Correct The Internet and DDB Aotearoa NZ look to make sportswomen visible
Correct The Internet is drawing attention to the inconsistency of searchable facts online and the disadvantages they pose against women’s sport, launching a global campaign in partnership with DDB Aotearoa NZ.
The inaccuracies at hand render female sporting stars invisible – such as a discrepancy over who has scored the most goals in international football. While the internet will usually crown Cristiano Ronaldo, the record is in-fact held by women’s footballer Christine Sinclair.
The organisation behind the campaign, Correct The Internet, is a collective of people who seek to highlight and correct search inaccuracies and make sportswomen more visible as a result.
Founder partner, Rebecca Sowden, is a former New Zealand Football Fern and the owner of international women’s sports marketing and sponsorship consultancy, Team Heroine. The agency is a member of the United Nations’ Football for the Goalsv- an initiative that helps the global football community to engage with and advocate for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
“Many of the world’s leading athletes are women,” said Sowden. “Many of the world’s sporting records are held by women. But when people search online for factual sporting information about athletes, the results favour the sportsmen, even when the sportswomen have greater statistic.”
The campaign features a 60 second film that tells the impact of search inconsistencies from the perspective of a young girl. Standing on the field of a stadium, seating thousands of voice assistant devices, the girl poses a question to determine who has scored the most goals in international football. Receiving a confusing (and incorrect) answer, she is left dumbfounded, as the devices switch themselves off. The spot ends with a call-to-action driving viewers to help fix the issue via the website.
Paul Spain, Gorilla Technology’s futurist and CEO explained: “Search engine algorithms draw on human created content, designed to give us what we are looking for, instantly. Because search engines take so much notice of what is made popular by major publishers, social media platforms and content creators, search results will reflect certain peoples or organisations inherent preferences. This can lead to biased search results that include information that is not factually correct.”
The campaign has so far garnered the support of a number of high-profile athletes and sporting organisations including English rugby’s Red Roses’ player, Shaunagh Brown, and Football Fern Meikayla Moore, with support from Women in Sport Aotearoa, Ngā Wāhine Hākinakina o Aotearoa (WISPA), Women Sport Australia and New Zealand Football.
Correct The Internet is also supported by Football for The Goals, for its contribution to Goal 5, which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women.
Women in Sport Aotearoa is also behind the campaign. Acting chief executive, Nicky van den Bos said: “There couldn’t be a better time for this campaign, with women’s sport in the spotlight more than ever before. The 2022 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup and the Black Ferns performance in the Rugby World Cup last year, and this year’s FIFA Football Women’s World Cup in New Zealand means internet searches may just be at an all-time high. Let’s ensure the results reflect the facts, not historic biases.”
The campaign launches with a tool that makes sending feedback on factual inconsistencies easy for anyone to do. The tool is hosted on the Correct The Internet website, with the aim of finding and correct as many incorrect search results as possible.
The global campaign launched on Saturday 21 January at the NZ Football Ferns game against the USA women’s team, with the film shown to game attendees at Eden Park.
Credits
Agency: DDB Group Aotearoa
Production: Finch
Director: Lex Hodge
Managing Director/Executive Producer: Corey Esse
Executive Producer: Rebekah Kelly
Producer: Sarah Cook
DOP: Gin Loane
Second Camera: Ben Rowsell
Art Director: Sam Evans
Casting: Catch/FINCH
Post House for Edit: Atticus
Editor: Jack Hutchings
Post House for Grade : Atticus
Colourist: Pete Richie
Post House for VFX: Atticus
Lead VFX artist: Stu Bedford
Sound Company: Liquid Studios
Sound Person Craig: Matuschka
Music Company: Liquid Studios
Composer: Peter Van der Fluit
Partner and Supporters
Correct the Internet – Founding Partner: Rebecca Sowden
Team Heroine | Supporter of Football For the Goals: Rebecca Sowden
New Zealand Football
Women in Sport Aotearoa [WISPA]
Women in Sport Australia
Fearless Women
Eden Park
Mediaworks
PHD
Warner Discovery
Phantom Billstickers
TVNZ
UN Department of Global Communications – Outreach Division: Maher Nasser
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topics
Correct The Internet
DDB Aotearoa NZ
Maher Nasser
Meikayla Moore
Nicky van den Bos
Paul Spain
Rebecca Sowden
Shaunagh Brown
Women in Sport Aotearoa
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