Women’s Aid turns football’s biggest question into a warning about abuse

As England prepares for its opening World Cup match against Croatia, Women’s Aid has launched a campaign that reframes one of football’s most common matchday questions to highlight the rise in domestic abuse linked to major tournaments.

Created by ELVIS, The Other Kick Off centres on a seemingly puzzling answer to a familiar search query.

While fans asking “What time is kickoff?” expect details of England’s fixture, Women’s Aid is instead promoting the time 11:37pm.

The figure does not refer to the start of the match, but to the estimated point at which domestic abuse incidents are most likely to surge after the final whistle.

The time was calculated using historical reporting data, average match length, half-time intervals, added time and patterns of post-match drinking and travel.

With World Cup fixtures taking place across North American time zones, England games are set to finish later in the UK, potentially pushing any increase in abuse into hours when victims are more isolated and support services are less visible.

The campaign appears across out-of-home sites in city centres, transport hubs, fan zones and areas around pubs, using football-inspired creative to contrast the excitement of kick-off with the anxiety many women experience as a match ends. QR codes reveal the story behind the unusual time.

The work also extends into search and social channels, intercepting audiences at the moment they are actively looking for match information.

Josh Green, CCO at ELVIS, said the campaign was designed around a behaviour shared by millions of football fans. “Getting the wrong answer to a question you were already asking is a very different experience to being told something you didn’t want to hear,” he said.

The campaign follows Women’s Aid’s 2022 World Cup initiative He’s Coming Home, which highlighted research showing domestic abuse incidents increase by 38% when England lose and 26% when they win.

Farah Nazeer, CEO of Women’s Aid, said the organisation wanted to remind people that “for many women and children, the final whistle signals the beginning of something frightening”, while encouraging the public to check in on loved ones and seek support where needed.

Media space for the campaign was donated by The Outernet, Ocean Outdoor, JCDecaux, Open Media, Alight Media, Grazia and Metro, with PR support from Mischief.