Together #WePlayStrong invites girls across Europe to play football, showcasing the confidence and friendships that come with it. The campaign was developed from the girl up, featuring girls they relate to and addressing issues girls care about most. By doing so, it enables girls to prove to each other that football is something they want to be part of. It was essential the campaign reached girls via channels they’re already active on and in ways that they use themselves, with their peers. Our approach equipped them with the tools to get behind the campaign; to co-create, participate, and make it their own. We created bespoke content for influencers to share, and ambassador Liv Cooke fronted Musical.ly challenges. From GIFs on Giphy (integrating into 600 platforms) to a BuzzFeed partnership and an iMessage sticker pack, the campaign was optimised for the platforms – and mobiles – the girls are already using.

We developed a year-long cross-platform content plan that launched ahead of the Women’s Champions League final in June 2017. Dedicated Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Musical.ly and YouTube channels are kept updated every week, sharing our 20 content films, 1000+ images, 60+ stickers & illustrations and 40+ GIFs. An influencer campaign at launch ensured names from the football world and beyond spread the word: Cara Delevigne (40M followers), Little Mix (12M) and Olly Murs (7.6M) got involved and Cešc Fabregas (9.2M and Gordon Ramsey (5.2M) created bespoke content. Ambassador and football freestyler Liv Cooke was involved from conception and features widely; she’s fronted multiple Musical.ly challenges, alongside footballer Alex Morgan (5M), to encourage girls to create content and get involved. An iMessage sticker pack enabled girls to use our assets in their conversations, whilst reactionary GIFs on Giphy integrated campaign content into over 600 platforms, including Instagram Stories, Tinder and KIK.

Without any traditional above the line media spend, the campaign has had 200 million views and 73% of teenage girls who’ve seen the campaign say they’d want to play football. Together #WePlayStrong has generated over 18K mentions across social platforms, and 55k people have joined the online community. The Together #WePlayStrong Giphy channel has garnered 160M views to date. The iMessage app, which enables girls to use our campaign stickers in their conversations, has been downloaded over 2K times. Musical.ly is an established channel for the campaign, with the platform generating over 9K pieces of football-centric UGC through top Muser-led campaigns. Activity on social has driven over 250K people through to our website, where they can find their nearest football club and join girls across Europe playing the beautiful game. Most importantly, we’ve made women’s football visible to girls, with 1.02B social impressions generated so far.