Men have been competing in the Tour de France for 119 years. Women, on the contrary, not one single year. When finally the first official Tour de France Femmes was announced, Škoda, a long-standing sponsor of Le Tour and devoted supporter of female athletes, decided to make it memorable, celebrate and empower the participants of this historical race not only on the roads but also online.

To promote the first-ever Tour de France Femmes we created the first-ever NFT collection to empower female pro cyclists: We are riding History. Together with one of the finest female illustrators of Central Europe, Ilona Polanski, we created eight unique artworks with 30 limited editions up for grabs. Each of these animated illustrations was inspired by the unmistakable characteristics of one of the eight Étapes of the Tour. Minted on the most sustainable platform Solana the NFTs were put up for the fastest users to retweet our campaign.

Our goal was to engage any woman who shares the passion for cycling and active lifestyle. We aimed at a broad international female audience with an affinity to cycling and Tour de France in the age group of 18 – 45. In the campaign we focussed on maximizing the reach within our strategic target audience while driving the quality traffic and conversion. The whole campaign with its artwork was conceived for social media (Twitter, FB, IG) and therefore particularly for mobile devices.

Before the start of the Tour de France Femme we aired only teaser communication on the Škoda-owned We Love Cycling platform as well as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The aim was to promote our collection of 8 unique artworks, each in 30 limited editions minted on the sustainable Solana marketplace. After the start of the Tour de France Femme we posted at the beginning of every of the eight Étapes a Tweet with a CTA to retweet our message and support the Tour de France Femme. The first 30 retweets got one unique NFT which was sent to the users via a digital wallet. This mechanic was repeated before each stage of the Tour de France Femme until all 240 NFTs were distributed.

With a media budget of only 35.000 Euros our campaign created more than 22 million impressions, a reach of 7,5 million, more than 500.000 video views and almost 50.000 clicks on the campaign landing page. In average a collection of 30 NFTs was gone within 3 seconds! Our campaign was amply discussed in the cycling and crypto communities and spread organically through social media into the more traditional channels, lead to thousands of positive reactions and interactions, established Škoda as a partner of the first Tour de France Femme and supported thus our goal to empower female athletes and give them the due international awareness.