This campaign is dedicated to correcting incorrect search results that lead to a bias in the biggest data collection in existence: the internet.

Many of the world’s biggest sporting records are held by women. But when you ask search engines simple, non-gendered questions to find this statistical data, like ‘who has scored the most goals in international football?’, they incorrectly favour sportsmen over sportswomen, ignoring women’s achievements.

This was a global PR campaign that aimed to get a massive problem in front of as many people as possible, so they could take action and help us correct the internet.

The internet has a bias.

Search algorithms are trained on human behaviour, designed to give us what they think we’re looking for. Now, they’ve learnt our bias towards men.

Asked simple, non-gendered questions, like “who has scored the most goals in international football?”, search engines prioritise the more recognised male athletes, even when facts say it’s a female athlete - making women and their achievements invisible.

So Team Heroine, a women’s sport marketing agency that seeks to connect female athletes with brands to ensure they're better recognized in a world where women’s sport receives just 0.4% of media coverage and 4% of total sponsorship, aimed to correct the internet's bias.

Our objective was to create a new initiative to highlight the incorrect searches and get as many people as possible report them to the search engines so they could be corrected, and the achievements of sportswomen would become visible.

The internet’s bias is a problem that directly affects half of the population. As well as different sports, teams, fanbases, athletes, countries, and the billions of people who use search engines every single day. Our idea inspired this huge audience to take action.

We created an initiative that used the power of the people to right the wrongs of the internet and make the achievements of sportswomen visible.

The only way to correct search engines is by people sending feedback when they find inaccuracies. So we developed a tool that highlighted the incorrect searches that create the bias, and allowed people to report them with just a couple of clicks. New incorrect searches were revealed each day, showing the world the problem and inspiring them to take action. And this led to the search engines receiving feedback reports on a scale that made them take action too.

To make search engines act, we focussed on:

-External pressure (PR/awareness) on marketing/business, targeting the ‘trust’ pillar of brand health tracking which we know is monitored.

-Internal engineering pressure via bug reports from millions of users, to prioritise our corrections.

To achieve this, we needed to hit mainstream media:

-To give us the third-party credibility traditional media affords.

-To ‘shock’ audiences into action, and other media into covering.

The facts themselves are shocking, so we led media releases with facts tailored to different countries e.g. US sportswomen led US media releases.

The broader campaign targeted internet users, specifically those who cared most about the bias: young women; women with children; sportswomen; women’s sports organisations etc.

For PR, we focussed on sports journalists and commentators, especially women with a vested interested in covering. Once a groundswell of coverage was achieved, we targeting wider to women’s interest niche media and general news.

We ran a global awareness campaign from mid-January to present, aimed at getting the issue in front of as many people as possible.

Pre-launch we secured exclusives, including Newshub’s national 6pm bulletin. As part of Discovery’s global broadcast network, this allowed it to be shared around the world, and especially in the US, with USWNT football star Alex Morgan featuring in the story.

We distributed a New Zealand media release with relevant facts, statistics and spokespeople to a wide range of media and selected journalists including; News, Sport, Female, Lifestyle, Tech and Digital.

Utilising our global network, we arranged for distribution of a global releases with relevant facts, stats and spokespeople to News, Sport, Lifestyle, Industry, Women’s Media and digital outlets around the world.

Facts were revealed each day on social media, targeting different sports, teams, athletes and fanbases globally, being shared by the public, media, and the athletes themselves.

Our campaign reached over 1 billion people globally.

Had 120+ pieces of media coverage, including BBC, NBC, Fox News, Sky Sport & Forbes.

Millions of people reported to search engines through our tool, social channels, and the media.

And we’re now supported by over 50 global brands, including the United Nations.

When we started, the search results never showed sportswomen.

Although people can be served different results based on location, demographic and search history, we are now beginning to see change to many of the searches, correctly recognizing a female.

Now, a problem that has existed within search engines for decades has new momentum and is being solved, with Google deploying new features to highlight women’s sport, offering both male and female results on searches.

And now, Correct The Internet is part of UK/international government enquiries into misinformation, to help change the future of the internet.

Team Heroine launched Correct The Internet as an entirely new project, started from scratch.

We began with no brand awareness, and no following. But we did have an issue with global significance, and a brand new tool to tackle the issue. With this, we were able to:

- Reach over 1 billion people globally

- Get 120+ pieces of media coverage, including BBC, NBC, Fox News, Sky Sport & Forbes

- Millions of people reporting to search engines through our tool

- Gain the support of over 50 global brands, including the United Nations

- Talked about by athletes, including Billie Jean King, Alex Morgan & Andy Murray

- Reach UK parliament

Now, Correct The Internet is globally renowned, and Team Heroine has become iconic in the gender awareness movement in sports, and was able to instigate change from one of the biggest companies on the planet - Google.