adidas and the Swedish Football Association (SvFF) asked us to launch their new Swedish women national football team jersey. Usually, this launch never gets any attention and the sales are ridiculously low.

Despite it being one of the best female teams in the world, very few Swedes could name any of its players. Enthusiasm for the team was lacking, causing half of all young girls playing football to contemplate quitting by age 14. Where would they find the strength to hang in there when they do not get the inspiration that boys receive? The lack of inspirational role models is a threat to the national team, who risk losing great talent.

Together with adidas, we aimed to turn the jersey launch into a social initiative. Our strategy was to use female role models bring them out on the football pitch to cast a light on this important issue, and bring inspiration to the football-playing girls in need of it. The jersey still needed to be in focus, of course, and the sponsorship needed to come through in a visible and talkable way.

We swapped the usual names on the back of the jerseys for empowering messages from women who refuse to back down, chosen by the players themselves. One example is “Believe in your damn self” from @zaralarsson. We premiered the jerseys in front of the world at the Algarve Cup in Portugal.

Swedish and global media outreach included tweets from influential female role models, who also tweeted about the jerseys, reaching millions of people and key influencers of our target group. On International Women’s Day, we made sure that anyone could post a quote on interactive jerseys on large screens that we premiered at the Central Station in Stockholm.