- London
Influencing women and girls to become physically active in one of the most deprived areas of London.
London Sport together with AudienceNet have been working as partners in a multi-stage research project designed to change how physical activity and sport is perceived, delivered and led by women in East London.
The project aimed to explore the role of local influencers (people/places/platforms) in reaching and engaging less active women in physical activity and sport, focusing on diverse communities and populations where activity levels were known to be below average.
The key outcome focuses on how to engage local institutions and organisations who have influence amongst women and girls in the area and to bring them on board as partners to engage more females from diverse communities in physical activity. The research informed the development of a segmentation of the local female population, by the most defining factors influencing their approach to physical activity; from motherhood and religious affiliation to how connected women were digitally.
The construction of personas in this way helps to identify the types of channels and influencers best suited to inspire and reach out to less active women in each segment, e.g. places of worship, parenting groups, campaigns over social media etc.
This piece of work seeks to build on London Sport’s existing segmentation of ‘less active’ individuals and while there are overlapping themes, it drills down to personas at a very localised level.
This project targeted a very specific area but the methodology used throughout this qualitative research is easily replicable amongst other populations in other regions of the capital or beyond.
The findings themselves are likely to map onto many other areas in London or around the country, where demographic and socio-economic factors are similar.
All of the research outputs available for download have been designed to be user-friendly and actionable for our core partner group, wider partner network on the ground, and the whole sector.
For more information about this research or to get in touch, please visit: https://londonsport.org/our-research-and-insight/east-london-women-and-physical-activity/
