TheBackground:
Mexico is one of many countries in the world with an alarming gender inequality index.
For Lifetime, a TV Channel owned by A&E Networks, the most important thing is to be the platform that speaks in the name of women.
Lifetime decided to bring light to the fact that the newly formed PROFESSIONAL WOMEN´S FOOTBALL LEAGUE (Liga MX Femenil) is an important example of gender inequality in Mexico, because when it comes to gender inequality soccer is absolutely not the exception.
The Idea:
Lifetime, the female empowerment TV Channel, transformed inequality statistics of the women’s soccer league into socks and balls for the players to use them at a match in the finals.
The ball and the socks, very common objects and familiar to many, were transformed into three-dimensional info-graphics, to be more specific Lifetime transformed statistics into spherical pie charts and cylindrical bar charts, for every one to understand proportions and the information they represent in terms of scale.
With these designs Lifetime achieved to display statistics that show the huge gaps between men´s and women´s monthly average salaries, between the best paid players of each league, the embarrassing contrast of the average monthly salaries, the big disparity in retribution from men´s and women´s world cups to national teams, and lastly the proof that both leagues can be equally spectacular when comparing the amount goals scored byeach league per season.
Many professional football stakeholders didn’t like the idea, and banned female players from using them during the match or at a public appearance. Therefore, Lifetime, with the help of important Mexican influencers, sent the socks and balls to the press, politicians, pro-male players and other people of influence. And through the hashtag #juguemosigual and a strong female voice, the channel viralized the action.
The message left the fields of play and in less than a week, the female soccer players gained the support in social networks equivalent to several full stadiums of the men’s soccer league. 30% of households the TV tuned the final match of the women’s soccer league and achieved a record rating on TV 19.9%.
The campaign reached millions but most importantly, they succeeded on giving a voice not only to female players but to all women that every single day face inequality in our country.
Let´s play for equality!
Lifetime will take advantage of the conversations that are currently taking place around the globe about professional football, a subjec tsomething millions of people understand, to create awareness regarding the great inequality that should not be allowed to continue. The campaign #JUGUEMOSIGUAL (PLAYFOREQUALITY) will make use of the balls and socks to expose this reality and generate conversations all summer long.
