PlayZones Launch
Football Foundation, 2024
Building the PlayZones launch around lived experience, real communities and how the spaces are actually used.
MY ROLE
Led the launch strategy and creative direction, working with TMG Creative to shape the campaign.
CONTEXT
PlayZones was part of a wider Government shift towards improving access to sport in urban and lower-income areas.
A recent round of Department for Culture, Media & Sport funding focused on tackling inactivity by making better use of smaller local spaces in underserved communities. That meant cage pitches in inner-city estates and urban parks, not open playing fields.
It was a different environment to the Football Foundation’s usual programmes, so the content needed a different look and feel.
The PlayZones launch needed to feel authentic to the people who used them and avoid the familiar, cliched treatment of grassroots sport.
STRATEGY
We focused on how sport is played in these spaces, less organised, more social and shaped by the environment around them. Inspired by Nike’s “Nothing Beats a Londoner”, the content focused on the pace, movement and the atmosphere of the environment.
Let place lead
The spaces shaped how the content was shot and structured: cage pitches, concrete courts and the people from the estates surrounding them.
Work with local creative
TMG Creative, based near the estates we filmed in, brought a style rooted in local football culture rather than traditional sports campaigns.
Show the spaces in motion
Treating PlayZones as social environments, not just facilities, focusing on movement, routines and interactions.
The content stayed raw and observational, avoiding overly-polished campaign visuals and staying closer to how these pitches feel day to day.
WHAT CHANGED
PlayZones shifted the tone of Football Foundation launches.
The hero film set the tone for the wider programme, rooted more closely in real communities and environments. Its response gave teams confidence to back creative work grounded in that same reality.
PlayZones also shifted how this type of investment was presented, with less emphasis on explanation and more on experience.
HIGHEST-PERFORMING
launch asset in Football
Foundation history
NATIONAL REACH
amplified across DCMS and England Football channels
ESTABLISHED
the creative direction for future programme launches
Images & Video: Football Foundation