VML and LUX teamed up with Volleyball South Africa and sports broadcaster SABC on "Change the Angle" – a game-changing campaign that raises awareness of how the media portrays female athletes.

Research shows that women are ten times more likely than men to be objectified in sports. All too often, media cameras covering female athletes have zoomed in with impunity to their breasts, buttocks, thighs and crotches. This has been going on for decades.

Sexist media camera angles of women at sports events not only objectifies them, but also disrespects their skills and achievements. It also perpetuates objectification of women in everyday life. LUX felt that it was time to call out this degrading practice before it becomes normalized.

Beauty brand LUX stands with women against everyday sexism. We wanted to call attention to this issue and change the angle of sexist media cameras with actionable guidelines.

LR Change The Angle Lux ALL 1 1
Women in sports are ten times more likely to be objectified by camera angles that focus on certain body parts compared to their male counterparts. When we found out this is also an issue for top female athletes who have achieved incredible things, we knew we had to act. This not only devalues female athletes’ professional performance and achievements, it perpetuates the objectification many women face every day.

Severine Vauleon

Global Brand Vice President, LUX

Research shows that women are ten times more likely than men to be objectified in sports. Sexist media camera angles aimed at women at sports events also disrespect their skills and achievements.

This creates a vicious circle as it perpetuates objectification of women in everyday life as well.

One of the main culprits are media cameras that deliberately focus on women's breasts, buttocks, thighs and crotches.

We played media cameras at their own game by hacking a live broadcast of the 2023 Durban Open Beach Volleyball tournament, where the female athletes wore QR codes on parts of their bodies where media cameras tend to focus.

"Change The Angle" received 4.7 billion impressions and was picked up by more than 377 publications worldwide, including the BBC, Yahoo, The Telegraph, Washington Daily News and Boston Herald, among others, and articles have been viewed over 1.5 million times to date.

The campaign has also generated $500,000 in earned media.

Significantly, South Africa’s biggest broadcast network, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), has adopted "Change The Angle" guidelines.

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Press

‘Women must wear bikini bottoms’; the paradigm shift needed to ‘change the angle’ towards female athletes
Campaign Asia
Live Volleyball Game is Intervened To Call Out Hypersexualized Angles of Women
Design Taxi
Beauty Brand Lux Challenges Sports Media to Change the Angle
Campaign Brief

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