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#MoveYourSkin normalised real skin in sport, talking biases and celebrating imperfections: the bumps, rolls, scars and hairs. The campaign inspired a new wave of women and girls to rewrite the rules, feel comfortable in their skin and experience the power of sport freely.

Concept
Venus wanted to drive widespread awareness of the brand’s sponsorship of the Women’s Euro 2022. Building on its global equity platform, #MySkinMyWay, launched in 2019, #MoveYourSkin aimed to continue the brand’s mission to encourage women, nonbinary people, and those female-presenting, to feel confident in their skin.

We needed to earn positive talkability and establish long term credibility for Venus in the world of sport, in a way that resonated with media and social conversation, to engage and win new audiences.

Our creative strategy focused on eliminating the skin-consciousness barrier so those impacted can enjoy sport freely. #MoveYourSkin was born to inspire women and girls to re-write the rules (on and off the pitch) and play confidently by normalising and celebrating what real skin in sport looks like.

The strategy was grounded in driving relevancy for Venus through the cultural connection of overcoming the barriers for women in sport.

Execution
Establishing early on that we were committed to driving long-term change, we co-developed a three-phased approach to the launch.

Our research, the Venus Skin-Consciousness Report, provided Phase One: a data-point of entry and real-world issue to ground our story in.

Phase Two was presenting the solution. We created the Venus #MoveYourSkin campaign, with the aim of normalising real skin to tackle the trolling, shaming and self-consciousness that holds women and girls back from enjoying sport.

To ensure the story was explosive across multiple media verticals, we enlisted the support of credible storytellers who have real skin in the game. Working with England Lioness and Arsenal WSL’s Lotte Wubben-Moy and World Champion Freestyler & TikTok sensation, Lia Lewis drove appeal across widespread national news and cult Gen Z and social first publishers.

We then developed a bank of creative assets that allowed us to sweat the story and offer native assets aligned to specific publisher needs. To capture these, we staged a photoshoot in an inner-city football cage with both ambassadors. Remaining true to our cause for supporting the representation of women in sport, we commissioned one of the few female sports photographers, Amy Maidment.

Amy shot beautifully composed still photography showing real skin in motion; in celebration of the bumps, cellulite, wobbles, hairs, and all! The shoot day was also used to capture social content for Venus-owned and partner channels. We then pitched interviews with our ambassadors and used the assets across earned, owned and paid channels to flood media with the campaign.

Ensuring our efforts lived beyond the tournament was essential. Phase Three involved a meaningful grassroots partnership with youth education and engagement charity, Football Beyond Borders. The partnership was designed to secure the legacy of the campaign through a self-awareness schools programme entitled “Validate it”, encouraging girls and non-binary young people to speak openly about overcoming barriers.

Venus’ support and Football Beyond Borders partnership enabled the creation of an in-school module focused on a scheme of “self-awareness” work. The module went live in November 2022 and is being rolled out in 200 schools around the country.