SPORTS DIRECT
FAST + SLOW
BRIEF
You know the brief that every sport brand issues every spring about getting your summer body ready? Are you as bored as we are of saying the same things to the same people?
How about talking to the 3M+ British Muslim community instead? After all, the Holy month of Ramadan landed in spring in 2021. So, we created a month-long campaign for the UK’s biggest sports retailer to help those fasting stay healthy and demonstrate the brand’s commitment to the communities it serves.
IDEA
First, we needed to locate and engage the most credible partners in the UK. They included:
Haroon Mota of ‘Muslim Runners’.
Football freestyler Nafisa Ahmed.
Safiyyah Syeed AKA The Hijabi Boxer.
Professional rugby player Zainab Alema.
Personal trainer Shazia Fit.
Plus the ASRA Run Club.
Working with them, we developed a programme called Fast + Slow.
The campaign had a simple goal. To inspire young Muslims to fast but also help them feel confident enough to continue to train, slowly.
We asked our professional athletes to share their daily personal experiences of training during Ramadan, good and bad, and offer guidance, inspiration and support to their communities on how to stay fit and well during the Holy month. Covering a wide range of sports, the inspirational content covered everything from how to continue to train towards a certain fitness goal, motivation, hydration and recovery during the fasting period.
RESULTS
Editorial media welcomed the campaign with open arms, with write ups everywhere from GQ, to Stylist, to Marie Claire, to the Metro. In the end, 40 titles covered the story, with a reach of over 600m and with 100% of articles including two or more of our key messages around how to train safely during Ramadan.
For every single member of our team, this was the first ever campaign we’d made specifically targeting a Muslim audience. How weird is that? Brands and agencies could all do with getting a bit better at remembering that diversity of belief is worth celebrating. Here’s a campaign that did just that.
