From debuting the Lady Waffle trainer in 1978, naming its second-ever athlete shoe after Sheryl Swoopes, calling upon parents to let their daughters play in 1995, and more recently launching its first ever sports hijab - Nike had been putting women front and centre for 45 years.

But there was one woman sport was yet to acknowledge: the mother.

Nike wanted to change this and support her as an athlete. Alongside the launch of a new maternity line, our brief was to break down the cultural barriers in her way.

Society thinks that once you become a mother, you stop being an athlete. That you're too weak and fragile for sport.

Major competitions class pregnancy as an injury, gyms turn away expectant mums, trainers refuse to train them, and those who dare to do it anyway? They open themselves up to a world of criticism.

Nobody knows this better than USWNT player Alex Morgan. "Why would she do something like that during the peak of her career?'" Morgan said of the response to her pregnancy announcement. "It's not like women can't do both—our bodies are incredible—it's the fact that this world isn't really set up for women to thrive. There's no reason for me to stop just to start a family.”

If mothers aren’t athletes, no one is.

Our idea speaks to every mother: from world champions to everyday badasses who know even making it up the stairs is a feat. Because you don’t have to win a gold medal or run a mile, or even a single step. Just being a mother makes you an athlete.

Together with Nike, we spent months interviewing everyday mothers and elite athletes, as well midwives, sports psychologists and pre/post natal trainers to understand the science.

The truth is, motherhood is far from being a weakness. It's a strength both mentally and physically. An ultra marathon, while carrying a kettlebell. The greatest sporting challenge there is. One that no amount of training can prepare you for. Proving that not only are mothers still athletes, they are the toughest athletes of them all.

This point of view would not only inspire mothers, but cause the world rethink how it sees and treats them.

This was about making real change, even at Nike. It started in 2019 with new athlete contracts that support mothers, a whole new maternity product line which featured in Vogue, followed by maternity workouts on the Nike Run Club App, plus a podcast and group workouts for Black moms to feel seen and heard.

Then on UK Mother’s Day, we showed the world just how tough mothers really are. Leveraging the global scale of Nike's social media channels, we released a film featuring 20 women from around the world punching, pumping, lifting, surfing, kicking, running, and grand-slamming their way through motherhood. It was re-posted by Serena Williams, Alex Morgan, Bianca Williams and more, as well as airing on primetime British TV.

The work started an important global conversation:

- 2.7bn earned media impressions

- 28m views across social media

- @NikeWomen's most commented on IG post ever (tbc)

- 439m Twitter impressions

- 35,976 Twitter mentions

Created business impact:

- Share price rose 3.5% in the 24 hours after the maternity product line was announced.

- The entire maternity line sold out within 4 weeks of launch.

But more important than any of this, mothers - for the first time - felt recognised as athletes.