among them. Garmin wanted to find a way to empower women and strengthen them to keep running outside. The briefing was not to sell their products but to touch on this issue in a way that Garmin does and emanates in their core values which are helping people to navigate safely in public spaces and supporting them in their sport.

The 'Combat Warm-Up' brings together the world of running and the world of martial arts to create a solution for a societal problem. The ‘Combat Warm-up’ are warm-up exercises for female runners with self-defence techniques woven into them. This enables you to prepare yourself for your work-out but at the same time help you to be able to defend yourself if you would need to. These exercises are specially developed by two renowned Belgian sportswomen. Belgian Gold Olympic medalist Kim Gevaert and European Taekwondo champion Laurence Rase.

The core of this idea is mixing sports with fighting techniques and integrating them in your warm-up to become an automatism.

Research showed that 1 out of 2 women in Belgium felt anxious during their running session outside. Comparing these feelings of the unsafety of women in Belgium versus Belgium being a country with gender equality, showed us that maybe on paper there is gender equality, but it doesn’t get always experienced that way by women. This feeling of anxiety that many women have was the starting point for this strategy. We found common ground in the brand values of Garmin which are helping people to navigate safely in public spaces and supporting people in their sport. It was clear that Garmin needed to respond in an impactful way that would really assist women to feel safer again when running outside.

So, the question then became how might Garmin help Belgian women to navigate safely in public spaces while supporting them in their sport?

We started with a manifesto film and PR to address everyone, not only women but also men because they are not all aware of the problem. And they should be because they are the problem.

This is followed by tutorials consisting of short videos with clear steps offering women all the tools to start right away. Women who saw the manifesto on social media also got to see the tutorials in their feed.

The manifesto and the tutorials were shared on the social media channels of Garmin ambassadors. These people have been exercising with Garmin watches for at least a year and posting it on social.

Six months after the digital launch of the campaign, the leading fitness brand in Belgium Basic-Fit reached out for a collaboration. So, Garmin teamed up with Basic-Fit and now these exercises are being taught as a permanent part of their workout routine for women.

The combat warm-up brought the issue to the heart of the social debate. Raising questions about women’s safety. Even though this is not a problem that Garmin can solve on its own, they definitely set the tone to spark a conversation as the beginning for further structural changes and solutions to ensure women’s safety.

• 26 press articles were generated.

• 860.000 women watched our videos

• Our ads have been seen 4.3M times (of which 1.2M unique people).

• 27 Garmin ambassadors supported the campaign by sharing the manifesto and the tutorials in their network. Good for a reach of 557.728 people and a PR value of € 61.602.

• Basic-Fit and Garmin organized Combat Warm-Up Sessions throughout Belgium where women were able to learn the warm-up sessions in real life.

• The combat warm-up sessions are now a permanent part of the leading Belgium fitness brand Basic-Fit.