THE DAY-AFTER-WOMEN'S-DAY NEWSPAPERS

TitleTHE DAY-AFTER-WOMEN'S-DAY NEWSPAPERS
BrandRAPARIGAS DA BOLA
Product/ServiceRAPARIGAS DA BOLA
Category G05. Cultural Insight
Entrant HAVAS Lisbon, PORTUGAL
Idea Creation HAVAS Lisbon, PORTUGAL
Credits
Name Company Position
Paulo Pinto Havas Worldwide Portugal Executive Creative Director
José Vieira Havas Worldwide Portugal Creative Director
Bernardo Tavares Havas Worldwide Portugal Copywriter
Alexandre Meneses Havas Worldwide Portugal Art Director
Ana Torres Havas Worldwide Portugal Media Director
Margarida Pedreira Havas Worldwide Portugal Digital Creative Director
Sérgio Resende Havas Worldwide Portugal Account Director
Nuno Nascimento Havas Worldwide Portugal Art Finalist
Pedro Silva Havas Worldwide Portugal Production Director
António Fernandes Havas Worldwide Portugal Graphic Production Director

Why is this work relevant for Media?

The media played a fundamental role in this campaign. We printed and circulated our own newspapers in order to expose sexism in sports journalism. Without using newspapers as a medium, we wouldn’t have been able to illustrate with such clarity the disproportionate exposure given to male athletes over their female counterparts by the 3 most important newspapers during the 364 days of the year, not counting International Women’s Day. By turning Portugal’s top 3 sports newspapers into infographics on 9th march, we created unprecedented content that made people confront the deep-rooted inequity that exists in sports coverage.

Background

´Raparigas da Bola` (English translation: Ball Girls) is an advocacy group that fights to give more visibility to women in sports. Raparigas da Bola wanted a campaign to raise awareness about the deep-rooted inequity that exists in sports coverage. With zero budget to work with, we printed off a humble 30 copies of the newspapers, counting on the striking power of reproducing an exact representation of each of the 3 newspapers as two-tone infographics to capture the audience’s attention.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

With the media spotlight on women on 8th march (International Women’s Day), then what better day than the 9th march to draw attention to the deep-rooted inequity that exists in sports coverage, everyday. With that in mind, we turned the news of 9th, published in the Portugal's top 3 sports newspapers, into 3 infographic publications, highlighting the imbalance of media exposure between men and women in sport. The news of the day became a tool with which to fight for fairer visibility for female athletes.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Some say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this campaign, one infographic really was worth a thousand words. We focused on one single item of data (the athlete’s gender) and turned three newspapers into 3 iconic infographics, essentially summarising data over 94 pages into 2 block items: male-athlete coverage and female-athlete coverage. By turning our attention to Portugal’s top 3, tier-one, sports newspapers, and summarizing the information in them into gender-based data, we distinctly highlighted the blatant, disproportionate coverage of male athletes, and furthered the movement to break this cycle, and give more coverage to women athletes. The combination of data, design, and courage, resulted in a tool with which people were able to use to fight for fairer visibility for female athletes.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

In the early hours of the 9th March we digitized Portugal’s top 3 sports newspapers, replacing text and photos with two-tone block colours, illustrating the imbalance of coverage between male and female athletes. With a color assigned to each gender, the final infographics visually summed up the blatant bias given to male athletes, and in stark contrast to women’s coverage, with only a few squares sparsely dotted about the publications. In order to get traction on social media, we partnered with 50 athletes who helped to amplify the campaign with their teammates and colleagues, spreading the campaign on social media with the hashtag #ElasTambémJogam (#WomenAlsoPlay). From just 30 copies of the newspapers, we were able to reach an audience 52x larger than Portugal’s biggest sports newspaper.

List the results (30% of vote)

With zero investment, including in media, but with a powerful execution, the campaign was able to: . reach 52x more people than Portugal’s biggest sports newspaper; . secure participation from more than 150 athletes to help spread the campaign; . impact more than 32 countries; . get traction on major news platforms around the globe; . become the topic of the day on 9th March . put pressure on sports newspapers to increase coverage of female athletes, reaching around a 100% increase in said coverage just one week after the campaign was run. As a direct result of the campaign, one of the members of Raparigas da Bola was invited to write about gender equality in Portugal’s biggest sports newspaper.

Please tell us about the cultural insight that inspired the work

Portugal is a small country with just 10 million inhabitants, and a country that lives by old values. Only ⅓ of Portugal’s professional athletes are women. Despite that, in the last European athletics championships, Portugal achieved its best result ever, winning 3 gold medals, ⅔ of which were won by female athletes. Portugal also has the world’s best female futsal goalkeeper, the 2nd best futsal team in Europe, and the 2nd best national hockey team in Europe. And even with so many reasons to be proud of their female athletes, the media doesn’t give them the coverage they deserve, and women continue to face gender inequality on a daily basis. Just recently, a newspaper named the female football player Ana Borges “Man of the Match”. And a few days later the coach of a soccer team said that football belongs to men, in a slight aimed at a female commentator.