In an industry dominated by billion-dollar budgets and celebrity endorsements, a challenger brand consistently outperforms the legacy brands with the audience that matters most—women.
In just over two years, XX-XY Athletics has gone viral more than 20 times—without the media spend, star power, or legacy advantage of brands like Nike, Adidas, or Lululemon.
What it does have is something far more powerful: emotionally resonant content.
Why These Campaigns Hit Differently
Two thirds (66%) of female sports fans say sports organizations do not understand or appeal to them, according to a Wasserman study.
The brand’s viral success starts with its unique and insightful point of view: women athletes deserve fairness and a voice.
World-class marketers and creatives like Jennifer Sey and Brett Craig create campaigns that speak directly to the real-life experience of women in sport—and that authenticity is what drives organic reach, consistently landing at the center of culture.
XX-XY Athletics Founder Jennifer Sey
Our CEO Jennifer Sey believes in hard work, telling the truth and standing by your principles. Even when – especially when – it's hard. She was the 1986 U.S. Women's Gymnastics National Champion and a 7x National Team member. Sey is also the awarding former CMO and Brand President of Levi’s; she’s won a Cannes Lions, was twice named one of the most influential Chief Marketing Officers by Forbes, and was named one of the most powerful people in music and fashion for Billboard Magazine for her work reinventing the Levi’s brand. And she is the driving strategic force behind XX-XY Athletics.
The films are created and produced by Chief Creative Officer Brett Craig, an award-winning ad executive and former CCO for Deutsch who once created Super Bowl commercials for brands including Taco Bell and Pepsi. Now he’s the creative genius behind all the viral ads from XX-XY Athletics. He channels standing up for his daughters’ right to participate in athletics on a level playing field into his work.
Chief Creative Officer Brett Craig
Consistently Outperforming with Women Athletes
Across the past two years, comparative analysis of major campaigns from Nike, Adidas, and Lululemon shows that XX-XY Athletics consistently over-indexes with women athletes in its pace and performance.
XX-XY Athletics – with 20+ viral ad moments – is sprinting with releases of women-focused viral content nearly every quarter -- at 5–7x the cadence of any of the big legacy brands.
These aren’t paid wins. They’re earned. No celebrity contracts or $100M media budgets. Our views are achieved organically, and they go viral because of a deeply resonant consumer insight — women athletes want a voice and a brand to stand with them.
“Women deserve fairness, and they aren’t getting it,” - Jennifer Sey
Efficiency that Big Brands Can’t Match
When you look at performance through the lens of efficiency—the gap becomes even more striking.The most notable big-brand ad targeting women athletes, Nike's "So Win,” marked its first Super Bowl ad in 27 years and reportedly cost around $16 million in media and production. That translates to roughly $140,000 per million views.
By comparison, XX-XY Athletics campaigns have achieved up to 187x greater efficiency—driven entirely by organic reach.
The Campaigns Driving the Movement
The brand’s most viral campaign to date, “Real Girls Rock,” launched on National Girls and Sports Day in 2025, tapped directly into the cultural moment—highlighting the grit and conviction of female athletes standing up for fairness.
“Real Girls Rock” 40M views
It didn’t just perform—it sparked conversation globally, earning shares from high-profile voices including J.K. Rowling, Megyn Kelly, Sage Steele and Martina Navratilova -- resonating deeply across sports audiences. The next year, it dominated online conversation during Super Bowl week for the second year in a row: https://x.com/JenniferSey/status/2020875822652092653?s=20
“Dear Nike” Series
10M+ views
The provocative “Dear Nike” series ignited industry-wide reaction, putting legacy brands on notice. The impact was impossible to ignore; Nike returned to the Super Bowl for the first time in nearly three decades with an ad centered on female athletes—a move that felt like a direct response to the cultural pressure.
Pt. 1
Dear Nike Pt. 2
“Look at Her”
4M+ views
Even the brand’s most recent campaigns continue to outperform, delivering significantly greater efficiency, training the eye on the female athletes unfairly erased by male athletes.
Watch the Work
Explore more of the campaigns speaking to women athletes:
"Why We Fight / Join Us"
"Stand Up"
"So Speak"
"We See You NCAA"
