Girls play FIFA too — but they can’t design avatars that look like themselves in the game.
Pony Malta, a leading teen beverage brand in Colombia, seeks to address the emotional tensions facing teens. So when it saw that there were only male avatars available in FIFA’s career mode, which allows players to join an existing team and play against the computer, it took matters into its own hands.
In partnership with its agency, MullenLowe SSP3, Pony Malta discovered it could create players that looked more like the girls by ‘hacking’ the male avatars — choosing long hair, for example, or more femine features. The result is a team they’re calling ‘She F.C.’
The idea, explains Diego Alejandro Muñoz, creative director of MullenLowe SSP3, is to “give power to girls so they feel what it’s like to play as a girl.”
The agency worked with female gamers and National Colombian female soccer players to create female versions of themselves in the game, with the hope to get young girls to do the same.
But lack of female representation in sports is a global issue. To extend the program, Pony Malta parent AB InBev is exploring opportunities in other countries where it sells non-alcoholic brands.
“This is about telling the world that this tension is for all of us,” says Juan Alonso Torres, AB InBev’s marketing director for non-alcoholic beverages in Colombia.
Pony Malta doesn’t just want to raise awareness through the campaign, but change behavior and norms. The brand is also rolling out a Change.org petition asking the creators of FIFA to include women in career mode in the game.
“She F.C. is about getting FIFA to change something,” Torres said.
This isn’t Pony Malta’s first campaign focused on empowering young girls, and it won’t be the last. The brand is planning a second phase of the FIFA campaign early next year.