Orange is the leading telecommunications provider in France and a historical sponsor of French football. While Orange equally supports both the men's and women's national football teams, women's football still faces significant gender bias among fans. Orange has chosen to confront this prejudice and capitalize on the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup to spark a global conversation. The brand infiltrated sport culture and hacked the most popular type of sport content on social platforms to trick football fans. The campaign thanks to its form and its incredible success became the most shared educational content to fight against gender bias.

In France, football is king, with a popularity that has been fueled by the success of the men’s national team : 2-times world champion, finalist of the last edition in 2022. But women's football is left out of the fervor, partly because it’s still a young sport (officially recognized by the FFF in 1974). This 2023 Women’s World Cup was only the 9th edition, whereas it was the 22nd for the men’s. But this doesn’t mean the women’s team’s drive is less than the men’s : they have been #5 in the FIFA ranking for years, have reached the semi-final during the last Euro…

Before the WWC, the French should have been cheering for their determined team. Yet, 3 weeks before its start, no TV partner had agreed to cover it. This was a painful reminder of the lack of institutional support to the sport in France, while other countries have succeeded in bridging the gender inequalities in football, by investing. In this panorama, it was important for brand sponsors such as Orange to step in.

For Orange, the leading telecommunication company, as a former state-owned company, public service is a core value. It is one of the first French brands to provide extensive support for football, with a track record of 24 years backing amateur, professional women and men’s football. Since 2018, the brand has held the status of a Major Partner of the French Football Federation, supporting both the Men's and Women's National Teams with equal resources.

Last summer, the French women's football team played in its 5th World Cup, in a unique context. Up until a few weeks before the competition, no media organization had stepped in to buy the broadcasting rights for the event.

In a country where football is a passion, women's football is left out of the fervor. One of the reasons is prejudice about its lack of technical skills. Many fans have a strong opinion about it, without ever having watched a match, or having looked at biased compilations ("The worst of women's football", "100% fails women's football”…)

This is why the WWC was a key moment for Orange, a committed partner of football for 24 years, to go beyond its usual support for the French Women's Team, via a CSR brief whose main objective was to tackle the prejudices that women's football suffers from.

Our primary target was football fans, but more precisely:

• Men are the audience: In February 2023, a study for the French Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication found that men count for 66% of sport viewership (63% for women’s sport)

• Sexism is the problem:

A study from Durham University in 2022 reveal that over two-thirds of male supporters display hostile or sexist attitudes towards women's football.

A study led by the Zurich University Sociology Department. By exposing a group of 613 participants to blurred goals, the research reached the conclusion that perceived quality of actions is heavily filtered through gender stereotypes, with women being pre-judged as less technical.

Those pieces of research combined convinced us that we needed a trojan horse and use men to fight preconceived opinion men can have about women football.

To challenge football fans' preconceived notions, we used their love of beautiful technical moves to create a Trojan horse. We created a never-before-seen compilation of actions from players of the French men's team. For 1 minute, we see the beautiful play of Mbappé, Giroud, Griezmann, etc..., in a sequence that borrows from the codes of sports best-of videos.

The reveal then unveils the ruse: the video was in reality a compilation of... women’s technical moves! Thanks to VFX effects, the appearance of the French woman's team has been faked in the 1st part of the compilation, to serve a strong message. These skillful women's actions, without VFX, are replayed in the 2nd part of the video, so that the audience can admire them, stripped away from the filter of their gender stereotypes.

To orchestrate the virality of the campaign, we worked on the most engaging platform for football fans: X. Since our intent was to expose them to women’s actions with the filter of their gender bias turned off, we decided to go all the way and prank them. We capitalized on the account of an influencer with medium visibility but very high engagement. This X account first posted only the first part of the video (= the women's technical moves 'disguised' as men's players), before revealing the trickery a few hours later to its community by posting it in full…

Engagement surrounding these 2 tweets was very high, kick-starting mainstream media PR in France: within a day of the tweet, 8 mainstream media outlets were picking up on the video. This meticulous orchestration allowed the compilation to go viral, first in Europe, then around the world.

The video went viral in only days, and successfully fueled debate the biases women’s football suffers from.

> +2B impressions

> +200M organic views, with a high complexion rate.

> Estimated organic reach: 800K$

> +450 cross-media PR coverage in 91 countries: articles, TV & radio, podcasts…

> Influential relays from opinion leaders of all sectors: the French Minister for Sport Amélie Oudéa Castera, Alexis Ohanian (Reddit CEO), Daniel Storey (football365) Gary Lineker, Dan Povenmire. Football players, both men and woman: Delphine Cascarino, Blaise Matuidi, Eugénie Le Sommer, Matteo Guendouzi, Amandine Henry, Oussmane Dembélé, Antoine Griezmann...

> Attribution: 92,5% of media coverage pieces mentioned Orange.

> Reactions were overwhelmingly positive, and to this day, the video continues to be relayed, as a piece of content materializing the issue of gender bias in sports and helping overcome it.

Sport is one of the biggest contributors to the entertainment industry and soccer one of its biggest hits.

A study commissioned by Orange on French people over 16 y/o, non rejector of football confirms that the video became an empowering tool for women and a powerful educational tool for all:

• +17pts plan to watch woman football vs before watching the film

• 90% agree that the film raises awareness of the sexist stereotypes that exist in society.

• 92% agree that the film inspires young girls /women to play football.

• 80% agree that the film inspires young girls/women to consider careers in which women seem less present.

• 88% agree that broadcasting it in schools is a good idea.

(Freethinking 02/2024)