Yes Boys
Date
June, 2026
Client
EE
Content driving harmful masculinity is reaching boys more than ever before. EE, as lead partner of the Home Nations Football Association, wanted to confront this using football as part of the solution, and asked BF Media to turn the idea into a broadcast campaign.
The Result
Pieces of National Coverage
Pieces of Coverage
Reach
Research That Set the Agenda
In order to bring the campaign to life, we first had to provide proof of the insight. To do this, we created and ran the research process from the ground up by formulating a 10 question survey for boys aged 1-16, one for parents of boys in that age group, and a third for football coaches. Doing this confirmed that 40% of boys between 11 and 16 find harmful masculinity content every week.
In surveying the coaches, we knew the most gripping angle for producers would be their influence: 71% say a coach has equal or greater influence over their son’s sense of masculinity than the content he sees online.
Voices That Brought the Story to Life
The message was conveyed by three relevant spokespeople:
Theo Walcott Former England international and grassroots football coach, whose own experience as a father of young children made him a natural voice for the story.
Professor Ben Hine Academic and specialist spokesperson, providing expert insight into the research findings.
Joshua Paul Founder of Fit 4 Football, who brought a coach’s perspective on working with young players.
From start to finish
We were trusted to develop almost every media-facing element of this campaign, from research through to sell-in; as well as being on site for a full day of broadcast interviews where we delivered national coverage in the likes of Sky Sports, LBC, The Mirror, as well as some content for BBC and ITV London.
