In 2020, we signed a new 5-year principal partner deal with the RFU, committing to equal marketing spend for both the England men’s and women’s teams.
Two years later, we launched a four-year strategy to close rugby’s gender awareness gap, bringing the women’s team out of the shadow of the men’s, connecting them to fans and supercharging support.
We set out a few core objectives for this content series: drive fame for the number one team in the world and improve O2’s brand attractiveness and consideration amongst key audiences. Why? Because we know differentiation is hard to achieve in a heavily regulated telco market, and our core audience expect brands to act on societal issues, including gender equality.
In partnership with the RFU, we commissioned the first women’s rugby team documentary ‘Wear the Rose: An England Rugby Dream. A two-part series which aired on ITV1 ahead of the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2022.
Not only did the documentary garner 1.25+ million views across ITV1 and on ITVX, it succeeded in raising the profile of the team as it led to an average increase of Women’s Rugby World Cup watched as a result of watching the documentary (68 minutes per game on linear TV, compared to 44 minutes for those who didn’t).
Lastly, and crucially, we improved brand perception and consideration for O2 amongst its target audiences of GenZ and Millennials taking the place of no. 1 in the customer brand attractiveness metric in comparison to other telco’s.
