CASE STUDY
Strengthening
women’s
leadership on
and off the court
Celebrating champions in sports and business
Girls who play becomewomen who lead
85% of women surveyed by Deloitte say the skills they developed playing sports were important to success in their professional careers. As an organization that supports women in both sports and business, we’ve gotten to see the fruits of those skills firsthand. And when the 2023 WNBA finals were on the horizon, we realized we wanted to celebrate women’s wins on and off the court.
Challenge
Scouting the opportunity
Deloitte has been a longtime sponsor of the WNBA. In 2023, the league’s finals were fast approaching—and so was a key opportunity.
Our goal? To showcase our values by amplifying Deloitte’s commitment to the advancement of women in sports while celebrating Deloitte’s long-time track record of advancing women in business. If we could find a way to connect the two, we could take advantage of the cultural momentum provided by the WNBA playoffs to show more people than ever how much we value women’s leadership.
Discovery
Creating a gameplan
Tackling such a big challenge takes an equally large amount of collaboration.
A proprietary Deloitte report, “Impact of Sports on Women’s Professional Success,” revealed that women who played competitive sports in their youth are more likely to be in leadership or management roles. At the same time, record-breaking attendance and engagement with women’s sports in 2023 led to an expanded viewing audience that was amped up for the WNBA playoffs. Reflecting on our longtime support of women’s sports and leadership led us to an exciting idea: what if we celebrated women leaders in business with the same energy we often save for pro athletes?
Solution
A slam dunk campaign
When the 2023 WNBA Playoffs began, so did our external multi-channel marketing campaign. Four TV spots were produced in collaboration with Maximum Effort, Ryan Reynolds’s production company, and aired on ESPN/ABC. The commercials imagined a world where women in business have the star power of pro athletes, with four WNBA athletes bringing their talents to the spots.
But we also wanted to increase pride in our people—our internal comms plan, Game 2 playoff activation, and in-person office events led to record-breaking employee engagement. This, combined with a two-wave social campaign, helped us garner excitement for women leaders in business and show that we value women’s leadership on the court and in the boardroom.
Anthem videos
Most women in business don’t get treated like stars.Our TV spots show why they should.
Visual identity
Eye-catching visuals put the spotlight on women leaders.
Digital
We created a hub on Deloitte.com to showcase our story and assets.
Impact
-
1K+
Earned media and brandedbyline placements, generating a potential reach of 260M+ -
69K
Digital video views -
3.8M
Social media reach -
24.5M
TV spot impressions across ABC, ESPN, and ESPN 2 -
356
Target accounts engaged -
1.6K
Visits driven to otherDeloitte.com pages
Social
A social campaign—deployed in two waves—gave
everyone a chance to cheer on women leaders.