THE HUNDRED

The Brief

The problem for the England & Wales Cricket Board was that there had been a proportionally lack of recognition for women’s cricket and representation of cricket within the women’s sport narrative was low. For a consumer audience women's cricket suffered from a lack of engagement & understanding with women. Our brief was to deliver profile for The Hundred, the new cricket competition which was a catalyst for gender parity in the game. Our job was to generate more women’s cricket conversation to drive advocacy for the new competition within the women’s sport narrative and in non-cricket media to broaden the appeal for women’s cricket, with a particular focus on driving ticket sales for the historic opening women’s match at The Oval.

Campaign Execution

Our campaign activation included proactive and reactive communications with key media to place interviews and features to land our key messages and campaign proof points, targeting people of influence in women’s sport media with a range of events, brand & editorial content and media opportunities at key ticketing trading moments. 

Our campaign enabled us to engage with hard-to-reach people and organisations of influence, such as Women in Sport, Women’s Sport Collective, Women’s Sport Trust and non-cricket women’s sport influencers, who have now all publicly advocated for The Hundred. We generated over 400 pieces of media coverage which had significant depth of messaging, where the main message was gender-parity, rather than a player or competition focus; all of which was set against a polarized narrative surrounding The Hundred.  

Our campaign enabled us to engage with hard-to-reach people and organisations of influence, such as Women in Sport, Women’s Sport Collective, Women’s Sport Trust and non-cricket women’s sport influencers, who have now all publicly advocated for The Hundred. We generated over 400 pieces of media coverage which had significant depth of messaging, where the main message was gender-parity, rather than a player or competition focus; all of which was set against a polarized narrative surrounding The Hundred.

Results 

The Opening women’s match had a record breaking 13,828 live audience and was the most watch women’s cricket match in the UK. The communications campaign laid the foundations for the women's competition and the enormous positive sentiment which surrounds its structure, quality and ambition for domestic women’s cricket with 2/3 of those aware of The Hundred thinking it is equally for men and women.