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The Brief
Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir’s story is one that will be familiar to female athletes all over the world, and yet is also rarely told: what happens when a footballer becomes a mother?
PUMA wanted to support their Icelandic athlete through her pregnancy, celebrating Sara’s openness to the challenges she would face and determination to return to elite level fitness by shining a spotlight on this under-told narrative.
With over a decade of experience telling important stories around the beautiful game that fans care about, COPA90 was the perfect partner for PUMA to collaborate with.
The COPA90 Approach
In the run up to the Women’s Euros, we set out to show the world what it's really like being a pregnant athlete, coming back to fitness, and juggling being a mother to a young baby whilst preparing for one of the biggest tournaments of your career.
Monthly social content explored various aspects of Sara’s journey - her ultrasound scans, her evolving fitness plan and diarised content - sharing her feelings, both physically and emotionally.
Shared across PUMA and COPA90 social channels and through COPA90’s Creator Network, the campaign culminated in a first of its kind 12 minute documentary, exploring her story in more depth. Through interviews with Sara, her partner, her friends, family and teammates, the documentary was an honest, moving and unique insight into a challenge that encompassed the ordinary and the extraordinary at the same time.
The Outcome
The reaction was incredible. Fans, players and the world’s media flocked to show their support, with the documentary alone culminating in 30,000+ hours watched, 1.63 million views and 58,000+ completed views.
The campaign smashed benchmarks across social, surpassing the view target by +31% and the engagement target by +177%. On YouTube, we saw a massive 44% average watch time & a 17% completion rate, resulting in over 30k hours watched.
Utilising COPA90’s owned & operated and third party channels drove genuine viewership and engagement across the hero YouTube film and cutdown assets.
1.6M
views
30K
hours watched
44%
average YouTube watch time
177%
over-delivery on engagement target
“We tasked COPA90 with the challenge of documenting Sara's story in an authentic way. As one of the best at intimate, powerful storytelling, we had every faith they would do so. Most importantly, they were who we felt would treat such a personal story with the upmost care and respect."