What I'm Doing Here is Not For You

While no longer particularly to-the-moment relevant, I wanted to take a moment to highlight a recent campaign I was very impressed with when it first debuted. Last month, in celebration of March as National Women's History month, espnW, a branch of ESPN catered specifically towards female sports fans and highlighting the efforts of female athletes, released a short brand film entitled "When I Play". The film features footage of a combination of both professional and amateur female athletes practicing and playing their sports, while a voice-over speaker recites a poem about the difficulties that women in sports face and the reasons that they continue to play despite judgment and discrimination.

While the film serves a dual purpose as both a tribute to women in sports and an advertisement for espnW, I don't think that that at all diminishes the power or effectiveness of either function. In fact, if anything, it enhances both. As a female athlete, watching this film was very emotional for me because it resonated so closely with issues I've faced and experiences I've had firsthand, and based on the attention that the video got on social media when it first came, I can only assume that other women, from competitive athletes to non-athletes are having similar reactions to being represented in such a powerful and poignant way.

 Kudos to espnW for finding a way to create a fairly profound attachment with their target audience based through the use of a campaign based solely around this video. I myself did not realize that ESPN had a channel specifically targeted towards female athletics, but after watching this video, I for one will certainly be more likely to seek out media from said channel, and I'm sure other female athletes feel similarly