Marketing The Women's Ashes - One Step Forwards, Two Steps Back

I was talking to my friend Kate on Twitter yesterday about why men are so prejudiced against women's team sports in general, and women's cricket in particular.

She had this to say:

"Some men still find it hard to admit to 'liking women's sport' it's some kind of macho stigma, or won't give it a chance because they aren't 'supposed to like it'."

I think she's right; and I also think that things like this don't help.

In case it is later removed, here's a screen-grab of Essex Cricket's ad for the Women's Ashes T20 match at Chelmsford:

They've used the ECB's fiery marketing pic of KB, Lottie and SJT, which I think it really cool; but they've accompanied it with their own text, and here's where we hit the problem:

"... we bring you 'Girl Power'"

 Sorry? What? Girl Power? With Capital Letters? And 'Finger Quotes'?

Apart from sounding horribly 90s*, it is almost as if they want to turn-off and turn-away anyone with a 'Y' in the chromosome department!

Generally speaking, I think the ECB have done a pretty-fab job at running a gender-neutral marketing campaign for The Ashes. It was a real step forwards. But this, I'm afraid, is two steps back.

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* Just a hunch... but I'll bet a penny-or-two that the person responsible for this text is a woman in her late 30s, for whom The Spice Girls were her generation's Beatles!