Since 2002, McDonald’s has run a successful community coaching programme with the four national Football Associations that has seen almost 12,000 volunteers become qualified football coaches for children.

Tasked with making this programme more relevant to mums – a key audience for McDonald’s – Red created the ‘Mums On The Ball’ campaign to get more mums involved in coaching

The campaign was given a strong and credible foundation by identifying the common ground between parenting skills and the skills needed to coach children.  An omnibus survey also revealed the role that mums already play in their children’s football. Both elements were designed to build mums’ confidence in becoming coaches.

Mums of some of Britain’s best known-footballers – including Rio Ferdinand and Theo Walcott - along with mums who had already qualified as coaches through McDonald's were enlisted to spearhead the campaign.

Red also created a Mums On The Ball guide containing information, inspirational case studies and coaching tips – downloadable for free from McDonald’s website.

The launch generated over 100 pieces of national, broadcast, regional and online coverage including the all-important women’s media – GMTV, Sun Woman and Hello.

But most importantly, the response rates from mums proved that Red’s campaign had successfully identified and met a real need. Over 1/3 of the free coaching course places being offered to mums as part of the campaign had been applied for within 24 hrs of launch.   This fantastic response has meant that the campaign continues and goes from strength to strength.

This campaign is currently a finalist in the CIPR Excellence Awards 2009 (Corporate Responsibility category).

It was also a finalist for two Sports Industry Awards 2009 (Community Programme and Best Use of PR in a Sports Campaign categories), a Sabre Award 2009 (Restaurant and Food Service category) and a PR Week Award 2008 (Corporate Communications & Corporate Publications category).