​1 in 8 men think they can win a point off Serena Williams, which exposes a deeply entrenched global issue that many men don't respect the skills of female athletes. Diageo wanted to change that, as part of a global push towards more inclusive portrayal.

Their most loved Australian rum brand, Bundaberg Rum (Bundy), was sponsoring the Australian men’s and women’s National Rugby Leagues (NRL & NRLW). The men’s league was thriving but the women’s league needed to grow its fan base and unfortunately, most rugby fans were men with no interest in the NRLW.

We identified that the women’s stats were just as good as the men’s and knew that NRL fans loved stats. So we created a trojan horse to make them fans of the women’s game without them even realising it. We did it by hijacking the largest global online community for stats-obsessed fans – Fantasy Football – because you can’t argue with stats and stats have no gender. In partnership with the NRL, we created Bundy Mixer – the world’s first mixed gender fantasy competition. Fans could finally pick the best of the best, not just the best of the blokes.

We built Bundy Mixer into the official NRL fantasy website and launched it to coincide with the 2022 NRLW season through an integrated social, digital, PR and earned campaign. Then each week, fans picked their teams at the Bundy Mixer website, choosing the best performing players, regardless of gender.

By studying the women’s stats, NRL fans started respecting the players and watching the game. Bundy Mixer got national news coverage and attracted 13,000+ registered players and over 10 million media impressions. Most importantly, in its first season of many, Bundy Mixer had begun to level the playing field with viewership of the NRLW up by +50% (compared to previous season).