Iris plugs women’s football for new title sponsor Barclays – but is it all too macho?

Barclays is supporting women’s football in its role as the first title sponsor of the Women’s Super League (WSL) and it’s gone to town with this TV campaign from Iris showing a would-be female footballer excluded from the not-always-beautiful game by those selfish boys.

She imagines what might be: her shirt in the dressing room, stand named after her, a statue outside the ground etc.

Fair enough but so many of these ads featuring female sports aspirants seem to major on entitlement: it’s all not fair. But a lot of money (not least Barclays’, presumably) is going into women’s sports, football especially. The recent women’s Manchester derby game attracted 20,000 so something’s moving.

The ads too are quite aggressive and whatever the female equivalent of macho is.

Might it not be better to show what the opportunities are for females, the attractions of their game?

MAA creative scale: 6.