“Genuinely brilliant”: Experts weigh in on the viral French football ad ahead of Women’s World Cup

This ad is a really clever play. Whether comparing men versus women in sport is the right path forward, and whether women’s sport needs to leverage men’s sporting profile to get attention, is almost superseded by the fact the ad has generated thousands of global media headlines well beyond the paid timeslots the advertiser invested in — and moreover, initiated important conversations about bias in sport. Whether you believe women deserve pay parity in sport, or not, this ad has talkability and has got tongues wagging, which I think has delivered on the brief.

The downsides? The ad itself is two-minutes long and while I’d hope that people watched the whole thing, I think there is a risk of selling the punchline too late. It’s not until halfway through that we get a sense of the purpose behind the message.

If the target audience for the ad is sports fans then the visual effects need work; as commentators have pointed out, the clips look not too dissimilar to my son’s Xbox version of FIFA, so perhaps if the goal was to convince viewers that ‘men and women’s sport is equally exciting’, it may not have landed. However, if the campaign goal is more broadly about brand awareness, and capturing the attention of people who aren’t typically interested in sports, to check out women’s games, then I think the level of energy and excitement, and the message will translate to bringing cold audiences closer.

A final thought: so many companies claim to champion diversity and inclusion but money talks. Is Orange providing the same sponsorship dollars to both teams?

Ben Birchall, director of brand voice at SouthSouthWest 

This is a great piece of communication and while it’s a little heavy-handed, it tells an interesting story about women’s football in France. You don’t need to get a subscription to Le Monde or listen to Parisienne 3AW talkback (if it exists) to figure out what prevailing attitudes must be. It’s that rare piece of sports sponsorship that dares to have an opinion.

It also provides a telling contrast with the way brands interact with round ball football in Australia. The Matildas have been able to exist alongside the Socceroos, partly because the men’s version of the game isn’t as deeply embedded in our nation’s psyche. And it helps that the Matildas are really bloody good. Because in Australia, winning even trumps deep-seated gender bias. So the advertising and messaging around the Matildas can just be about the Matildas (and especially Sam Kerr) just being awesome.

So while we live in that utopia, Orange and its agency have recognised that France needs a little help to get where we already are with the round ball football, and arguably cricket. Now… could we get their agency to work their magic on the AFLW?

The conditions were perfect for this ad, and it will probably never be done again with such impact. It’s also probably why there’s such an outpouring of love and professional jealousy. It follows a great tradition of women’s football tournament ads that poke us in awkward places and remind us of the gulf in investment in the attention and financial stakes. I’m reminded of a spot for the German women’s national team in 2019 that callously called out the fact that no one knew the players’ names. Harsh but true. And it still tracks.

We’re on the eve of the biggest Women’s World Cup to date. The standard is incredibly high, and the competition will be fierce, yet the sport is still mired in financial disparity and unfairness. It’s nice to see a global telecom do something this abrasive when they could have easily produced a vanilla sponsorship execution that forced a football star to stumble on some horribly trite line down the barrel of the lens before the logo lock-up.

There’s a touch of finger-wagging smugness about it, but the execution has enough panache thanks to some Black Mirror-esque technical wizardry that takes it above and beyond and makes it worth celebrating.

Jess Jones, women in sports advocate, former board of Frankston Footy Club and current partnerships manager

This is a brilliant example of the magnificence of women’s sport, whilst tapping into the unconscious bias that comes from generations of brainwashing around elite male athletes. How many viewers would have watched this footage and then be either surprised or even disappointed when learning the magic they’d just witnessed was in fact women athletes instead of the male footballers they believed they were watching?

At a grassroots and community sports level, I have witnessed women’s sport and women’s teams often overlooked for investment and funding because they ‘apparently’ don’t have the same level of skill or excitement that men’s sport attracts.

The challenge that women’s sport faces is that it needs funding and visibility. To get funding, athletes need visibility; to get visibility they need funding. So we have a chicken-egg situation where broadcasters, investors and major brands need to take a leap of faith to back women in sport. A classic example where women’s sport is treated without the respect it deserves is the global fight for broadcasting the FIFA Women’s cup has experienced where the majority of games are pay-to-watch, compared to the men’s World Cup where every game was broadcast free to air.

Showing prejudice through unequal broadcasting rights on a global level, sadly, has a trickle-down effect, sending a conflicting message at the community sport level that women’s sport is not good enough while locally we are championing a message that women in sport matter.

There are already enough challenges for women playing community sports, including run down and poorly maintained facilities, not even enough change rooms or grounds for women, and on and off the field, there are not enough women’s voices being heard, for example, leadership, coaches, and umpires.

The ad is a great starting point to amplify conversations about the importance of women’s sports and the often unintended gendered preferential treatment.