It's amazing what we can do when we work together, isn't it? That's the spirit that sits at the heart of our latest campaign for Sport England. The groundbreaking This Girl Can movement burst back into the public eye with a vibrant new message that redefines what getting active looks like. The new creative direction was led by House of Oddities in collaboration with 23red, Multicultural Marketing Consultancy (MMC) and The Outsiders as part of the 'This Girl Can Collective'.

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This Girl Can is ten years old this year, and celebrates getting over 4 million women into a more active lifestyle in that time. But there have been scores of women left behind. This includes women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, who in addition are from South Asian Muslim and Black communities, women aged 55-74, pregnant women and mothers with babies under one.

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AI powered research from Sport England revealed a significant underrepresentation of women in fitness related imagery online. Of the 4000 publicly available photos that were analysed from sports clubs, community centres, parks, gyms, swimming pools, leisure centre and alike - Black and South Asian women made up just 1.5% of them, older women made up 7% (and most were portrayed doing stereotypical sports like lawn bowls), images of women with young families getting active came in at 4%, visibly disabled women at 0.16% and pregnant woman were pretty much much non-existent.

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As women’s wellbeing continues to be underfunded, unsupported and under-championed, the inequality health gap in the UK is getting wider, with a high proportion of women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds feeling like they don’t belong in the world of physical activity.

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Our campaign is designed to change that.

‘We Like The Way You Move’ redefines what getting active looks like. It tells women from all walks of life that we see you, we hear you and we celebrate you. It’s an honest, joyful and authentic tribute that breaks down barriers and will hopefully inspire all women to live more active lives in ways that work for them - not in the ways that conventional fitness culture deems it should be.

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The TVC was directed by leading filmmaker and fashion designer Priya Ahluwalia under production company RSA films with a predominantly all-female crew. We street-cast women across England, celebrating the many ways they already move in their daily lives before pivoting to more intentional forms of exercise – from walks and family bike rides to using free outdoor park gyms, wheelchair rugby, walking football, boxing, pregnancy yoga and even laughing yoga. All of this is brought to life against an empowering reimagining of BodyRockers’ iconic track I Like the Way, reworked as 'We Like the Way You Move' by composer Amy McKnight. We reclaimed the track with a fresh, female perspective for 2025 with vocals from rising UK artist, Morgan and instruments from around the globe.

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We also captured these women for a brand new databank of images that are more representative of women taking part in fitness, shot by the award-winning photographer Madeleine Penfold – with some of the best images appearing in digital and large-format OOH as well as social media across the country.

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This next phase of This Girl Can, under the strategic direction of ‘Belonging Starts with Inclusion’, is all about reaching women who feel furthest away from getting active – making sure they feel seen, supported and welcomed.

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