Bringing art, culture, and new audiences into the game
Women's Rugby World Cup, New Zealand · 2022
Creative strategy · National activations · Partnerships · PR · Project delivery
The tournament and my mahi at a glance
150,179 spectators, up by 300%
42,579 fans recorded for the sold-out final at Eden Park
600,000 viewers average New Zealand audience for the Black Ferns' opening match — 5 times the 2017 final
Five cities connected through The Art of Rugby national activation.
The challenge: Giving New Zealanders a reason to show up
Ahead of the Women's Rugby World Cup in Aotearoa, domestic awareness was low, and ticket sales were slow. Yet women's sport was experiencing significant growth, creating an opportunity to reach new audiences.
The ambition was bigger than simply promoting a sporting event. The challenge was to create culturally relevant experiences and stories that could connect the tournament with New Zealanders and the country’s cultural identity. Success needed to be tangible: drive attendance and engagement, broaden the conversation around women's rugby, secure earned media, and ultimately achieve full stands for the opening and final match.
My role and approach: Making big ideas a reality
As New Zealand Project Director for PR and Activations, I worked across creative strategy, concept development, partnerships, commercial management and end-to-end delivery.
My broader remit also included earned-media planning, key messaging, reactive communications, influencer and advocacy opportunities, stakeholder communications, and identifying creative opportunities to build visibility and momentum.
I developed and led two major activation concepts: The Art of Rugby, a nationwide public art programme spanning five cities; and For Our Sisters: A Rugby World Cup Feast, a high-profile media and stakeholder experience at Auckland Museum.
For The Art of Rugby, I developed a national public art concept that took the tournament beyond the stadium and into the places where people lived, worked, and gathered, creating a sense of pride and connection to the sport.
I developed the creative framework and built the operational model required to deliver the activation across Auckland, Hamilton, Whangārei, and Christchurch -- commissioning artists and coordinating councils, property partners, business associations, agencies, suppliers, and stakeholders.
For For Our Sisters, I designed an immersive media and stakeholder experience centred on wāhine, whanaungatanga, manaakitanga and storytelling.
Working in partnership with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, the experience brought together the Black Ferns, rugby whānau, media, influencers and advocates for women's sport. Rather than relying solely on traditional sports media, the activation was designed to create advocates, broadening the concept of women’s rugby by reaching lifestyle, cultural, and mainstream conversations.
Across both activations, I connected creative ambition with the practical realities of execution — procurement, supplier management, partnerships, stakeholder relationships, communications, production, timelines, dependencies and on-the-ground delivery.
The impact: Unprecedented audience attendance
The activations formed part of a wider earned-media and marketing programme that helped transform low early awareness and slow ticket sales into unprecedented momentum.
One of the original measures of success was achieving full stands for the opening match and the final. Both sold out.
Opening match day at Eden Park became the most attended Women's Rugby World Cup match day at the time, while the final attracted a record 42,579 spectators. Across the tournament, 150,179 people attended — more than three times the 45,412 spectators who attended the previous Women's Rugby World Cup in 2017.
The Black Ferns' opening match attracted an average New Zealand broadcast audience of 600,000 — five times the New Zealand audience for the 2017 final.
Digital engagement also accelerated. After just the first match weekend, the tournament had already generated more than 50% of the total users, page views, video views and engagements achieved across the entire 2017 tournament. The proportion of female users also increased from around 30% in 2017 to almost 40%.
The work contributed to a wider campaign that successfully moved women's rugby beyond its traditional audience, and it turns out that amplifying culture, art, storytelling, partnerships, and experiences was instrumental to the project’s success.