Standard Chartered and Liverpool FC Empower Girls to ‘Play On’ in New Spot Directed by Ben Newbury

Common People Films director Ben Newbury, directs a new spot for Liverpool FC & Standard Chartered. The piece is called 'iQuit' which is part of a wider campaign called PlayOn. SC and Liverpool FC have joined forces to empower girls to 'Play On' and stay in sport so they can take the skills learnt on the pitch to empower them to achieve their goals off the pitch.

Director Ben Newbury said: “It was hard to learn that twice as many girls than boys quit sport by the age of 14. The girls we filmed, from Standard Chartered’s ‘Future Makers’ charity arm, often faced overwhelming social pressures and gender typecasting. Intense peer pressure - especially around issues like bullying, stereotypes and body image. Parental pressure - with family members actively discouraging girls from playing sport. And an elusive but deep-rooted inequality within our society - where-by girls are still not treated equally by clubs, schools and culture in general. Some girls quit playing a sport they love because they don’t feel safe walking home from training.

Contrast this with the immense support and encouragement that a men’s first team player in the premiership has experienced in his life and it highlights how important this initiative is.

Jonny Watson and Dan Harrison from Octagon presented a fantastic idea. Simple and brilliant. Utilising the global draw of Liverpool’s first team to grab everyone's attention, then subvert the message, asking each player to give one of the girl’s reasons they are quitting. The power of the ad comes in how alien each reason sounds in the mouth of a famous footballer, shining a light on just how differently girls can be treated.

From the outset our main creative tasks were simple; get the players to buy into it (gulp), nail the tone and make sure the focus lands on the girls and the message (not the men or the potential memes). LFC were fantastic. The players bought into it straight away - which just shows the importance of the cause and strength of the creative.

To pull off a production like this, especially with high profile talent and a potentially controversial idea, there is a massive amount of unseen creative, logistic and organisational work behind the scenes - and I’m enormously grateful to Standard Chartered, LFC, the brilliant team at Octagon and the whole Common People Films family.

An important cause, clever, creative and an exceptional group of people. It doesn’t get much better than that.“

Ramy Dance EP said: “We’re really proud to be part of this great campaign! The whole team worked incredibly hard to ensure it felt authentic whilst amplifying such an important initiative. It’s never that straightforward working with football players, but Ben got the absolute best out of them and nailed the final spot.“