The brands teamed up to combat the low body confidence that induces so many girls to stop participating in athletics.
The reasons girls drop out of sports are still widely misunderstood. They drop out of sport around the time of puberty because of low body confidence. And even though this is the most common reason girls drop out of sports, it certainly isn't the prevalent narrative in media today.
Dove and Nike created the Body Confident Sport program to address the main reason they drop out and help girls stay involved in sports and feel good about themselves.
The brief was to announce the partnership of these two huge brands, before launching the initiative to as many parents as possible and as many school sports coaches as the team could. Dove and Nike's agency partner Mindshare was then tasked with rolling out the message at a more personal and empathetic level showing real girls with their own real body hang-ups.
The creative idea behind the effort was to empower girls by providing everyone they encountered with one phrase they could keep at the forefront of their minds, almost as a mission statement. This approach came to life through the hashtag #KeepHerConfident. It reminded everyone to be hyper-aware of how they talked about their body around young girls in a sports setting, how they coach young girls, and how girls react to each other while participating in sports.
#KeepHerConfident was central to the Dove-Nike partnership announcement, and accompanied every communication created for the campaign, from the launch film that aired at the Super Bowl, right through to the ecosystem of the targeted social campaign.
The target audiences for this campaign were:
The campaign used a multi-channel approach to strengthen brand power and drive saliency.
The campaign launched at the Super Bowl, with a dedicated audience of sports fans and parents all ears. The post-game strategy was essential to extend and reinforce the message immediately after, increasing both long-term brand power and short-term impact on the sales of key products. The campaign also tapped into other sports-related cultural moments, such as March Madness in Q1 of 2024, which were relevant to the target audience and message. Additionally, the campaign identified areas in which Dove and Nike could allow consumers to get involved, cultivating a two-way conversation with the brand.
A six-second teaser asset was created to announce the Dove-Nike partnership, with the Body Confident Sport program then officially launched via an in-person event at Nike headquarters in New York City, featuring tennis star Venus Williams. From this event, social content was created to engender a groundswell of support for the program.
The Hard Knocks film then followed, launching at the most-watched Super Bowl ever, with 123.7 million viewers. This campaign element was then supported by a multi-channel ecosystem of 15- and 6-second assets that targeted key audiences. Post-Super Bowl, the conversation continued at key sporting moments such as March Madness with further 15-second TV executions and 6-second assets across all the major social media platforms.
The #KeepHerConfident hashtag was used as the key call to action across all assets to encourage the campaign message to be spread far and wide organically.
Since launching the #KeepHerConfident campaign, Dove and Nike have garnered 19.1 billion earned impressions via 2,481 pieces of coverage across eight different engagement tactics. The campaign has secured over 229 broadcast segments, with a total positive sentiment of 98 percent.
There has been extensive interaction with the campaign through high-profile partners like Venus Williams and podcast host Kylie Kelce, with thousands of girls, parents, and coaches praising the campaign and sharing its assets with their followers across social media.
Furthermore, the campaign outperformed its impressions target by 448 percent. And most importantly, the campaign, at the time that its awards submission was made, was on track to see to it that one million girls were coached in 2024.
