Athletes tend to be front and center in most brands’ sports campaigns. But how many pro athletes regularly use accounting software?
The answer is likely very few—with the exception of the ones who have also started their own businesses. That’s why QuickBooks, the Intuit-owned accounting software company, chose to focus on leaders from the business side of women’s sports in its “Power Moves” campaign, which is geared toward driving consideration among small-business owners, according to QuickBooks VP of Marketing Cathleen Ryan.
“QuickBooks will always try to tap into culturally relevant moments with authenticity, and nothing says that more than female sports right now,” Ryan told Marketing Brew.
The playbook
The “Power Moves” campaign consists of five videos focused on various women entrepreneurs in the sports industry talking about their businesses and how they use QuickBooks’s software. The episodes are about two minutes long and were shot at women’s sports bars around the country. The series debuted March 3 with an episode featuring Jax Diener, the owner of Watch Me! Sports Bar, and Tobin Heath and Christen Press, the USWNT icons who co-founded lifestyle brand and media company re—inc.
The episodes are being distributed across digital media company She Media’s platforms, which include websites like parenting outlet SheKnows and entertainment publication TVLine and which reach about 74 million unique viewers a month, according to She Media. QuickBooks is further amplifying the content with a media buy across The Gist, a sports media company whose founders, Jacie deHoop and Ellen Hyslop, are featured in the campaign.
The roster
Also spotlighted in the series are Allyson Felix, seven-time Olympic gold medalist and founder of women’s sports management firm Always Alpha; Jasmine Maietta, former pro basketball player and founder of sports lifestyle and apparel brand Round 21; Jenny Nguyen, CEO and founder of the women’s sports bar The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon; and Jen Barnes, founder and CEO of The Rough & Tumble sports bar in Seattle.
It’s a full slate of partners meant to represent various off-field aspects of the women’s sports industry, from media to merchandise, Ryan said. Even the production company behind the videos, Impakt Partners, is run by women, and the entire effort was spearheaded by Trailblazing Sports Group, the women’s sports commercial partnership firm founded by former ESPN ad sales exec Sara Gotfredson, who said she was tapped for the project by QuickBooks’s media agency, Initiative.
Get marketing news you'll actually want to read
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.
“We look for partners that are authentic, that share our values, [and] that have reach and an engaging platform,” Ryan said. “One thing that we really wanted to do with this QuickBooks ‘Power Moves’ campaign is try to embrace the entire women’s sports ecosystem.”
Though the women who star in the videos come from different sectors of sports, they all have one thing in common: They all “live and die in QuickBooks,” Gotfredson said.
The goal
In addition to expanding Intuit’s efforts across women’s sports, which included a March Madness campaign with Paige Bueckers this year, Ryan said the campaign is meant to frame QuickBooks as a tool for athletes turned founders, as well as create a “long-term connection” between the brand and entrepreneurs.
Even though the women who lead the sports industry off the courts and the fields don’t always find themselves in the spotlight, deHoop said The Gist’s audience has reacted positively to campaign content like behind-the-scenes videos promoting the company’s episode.
“My ethos in general has been [that] we should center the athletes in what we're doing, so it's just not something that I thought people would be very interested in, but it's been really cool to see that that's not the case,” deHoop said.
Ally Davis and Melissa Forman, co-founders of Impakt Partners, don’t work exclusively on branded content around women’s sports, so they were focused on creating an “integration that is seamless” in order to keep viewers interested, Forman said.
“When you do branded content, it can be really tricky, and it can sometimes turn people off,” Davis said. “But in women’s sports…the fans are so looking for this type of content, any content about women's sports, they actually are appreciative of the brands that are stepping into the space.”