RUGBY WORLD CUP 2021

The Brief

To develop and execute an earned media campaign to raise awareness of the women’s Rugby World Cup tournament and sell tickets with non-sports fans in lifestyle media in New Zealand and globally.

Women’s rugby is the challenger product for World Rugby and women represent the biggest opportunity to grow rugby as a whole. However, whilst New Zealand is known for being a rugby-loving nation women’s rugby has very low visibility and the public have never had to pay to see it.

Campaign Execution

In a country where more than half of the adult population now consider gender equity in sport to be an important social cause we designed the campaign to show New Zealanders that the RWC is an opportunity to show solidarity with and for women’s rugby by showing up for their sisters.  Our approach ranged from big attention-grabbing moments to working directly with lifestyle media and influencers to offer exclusive events and experiences to drive event stature, awareness and ticket sales with audience who wouldn’t usually attend (men’s) rugby.

In collaboration with local artists we created eight nationwide artworks commissioned to inspire people and build community pride in hosting a home RWC, and even provided the backdrop for the Captains photocall. We also hosted an unofficial launch of the tournament – For our Sisters Feast RWC Feast – an event curated and hosted by female poets, chefs, wine makers and performers. Attended by the icon Ruby Tui it was the moment when consumer media woke up to the power of the event, its true meaning and generated outstanding levels of coverage.

Results 

This was the biggest women’s Rugby World Cup on record.  Breaking two attendance world records for women’s rugby attendance – 34,000 for the opening match and 42,900 for the Final. This is testament to the strength of the marketing and communications campaign, but our greatest achievement is that 70% of people that bought tickets to the sold-out final had never attended rugby before, proof that women’s rugby is reach new audiences and growing rugby as a whole.