As a woman, you sometimes think twice before running into a certain street, alley, or park. Especially when it is dark. The fear of being stared at, shouted at, or, at worst, aggressed at, is often on women's minds. Research confirms this and has shown that one in two women often take a side trip for fear of harassment3 and 60% said that they felt anxious while out running solo4.

Women do feel systematically less safe than men in public outdoor spaces. A pity, because women too should be able to stand, walk and run where, when, and how they want.

Every woman should be able to walk and run where she wants when she wants. This only seems logical, yet one in two women often take a side trip for fear of harassment1. Garmin wants to raise awareness of this societal problem. And it does so in an empowering way with The Combat Warm-up,?three warm-up exercises that warm up your body for your?running?session?and?teach?self-defense techniques.?The Combat Warm-up was developed by Belgian Gold Olympic medalist Kim Gevaert and European Taekwondo champion Laurence Rase. The tutorials are accompanied by a manifesto film raising awareness for the feeling of insecurity many women experience.

On the one hand, Garmin wanted to create extra awareness for the feeling of insecurity many women experiences, without portraying sport in a negative light. To this end, an empowering manifesto film was made.

On the other hand, Garmin also wanted to provide women with concrete tools that boost their self-confidence before sport. Therefore, they developed three warm-up exercises with Belgian Gold Olympic medalist Kim Gevaert and European Taekwondo champion Laurence Rase that warm up your body for your?running?session?and?teach?self-defense techniques.

The social plan had a strong focus on reaching women with an affinity for outdoor sports, mainly focused on running. We also targeted women with an interest in self-defense and running, close to big parks/running hotspots.

The manifesto sets the mood for the campaign and framed the topic in an empowering and positive way. This was first distributed on social media, targeting men and women.

Next, the three tutorials, short videos with clear steps, offered women tools to actively get started. Women who saw the manifesto on social media also received the tutorials in their feed.

Both the manifesto film and the tutorials were also spread on the social media channels of Garmin ambassadors. These people have been exercising with a Garmin watch for at least a year and post about it on social.

Six months after the digital launch of the campaign, Basic-Fit and Garmin decided to work together to teach the exercises in 10 Basic-Fit centra all over Belgium. This allows women to learn self-defense techniques together and in real life.

• 860.000 women watched our videos

• Our ads have been seen 4.3M times (of which 1.2M unique people)

• 27 Garmin ambassadors shared the manifesto and the tutorials. Good for a reach of 557 728 people and a PR value of € 61 602.