The archive · Public & Social · Marketing decision · 2015–2017
This Girl Can: Sport England films sweaty real women — 2.8M do more exercise
A 2015 government campaign filmed women sweating and jiggling to counter the fear of judgement; within a year 2.8M women did more exercise.
Sport England
What it had to solve
Sport England's research found two million fewer 14-40-year-old women than men played sport regularly, yet 75% said they wanted to be more active; the barrier was a fear of judgement about appearance, ability and how they spent time on themselves. A public body with a behaviour-change remit needed to talk to women as individual consumers, not as a target audience.
How it works
In January 2015 Sport England, the UK's public body for grassroots sport, launched This Girl Can with primetime TV ads, billboards, cinema and shopping-centre screens. The campaign was the first of its kind to feature women who sweat and jiggle as they exercise, using images that were the complete opposite of the idealised, stylised women fitness advertising normally showed.
The approach came from Sport England's own research: two million fewer women aged 14-40 than men played sport regularly, even though 75% said they wanted to be more active. Digging into what stopped them, the strongest theme was a fear of judgement — about being the wrong size, not fit enough or not skilled enough. Agency FCB Inferno turned that insight into honest footage of real women and taglines like 'I jiggle, therefore I am' and 'Sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox'.
A year later the Active People survey showed 148,700 more women exercising at least once a week, and the gender gap had narrowed from 1.78M to 1.73M. Independent research by TNS BMRB found 2.8M women aged 14-40 had done more activity as a result of the campaign, and 1.6M said it had got them started; the films had been viewed 37M times, the hashtag tweeted 660,000 times, and the campaign discussed in more than 110 countries.
Why it lands
- It reversed the usual fitness-ad grammar: instead of idealised bodies, it showed real women doing the very things they feared being judged for.
- It was built on primary research (a 2M participation gap, 75% wanting to be active, fear of judgement), so the message attacked the actual barrier.
- Real women instead of models made the campaign shareable — viewers recognised themselves and spread the films, driving 37M views and 660,000 tweets.
- A public body treated women as consumers with attitudes and motivations, which is why behaviour change showed up in national survey data within a year.
What it did
Within a year, Sport England's Active People survey showed 148,700 more women active at least once a week and the gender gap narrowing from 1.78M to 1.73M; independent TNS BMRB research found 2.8M women aged 14-40 did more exercise because of the campaign, with 37M video views, 660,000 #ThisGirlCan tweets and talk in 110+ countries.
What you can take
When research says the barrier is shame, show the behaviour unfiltered; celebrating imperfection can move a whole demographic where telling them they 'should' never could.
Since then
This Girl Can became a lasting brand: Sport England funded new phases and campaigns, thousands of organisations signed up to run women's activity sessions, and official participation figures kept showing a narrowing gender gap. The campaign became a reference point for how public-sector behaviour-change work can use consumer insight and honest representation rather than aspiration, and it was still running new work (like 'We Like the Way You Move') a decade later.
Sources
- 7.5m watch launch of This Girl Can
- Latest sport figures show more women are getting active
- Sport England's 'This Girl Can' spurs 2.8m women into doing more exercise
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