Here’s Why Leo Burnett and Suncorp Put the Spotlight on Female Friendships in Sport
It’s a cold Saturday morning. Steam from takeaway coffee fogs up the glasses of spectators. The GS is lining up her shot perfectly. The GK is hovering over her from 3 feet away, one eye on the ball, the other on the umpire. The GA is ready for the rebound if need be. The WA is anxiously watching the ball that will soon be launched into the air.
Then out from the quiet concentration of all on the court, the ever-familiar words, “here if you need!” are yelled from the C as they bounce from foot to foot on the goal line.
The ball leaves the hands of the GS, it goes up and over and through the goal. Success. It’s exhilarating.
There is unspoken magic, however, between those girls on the court. Especially when the phrase ‘here if you need’ transcends a Saturday morning.
Suncorp and Leo Burnett have created a campaign in partnership with Netball Australia that encourages young women to love all parts of the game that they are playing. To find out more about the ad and how it all came together, LBB’s Casey Martin caught up with Leo Burnett Sydney’s senior strategy director Abigail Dubin-Rhodin and associate creative director Rosie Stone…
LBB> Netball is such a popular sport among women, especially in Australia, and yet it so often gets neglected and overlooked by brands - why do you think that is?
Abigail > Historically speaking, netball is a sport made for women, rather than an adaptation of a men’s sport. This means netball doesn’t have the built-in media ecosystem, fan base, or cultural capital of a sport like the NRL that can then funnel attention to its women’s side, helping to accelerate interest and engagement. It also means that brands are less likely to immediately see the value in sponsoring netball.
It also means that brands, aiming to leverage sports sponsorship as a vehicle for building associations between themselves and something their customers are genuine fans of, are less likely to immediately see the value in sponsoring netball. For example, in Nine’s partnerships announcement for the 2023 NRL season, they list out 14 brands by name (not the full list), whereas netball has 8 in total.
But if you’re looking for sponsorship to drive engagement and improved brand sentiment, the netball community are who you want to be talking to. It’s a tight-knit, multi-generational group that thrives at the local, regional, and national levels, with significant relationships being built and maintained at each. And because there’s a lot of noise around it, the opportunity for creativity and impact is significantly amplified.
LBB> Globally, 50% of girls stopping playing sport by 17 - but can you talk about the uniquely Australian context here?
Abigail> In Australia, it’s less of a distinct number and more of a range. By 15-17, participation has halved for girls. It’s the age where teenagers really feel the pressure of school, part-time jobs, family commitments, friendships and thinking about their future, and where the fun of sport is usually overridden by more pronounced competitiveness. But this is true across genders, and yet only seems to affect girls. This has been given varying names, most commonly referenced in the press as ‘the confidence gap’. And in past campaigns, we’ve explored this with Suncorp, including the Team Girls Chant in 2019. Even as the presence of women’s professional sports increases and with it, a wealth of role models for girls, this ‘participation cliff’ remains.
In our research this year, we spoke with several girls and women who participate in netball in some capacity and found a lot of it comes down to the perception that to keep playing, you need to be very good. It needs to be in service of one of a couple of predefined end goals, usually winning your season or gaining a spot on a rep or professional team. But when asked participants what they actually got out of playing, the value was much more diverse (and winning never actually came up). They talked about how they made incredible life-long friendships, learned conflict management, and teamwork, developed early professional skills (so many teen refs!), and gained a much-needed safe space where they could just have a lot of fun with their mates.
This was the inspiration For Every Girl’s Endgame. That gap between what girls actually get out of team sports and what they believe defines them succeeding in it is massive. And it’s undiscussed, meaning many girls are leaving sports because they don’t feel like what they get out of it is “enough”. We wanted to bring attention to those benefits and celebrate their value in a way that’s never been done before.
LBB> When and how did the link between Suncorp and netball originally emerge?
Abigail> For Suncorp, it represented an opportunity to elevate females within their customer strategy as key decision-makers within households and families and connect with them emotionally through sports entertainment and participation. Netball was a particularly attractive proposition as a team sport that led in female participation. All in all, it was a mutually beneficial partnership that also helped drive much-needed awareness and growth for the game.
So in 2017, when Suncorp discovered that 50% of the participants of 50% of the population are dropping out of sport by the time they’re hitting pivotal developmental milestones, potentially limiting them in their ability to build better futures for themselves, we all saw an obvious opportunity for the brand to contribute.
LBB> Aside from it being an obvious good cause, what's the strategic alignment? How does supporting netball help Suncorp meet its own goals?
Abigail> A key differentiator for Suncorp as a brand is that despite its scale, it’s rooted in community and creating greater good for the collective. We’ve seen this in its efforts to reorient the insurance industry from recovery to resilience in the face of increasing climate change, as well as its new banking platform ‘Banking you can feel good about.’
Netball’s powerful multi-generational ties at multiple levels helped animate this purpose and carve out space for the brand to create meaningful impact at a grassroots level. All in all, it was a strong foundation for a mutually rewarding partnership based on both the traditional benefits of sport as well as the brand’s role in supporting Australia’s teen girls during a key period of growing up.
LBB> How has the Team Girls platform and the association between Suncorp and Netball Australia evolved since the launch in 2017?
Abigail> The Team Girls platform launched in 2017 when Suncorp announced the Principal Partnership of Netball, which was the same year the new domestic professional netball league was established. The aim of Team Girls is to inspire a nation of confident girls through netball. Since 2017, we have been part of producing The Chant in 2019, The Drive in 2021 and For Every Girl’s Endgame in 2023. Each campaign shines a light on the facets of what makes netball the catalyst for building confident girls.
The Chant set out to change the score and reduce dropout rates by creating a rallying cry to unite young girls on and off the court. In our next campaign, The Drive, we highlighted the efforts of families and the community who help raise athletes from grassroots all the way to professional athletes. Our new campaign, For Every Girl’s Endgame, celebrates the full spectrum of wins that girls can achieve through sports beyond the accolades. You can read more about our campaign here
LBB> What's lovely about the campaign is that it really looks at the small, genuine things that add up - the girls' friendships, working together to be helpful - rather than making some overblown claims. What informed this focus on real life lessons and friendship?
Rosie > When we think about sports and advertising, the spotlight almost always falls upon elite athletes. The ones at the top of their game. When you really think about it though, that’s not what sport is about. Plus, as a competitive sporting nation, not being the best at something can contribute to young people dropping out of a sport altogether. So, we decided to focus on what everyone can get out of sport - the friendships, the confidence, the inner strength. As nice as a trophy might feel in the moment, the things you remember are all the moments you shared with friends and we think that’s worth celebrating.
