Sport England's 'This Girl Can' Campaign Is Back With Sure As Partner

Sport England's This Girl Can campaign is back with a new TV ad to inspire more women and girls to take part in sport and physical activity. The ad shows the unfiltered reality of women exercising in whatever way works for them.This Girl Can also begins a new partnership this month with women’s deodorant brand Sure to reach more women and inspire them to become active.

Lisa O’Keefe, director of insight at Sport England, hopes the ad will convince women they don’t need to be in shape or super confident in their bodies to take part. “This Girl Can is about helping women feel confident, so they can overcome the fears about being judged that our research showed was stopping many from getting active,” she said.

“Since we launched five years ago, we're seeing more relatable images in advertising and social media, but there's a long way to go until women's lives are being shown in a realistic way.

“We've designed the new ads to show things we're still not seeing - women using exercise to manage period symptoms or juggling motherhood - all while celebrating women of all shapes, sizes, abilities and backgrounds.”

Less than one in five women find fitness influencers relatable. Launched in 2015, This Girl Can has been working to address the significant gender gap found in sports and exercise, to build women’s confidence around being active, and help them meet the Chief Medical Officers’ guidance. Since it was launched, the campaign has already inspired more than 3.5 million women to act but there’s still a lot to do, with 40% of women aged 16 and over not active enough to get the full health benefits of sport and physical activity, compared to 35% of men.

The campaign was based on the insight that 75% of women say they want to do more sporting activities or exercise, but one of the unifying barriers found to be holding them back is a fear of judgement.

The new ad has been created on the back of new research by Sport England that reveals 63% of women who see slim, toned bodies on social media sites say this has a negative impact on them. Nearly a quarter (24%) who follow fitness influencers, say they make them feel bad about themselves, while less than a fifth (18%) of these women find fitness influencers relatable.The campaign is calling for influencers, media and brands to feature more realistic and diverse imagery of women to promote sport and physical activity.

Sport England is also launching a new This Girl Can fund – supported by Sure – to help local communities to fund projects that encourage women to get active. Backed by funding from the National Lottery, local organisations and community groups can bid for grants from between £300 to up to £10,000.