Huddle 2022: what the media industry can learn from the Lionesses success

“We have to create an environment where people can thrive because it's never the splash they remember, it's always the dive” – Jill Scott, MBE

At Mindshare UK, we recently held our annual Huddle flagship event. Now in its 12^th year, this year’s theme centred around ‘The Power of ‘Good’. We had over 1000 attendees and 100+ speakers both in-person and virtually, come to celebrate innovation, creativity, and inclusion at our Rose Court offices.

This year, Huddle aimed to build on our Good Growth ambition, as we explored more ways in which brands and the media can generate power to do good. Across 30+ sessions, we heard from powerful athletes, well known journalists, TV personalities, industry experts, influencers and many more, on media’s influence on society and how good growth is driving real, impactful change.

In one of our bumper sessions, Mindshare UK’s Womxn’s group and LADbible, hosted a panel alongside ex-Lioness, Jill Scott MBE,  Instagram and TikTok lead at LADbible, Rebecca Tyrrell, Head of Sport at Twitter, Julia White, and co-founder NDA Digital Women, Ellie Edwards-Scott, discussing what the media industry can learn from the Lionesses success, and the importance of breaking down barriers in male dominated environments.

Inspiring a cultural shift

The Lionesses historic win at the Euros this year swept the nation with pride and inspiration as 17.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the final at home, and a further 90,000 packed out Wembley, with the scale of support for women’s football reaching unprecedented heights.

Jill Scott MBE, shared her incredible journey from beginning her career with hometown Sunderland, to winning the Euro’s final for England, and later announcing her retirement from professional football after an impressive career spanning 15 years.

According to recent data from the Football Association (FA), only 63 per cent of all schools in England offer equal football coaching to both boys and girls, with the figure then dropping to 44 per cent in PE lessons in secondary schools. This revelation hit the headlines amid growing calls for greater football coaching for girls after the Lionesses sailed to victory, sparking, and inspiring a cultural shift and calling for government action.

Jill shared the challenges that her and her teammates faced and how we as an industry can also harness the Lionesses success to continue to support, empower and develop women in media. She says that “seeing is believing”, and by setting an example, you can breakdown barriers so that the next generation of women won’t have to face the same challenges we faced.

Football’s coming home on Twitter

Julia White, Head of Sport at Twitter also shared the growing positive sentiment on the social media platform as momentum started to build each week as more and more people started showing their support for the Lionesses.

She revealed that the platform has never seen more brands invest in Twitter’s amplify programme, whereby brands can align their social content with the official Lioness content from the FA. As well as the increasing demand from brands for more women’s sport content in the future ahead of their 2023/2024 planning.

So, what can the media industry take from the Lionesses success? In the words of Jill Scott, MBE “if you can’t see it, you can’t do it, so go out there and get seen. If people want to bring you down then the people that mind don’t matter and the people that matter don’t mind. Just concentrate on you and go out there and achieve your dreams”.

To watch Mindshare’s Womxn and LADbible’s ‘what the media industry can learn from the Lionesses success’ discussion in full at Huddle, or any of the other incredible sessions held on the day, you can do so here.