Sparebanken Vest | Girls want more – Campaign video

Sparebanken Vest | Girls want more – Campaign video

Produced: Spring 2023

Assignment:

One in four girls who play football says their main motivation for playing is personal development. Only one in ten parents believes the same about girls – this is shown in a new research report by Siv Skard, professor at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). The survey has become the basis for Sparebanken Vest's initiative Girls want more, in which they have joined forces with SK Brann, Sogndal Fotball and Arna Bjørnar to give women's football on the west coast of Norway a real boost. The initiative aims to give more clubs the opportunity to improve their offering and increase their investment in women's football. The goal is not necessarily to develop more professional female footballers, but to ensure equal opportunities for women and men in sport. Behind the initiative is communications agency Trigger, with Sølvrev as creative sparring partner and producer.

Solution:

In the main film, five parents take part in what they believe is a perfectly ordinary football quiz. But whereas the parents assume that the answers to all the questions are Norwegian and international male footballers, it turns out that the answer is one and the same player – their own daughter.

Our goal was to create a film full of intimacy and warmth, but also contrasts between the professional and impressive images of the girls on the pitch, and the closeness and affection in their relationship with their parents. Many people are guilty of underestimating women's sport, and getting the viewer to be left with the same powerful feeling the parents experience when they see the answer was the overarching goal of the video.

To achieve this it was important to build curiosity and generate interest at the start of the video through music, pacing and editing, without revealing the premise. The more the viewer believed the answer was a top-level male footballer, the more surprised and challenged they would be when the big twist was revealed. One technique used to reinforce this feeling was to draw on the lighting and grading of stereotypical commercials for international sports brands, as well as bringing in one of Norway's most skilled lighting directors to create the right look.

As a follow-up to the main film, Sølvrev also produced a new commercial centred on SK Brann captain Cecilie Redisch Kvamme. In the hope of giving boys and girls equal opportunities, Sparebanken Vest decided to donate 43 million kroner to SK Brann to upgrade both the stadium and the training facilities so that the girls would henceforth train on the same grass as the boys.

Result:

The Girls want more initiative was launched at an event at Sparebanken Vest's premises on 22 August and has received wide coverage in Norwegian media. Both TV2 and NRK have covered Girls want more, and the video released in connection with the launch has engaged and moved thousands. On the result, head of communications at Sparebanken Vest, Jan Erik Kjerpeseth, says the following:

"The response has been enormous and exclusively positive. We have clearly struck a nerve here. Personally, I have never experienced a reception like the one I received after sharing the film on LinkedIn. The film highlights one of the main challenges we face in the pursuit of equal opportunities for women and men – namely our tendency to underestimate girls. I believe the film is a thought-provoking piece for many parents with children and young people in football," says Kjerpeseth.