Submitted by Smoking Gun

Girls Let's Swim with Becky Adlington

Smoking Gun built the Girls Let's Swim campaign for Sporting House around Olympian Becky Adlington, and the agency reports swimming bookings increased by 2800%.

X12 celebrity influencers such as Mark Foster, Jess Ennis, Judy Murray and Gabby Logan all shared the campaign launch video.celebrity influencers sharing the launch video
79% of girls aged 11-18 now spend less time swimming, with Covid and other barriers to blamegirls aged 11-18 spending less time swimming
The paid social campaign drove 33,000 video views and a reach of 98,000.paid social video views and reach
72% of parents admitted to being too busy to encourage swimmingparents too busy to encourage swimming
112 pieces of coverage, including 7 national and 11 broadcast pieces with the likes of Channel 5 News and ITV lunchtime news featuring the story.pieces of coverage

Case in 60 seconds

Sporting House was a group of companies with disparate purpose that needed a single story, and as a grass-roots sports provider it had to reach younger girls through their parents rather than directly.

The campaign appears to turn on the reasons the page lists for girls leaving sport, including low confidence, embarrassment at body changes and a shortage of confident female role models, because a spokesperson who had won at the highest level answers the role model gap directly.

Girls Let's Swim argued that swimming lays the foundations for success in life, positioning the pool as a source of confidence, friendship and determination rather than a sport girls either keep up or drop.

Smoking Gun made a fast paced film starring Becky Adlington with women and children, ran a parent survey to bolster the press release, timed the launch just ahead of the Olympics, secured a PA exclusive and a broadcast interview day, and built a campaign page carrying real life case studies. Campaign photography overlaid with lines such as 'I swim because it gives me confidence' ran on Instagram and Facebook alongside paid social, while Adlington's network including Jess Ennis, Gabby Logan, Mark Foster and Judy Murray shared the launch video.

Smoking Gun reports 112 pieces of coverage, including 7 national and 11 broadcast pieces with Channel 5 News and ITV lunchtime news, 566m potential reach, 33,000 video views and a 2800% increase in swimming bookings.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

Young girls and their parents, with survey work covering parents of 11-18 year olds.
The page describes girls dropping out of sport at twice the rate of boys by the end of puberty, driven by low confidence, embarrassment at body changes and periods, and social stigma attached to an athletic physique.
Sporting House was a grass-roots provider without a single brand story, so it had to reach younger girls indirectly through parents while establishing authority on swimming for children.
Sporting House was positioned as a brand that inspires change and breaks down barriers for children to reach their potential, which made the girls' drop-out rate a problem it had standing to raise.
Based on the available evidence, the campaign reads as targeting parental effort as much as girls' motivation, because the agency's own survey found 72% of parents admitted to being too busy to encourage swimming.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Partners

  • Smoking Gun (lead_agency)

Creator role

  • Becky Adlington — creator
  • Gabby Logan — creator
  • Jess Ennis — creator
  • Judy Murray — creator
  • Mark Foster — creator

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult type
celebrity influencers sharing the launch videoX12 celebrity influencers such as Mark Foster, Jess Ennis, Judy Murray and Gabby Logan all shared the campaign launch video.content_pieces
girls aged 11-18 spending less time swimming79% of girls aged 11-18 now spend less time swimming, with Covid and other barriers to blameresearch
paid social video views and reachThe paid social campaign drove 33,000 video views and a reach of 98,000.video_views
parents too busy to encourage swimming72% of parents admitted to being too busy to encourage swimmingresearch
pieces of coverage112 pieces of coverage, including 7 national and 11 broadcast pieces with the likes of Channel 5 News and ITV lunchtime news featuring the story.performance
potential reach566mreach
swimming bookings increaseMost importantly, the client saw swimming bookings increase by 2800%performance

Why Smoking Gun's strategy worked

  1. 1

    Timing a spokesperson-led launch to a scheduled cultural moment raises the value of the spokesperson rather than the budget, because the Olympics created broadcast demand for an Olympian that the campaign was ready to meet.

  2. 2

    Commissioning original survey data gives a campaign a news hook it owns, which is what allowed the parent research on drop-out rates to carry the press release into national and broadcast titles.

  3. 3

    Running a brand positioning process before the PR programme appears to have set the campaign territory, because the barriers work only reads as credible for a brand that has already defined what it stands for.

  4. 4

    A campaign page built to hold case studies serves press, social content and search at once, which is how a single asset earned backlinks while supplying material the media day could use.

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