Women Take Control of Physical Health with Sport NZ's Move Initiative

Sport NZ has today launched #itsmymove – an integrated campaign to help young women get and stay active their way. 

Developed to address declining physical activity levels in teenage girls, #itsmymove is the work of Saatchi & Saatchi NZ in collaboration with Publicis Groupe Connected Platform partners MSL PR, Starcom Media and Digitas.

Women have led the way in bringing #itsmymove to life, taking a central role across the creation of all campaign layers. Petra Cibilich of Flying Fish Films (Director), Samantha Attenborough (Executive Producer), Jinki Cambronero (Photographer) and Skye Hine (Music) are just some of the wāhine toa who have contributed to the production of #itsmymove. 

Sport New Zealand chief executive Raelene Castle says that with the kaupapa of the Government campaign rooted in building the value and visibility, leadership and participation of women and girls in sport and recreation, it became important to keep this ethos alive throughout the project.

“#itsmymove is about creating a national conversation that drives change,” Raelene Castle says. “Teenage girls drop out of physical activity at a faster rate than teenage boys and research has clearly told us why. The voice of young women became the inspiration for the TVC and the fantastic girls featured throughout the campaign are all genuine participants in the activities they represent.”

Research undertaken by Sport NZ shows that by the age of 16, there is a 17% gap between male and female participation in sport and recreation in Aotearoa and by 17, this increases to 28%*.

While the research also shows that 90% of young women want to be active and 96% of young women understand why physical activity is important for them, there are clear contributing factors to the decline in participation. These include body image, judgement, time pressures, motivation and loss of fun.

The campaign targets young women, parents and caregivers, and sector leaders and utilises a broad range of channels and content to deliver relevant messages to each key audience. At the centre of the multi-layered campaign is an emotional film featuring young women who speak to comments and pressures they often hear.  

Cece Chu, senior creative at Saatchi & Saatchi says: “It was important, both to Sport NZ and to us, that the experience of making of this campaign was a safe, enjoyable and inspirational one for all the young women involved. We wanted them to see a female director, photographer, camera operators, and sound recordists all around them. This project is about female empowerment and we wanted to live that.”

Steve Cochran, CCO at Saatchi & Saatchi, says: “Striking a balance between capturing the vulnerability of young women but also giving them a sense of empowerment was one of the most challenging aspects of this project. We deliberately used the voices of young women to give them ownership of this campaign which also led to development of #itsmymove.”

The call-to-action from the campaign is to online content and resources available on itsmymove.org.nz for young women, parents and sector leaders which includes a sector-facing campaign toolkit and on-demand workouts designed specifically for teenage girls. Through the campaign, Sport NZ hopes to challenge social norms perpetuated largely by adults, and positively impact the way physical activity is designed and delivered for young women.

The campaign launch today is a key milestone in the ongoing work by Sport New Zealand to support the Government’s Strategy for Women and Girls in Sport and Active Recreation. 

More information can be found here.