The “Make Your Comeback” campaign aimed to encourage women to get active again by showcasing inspiring stories of real-life comebacks.
Regular physical activity plays a key role in improving women’s physical and mental health. With a third of women taking a break from exercise, exacerbated by the pandemic, they needed help to rediscover the joy of movement.
Research showed that for 43% of women, feeling unfit held them back. For many more, emotional support was crucial to getting active again. This Girl Can partnered with Strava to motivate and facilitate this by helping them rediscover the joys of movement.
The multifaceted “Make Your Comeback” campaign used short films to document the journeys of three individuals who overcame various challenges to become active again with the support of their family and friends.
The strategy for This Girl Can’s paid and owned social media approach to flex the available assets in a variety of ways including social media cutdowns of the films, carousels and quotes from the community to bring the campaign to life and drive engagement with the club.
In addition, we wanted to be helpful to the This Girl Can community members who hadn’t used Strava previously with how-to guides.
Further amplification occurred via a toolkit of social assets shared with This Girl Can partners, enabling grass-root organisations to provide opportunities for women to be active and get behind the campaign.
The campaign was a huge success, with more than 18,500 individuals joining the This Girl Can Club on Strava in just seven weeks, sharing more than 30,000 supportive comments and inspiration for other women in the group. Members logged 254,000 activities on Strava during the campaign period.
The Make Your Comeback Challenge went global with 155,000 people signing up and demonstrating the strength of the campaign. Of the 39,000 UK women who took part in the challenge (KPI: 30,000), 34,000 completed it – a completion rate of 89%, showing the strategy helped to drive engagement across the period.
Research demonstrated the campaign had a significant impact, with four out of five women stating it’s okay to take breaks in activity. Some 69% of women who took part in the campaign stated they were now doing more exercise than before it ran; a significant increase on the control group.
The Make Your Comeback campaign was also awarded ‘Gold’ in the DMA Awards Sports category, and Winner in the Successful and Effective Partnerships category at the 2023 Marketing Society Awards.
For more info, see: This Girl Can, 23Red, Strava
