Carrie Underwood Returns to Her Hometown in This Moving Sportswear Spot

In an emotive campaign from Dick's Sporting Goods, promoting its Calia by Carrie athleisure brand, singer Carrie Underwood returns to her hometown in Oklahoma and meets young female athletes to talk to them about their love of sports. The spot, created by Badger & Winters, explores what sport means to the young girls she meets in Checotah, Oklahama, each with different backstories. One girl, coming home to cook dinner every night for her sister, says without sport, she doesn't know where she'd be. Another, who loves horses, has ambitions to become an interior designer but doesn't believe it can happen. Underwood seems visibly moved by their stories, emotionally reflecting on what sports meant to her growing up as a keen athlete, and how it helped her become the person she is today. Badger & Winters' creative team, which worked with directors The Hudson Dusters, traveled to Checotah and heard the stories of 50 young women before narrowing the cast down to the final three. The agency's co-founder Madonna Badger, who is known for her "#WomenNotObjects" effort fighting the objectification of women, said the campaign is about "what sport teaches us as young women." "Research found that 70% of women executives say playing sport has given them more confidence," she told Creativity. "And Carrie is such a grounded person, despite all her success, so we wanted to go back to her hometown and see if we could see what made her what she is." She added that the campaign "is the first major creative from us with a client that really illustrates what we've been trying to say about how it's not about how you look." As well as promoting the Calia brand, the ad, which will run on TV and social media, flags up that Dick's Sporting Goods Foundation donates money to help support girls' sport in communities across the U.S.

Carrie Underwood Returns to Her Hometown in This Moving Sportswear Spot

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