Why Ending the ‘Enjoyment Gap’ Is Sport England’s Next Mission
‘This Girl Can’, Sport England’s campaign to encourage women to get active, has launched a new phase to tackle the ‘enjoyment gap’ in sport and exercise. Called ‘This Girl Can With You’, it aims to inspire sport and activity providers to break down the barriers that are preventing women from participating in physical activity. Sport England’s research has found that there is a significant enjoyment gap between men and women, with 2.4 million fewer women than men strongly agreeing that they find sport and exercise enjoyable and satisfying.
The new campaign phase, created with UK agency FCB Inferno who have developed the campaign since 2015, is based on extensive consultation and research with women from communities across the country. It identifies four action areas that can help dismantle the barriers faced by women and close the enjoyment gap: activities for women must be social, suitable, self-affirming, and safe. The campaign has also highlighted grassroots groups and organisations that are already working to close the gap.
The four groups featured in the campaign are Black Girls Do Run, Goal Diggers FC, Muslim Girls Fence, and Welcome Gym. Each was selected because it embodies the values of the four action areas. The campaign aims to encourage organisations across the sport and physical activity sector to develop solutions that respond to the four action areas. The This Girl Can website provides tools, tips, and ideas for organisations to get started.
The campaign has also partnered with Olympic gold medallist Nicola Adams to promote the initiative, hosting an interactive boxing experience at Westfield Stratford City in London to encourage women to fight back against the barriers that are preventing them from getting active.
To check in on what went into this latest phase in a society-changing campaign, LBB’s Alex Reeves caught up with Kate Dale, director of marketing at Sport England, FCB Inferno’s Jessica Giles, creative director and Tom Lindo, strategy director.
LBB> This is the fifth phase of ‘This Girl Can’. Where did this phase begin and how does it pick up where the first four have made progress?
Jessica> Since 2015, ‘This Girl Can’ has revolutionised the way we speak to women. The last four campaigns of ‘This Girl Can’ have been largely focused on closing the gender gap through breaking down a fear of judgement and have been incredibly successful at chipping away that barrier. As a result, we’ve empowered 2.9 million more women to get active. But despite all our progress, we’ve found that women’s activity levels are stalling, and research showed that it was due to a phenomenon that we call ‘The Enjoyment Gap’ – that many women didn’t find sport as enjoyable as men. We knew that we needed to flex our campaign to reach a different audience who could enact change on a bigger scale, so we took more of a B2B approach with this latest phase. By highlighting the incredible stories of women who are doing things in the industry to make sport and activity more enjoyable for women, we could inspire others to do the same.
LBB> What were the key questions that you wanted to answer heading into this latest research?
Tom> As this phase of ‘This Girl Can’ is focused on engaging the sport and exercise sector, we needed our research to uncover insights against which businesses could act on. It was a huge shift and required us to understand the pressures, needs and requirements of people running sports centres through to people who run their own sports groups.
We then needed to map this against how they currently engage with women and girls up and down the country. We broke it down into three phases:
1) What is stopping women engaging with the sport and exercise sector?
2) What pressures is the sector under?
3) What opportunities are there for the sector to adapt to get more women and girls active?
Only by working through it in that order were we able to come up with universal insight and a platform that could influence both Sport England policy and act as a platform for our B2B campaign.
LBB> How did the research work? What were the keys to getting to the truth of how women feel?
Tom> Our starting point is always to talk to the people who know the sector the best. This began by talking to people within the Sport England network which helped to inform wider conversations with people who run sport groups, ran sport centres, coached, and taught. From there, we then spoke to various behavioural experts who helped guide us towards areas of interest and make sense of the huge amount of information we had. The greatest tool we have, working with Sport England, is accessing and understanding their ‘Active Lives’ surveys which is one of the most in-depth studies on activity available. The attitudinal information was crucial here as it allowed us to stress test our observations against the data points and, most importantly, show how their ‘enjoyment’ impacted different demographics and specific areas across England.
LBB> It seems sadly predictable that you'd find these inhibitions in women around getting active. But what was particularly surprising or shocking?
Tom> The question reveals the answer. A lot of what we uncovered seemed obvious and universal. What was most surprising was that so little had been done about it until this point. Elements such as safety are grabbing the headlines for the right reasons, but the point that sport and exercise has traditionally been less sociable is something that schools have been noticing for a long time. Hopefully by highlighting these findings and giving people the right tools and knowledge on how to address them, we'll see some positive changes very soon.
LBB> What was the creative insight that took those findings into an inspiring and society-changing campaign?
Jess> The idea of closing the enjoyment gap was an exciting new creative challenge, especially as we were shifting to more of a B2B model. We found from past campaigns and our recent research that there are so many women out there working tirelessly to make sport and activity more enjoyable for women, so we came up with the campaign ‘This Girl Can With You’. We knew that it wasn’t just about making activity fun, but there were four main barriers that were stopping the enjoyment: safety, suitability, self-affirming spaces, and social support. By finding groups who were specifically challenging these barriers, we were able to share inspiring stories and show practical ways that organisations can take it upon themselves to help close the enjoyment gap on a greater societal level.
LBB> How did you select the groups and individuals doing work to change things that the campaign highlights?
Kate Dale> We always look for women and girls who get active in the way that works for them without giving a damn what anyone else thinks; and naturally we want to make sure we have real diversity – so women of all shapes, sizes and abilities and from all backgrounds doing a broad range of activities in a wide range of settings. There's no one right way to be active, and there's no one right way to look while we're doing it. We've always celebrated everyday women getting active in a normal, relatable way. For ‘This Girl Can With You’ we're celebrating every day organisers (we call them ‘doers’) helping women getting active. We look for women who saw a gap in the market and filled it. They understood what the women they wanted to reach needed and simply got on with it – the way so many women do.
LBB> How would you like to see this campaign play out and change society in England to get more women active?
Kate> We want to close the enjoyment gap – it's not inevitable and it can be fixed. By focusing on the four action areas we identified – social, self-affirming, suitable and safe – anyone involved in organising activity can play their part. Just imagine generations of women feeling able and motivated to get active in the ways that work for them, supported by a sport and physical activity sector that has made it all feel more possible. Together we can do that – and the benefits are huge. Getting active plays such an important role in our physical and mental health, building self-esteem, and connecting communities. Mothers who enjoy being active are more likely to raise active children. It's vital work.
