In 2019, the Argentine women’s football league made history by achieving what they had long fought for: the professionalization of the national women’s game. After years of determination and perseverance—demanding basic rights such as access to equipment and training fields—the AFA (Argentine Football Association) finally granted the league professional status, reinforcing its commitment to gender equality. As the sport’s governing body in the country, AFA is in charge of organizing the Professional Tournaments, which women's teams were part of from that year on.

But beyond this milestone, equality is far from being a reality in Argentina. With a femicide taking place every 26 hours, the league boldly wanted to shine a light on the critical issues that women are still facing, and illustrate what the numbers represent—all from the previously male-dominated place that women fought to own: the football pitch.

Thanks to the work of nonprofits and other collective efforts, awareness about gender inequality and violence is at an all-time-high in Argentina. New rights are being conquered—both big and small—by the hands of movements like “Ni una menos.” However, the number of femicides are multiplying each year, and the reality that Argentine women face is far from equal to that of their male counterparts. According to a study from 2019 by the Observatory for Gender Violence, a femicide is committed every 26 hours in the country, with no indication of numbers dropping.

Although this conversation is being had in both traditional and online media, statistics show that there’s still a lot of work to be done. With AFA being the highest authority in Argentina’s most popular way of entertainment, the organization was able to provide unparalleled visibility for an issue that needs to be addressed in every corner of society.

With the aim of raising awareness about the terrible situation of gender violence in Argentina, we took advantage of women’s football growing visibility and turned an abstract statistic into an impactful activation with real people.

Leading to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, every team in the Women’s League stepped onto the field with fewer players than usual. Instead of eleven players, the audience could only see four or five—an accurate representation of how high the death rate is. Each team also carried a sign that read “In the last match, we were 11. Today, we are 5.”

Through a visual representation of the void left by violence against women, we illustrated the severity of this social issue, started a bigger conversation and encouraged viewers to take action.

The statistics on femicides are available to everyone in the nation. Although the data is not hard to get, many fail to understand what these numbers truly represent. To create a visual depiction of this pressing social issue, the pitch was the perfect place—both in terms of visibility and significance.

After years of fighting for the professionalization of women’s football, the players represented the challenges women face every day. Moreover, with football being such a strong part of the country’s culture, there’s no better way to reach as many people as possible and educate them on a problem that needs everyone’s help to be dealt with.

We also picked a date charged with meaning to amplify the campaign: November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This way, we encouraged the media to talk about the campaign, kicking off a much-needed conversation between Argentinians everywhere.

The campaign took place on each game prior to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. It encompassed six live events—including the most important matches of the league—and a video for social media, in which every player addressed the issue directly.

Before each game, all teams involved stepped into the field with fewer players than usual, representing the women who had been murdered since the previous match. This was calculated according to the number of days between games and the statistical rate of femicides that take place each day. Once lined up on the field for the usual group photo, the girls held up a sign with their powerful message.

To amplify the live activation, we had the support of journalists and reporters from both online and traditional media, who celebrated the initiative and commented on it on their respective outlets.

The campaign drove organic shares by AFA, league clubs and the players, magnifying the reach of our message. In just a few hours, the biggest mass media outlets in Argentina weighed in on the initiative.

The video reached 991,000 views and 1.4 M interactions on social media, and the campaign was picked up by the biggest online media outlets such as Clarin.com, Lanacion.com, Olé and Infobae, among others.

On broadcast television, the initiative was talked about on major networks’ primetime programming.