Cannes Lions

Every Woman’s Marathon

GALE, New York / MILKPEP / 2024

Film
Supporting Content
1 of 0 items

Overview

Entries

Credits

OVERVIEW

Background

Milk's journey with women marathon runners started with the 26.2 program at the NYC Marathon, evolving into a global Team Milk community supporting over 20,000 women athletes. This initiative, in partnership with Girls on the Run, addresses the many gender inequalities in running in a world where only 5% of sports media coverage goes to women. Every Woman’s Marathon is a natural progression, marking Milk's commitment to empowering women in sports and creating a unique space for women-led marathon experiences.

Idea

Launch Every Woman’s Marathon — designed for women, by women — with an unmissable and inspirational social film that celebrates what running means to women, authored by and featuring renowned poet Amanda Gorman.

Strategy

Milk's strategy focuses on a comprehensive marketing push, leveraging earned media across consumer, dairy industry, ad/trade, and local Savannah press, alongside ongoing promotion, cultural alignment, and charity partnerships.

To inform our launch, we conducted quantitative and qualitative research with 880 US women runners across different levels and demographics. We learned most women runners feel distance races cater to men, and nearly 90% want a more inclusive race experience that celebrates all athletic abilities, ages, and body types. Thus, Every Woman's Marathon was designed to be inclusive, beginner-friendly, and attuned to the unique needs of women at every stage of their marathon journey.

Our goal isn’t just to be a race, we wanted to ignite a movement, inspiring every woman to reach their potential and meet a community of women supporting women. We announced our marathon with a rallying cry by Amanda Gorman, amplified by pioneering women runners and charity partners.

Execution

To make our launch impactful for women across the country we planned a multi-channel marketing strategy across PR, digital, email, paid, and social media channels. Our one-day takeovers on TikTok and YouTube garnered over 40 million video views for our hero video with Amanda Gorman. We also partnered with women-led media companies in The Gist and Girlboss, who provide sports and news content written for women, by women that reached over 1 million newsletter subscribers. This announcement also coincided with the launch of our Every Woman’s Marathon website, and an earned media campaign that garnered over 200 placements on launch week. Lastly, we also collaborated with our partners such as Visit Savannah, Girls on the Run, and our women running captains to amplify the announcement of our marathon.

Outcome

In less than a week, we had over 2,000 sign-ups. But the comments said it all, successfully generating positive sentiment buzz and engagement, reaching target audiences across digital channels.

“I needed to hear this. In a time when I feel WE don’t matter. Sisters.”

“I don’t even run, but now I want to.”

“Just registered, this will be my first marathon ever!”

“This is so powerful. I feel every second of it with my whole being”

“I wasn’t expecting to run another marathon in November, but here I am. See you there ladies!”

“YES YES YES. Can’t wait to run in November”

TOP VIEW

1.4MM Engagements in just the 24 hours it ran

VIEWS (YT, IG, TIKTOK)

25.2MM+ video views

@everywomansmarathon IG FOLLOWERS

12K

SIGN-UPS

3,300 in the first 6 weeks

4,104 as of 4/4

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