CONMEBOL's 'The Ball Without Prejudice,' created by Garabato MullenLowe in Paraguay, printed sexist phrases on official match balls that vanished through play.
ARCHIVEHow CONMEBOL Used a Football to Erase Sexism in Paraguay
CONMEBOL's 'The Ball Without Prejudice' is a direct medium campaign launched in Paraguay in March 2018, created by Garabato MullenLowe, in which official match balls were printed with sexist phrases commonly directed at women in football — phrases that physically disappeared as the balls were played with.
The campaign debuted publicly on 8 March 2018, International Women's Day, aligning its release with one of the most globally recognised moments for gender equity advocacy. The timing was deliberate. By anchoring the activation to a culturally resonant date, CONMEBOL — South America's governing body for football — signalled that the sport's institutional leadership was prepared to confront the language of exclusion that women players routinely face. The phrases printed on the balls were drawn directly from real prejudice: statements such as 'Football is only for men,' 'Women don't know how to play,' and 'If you play, you're a tomboy' were rendered in ink that faded with use, according to documentation cited on clapboard.com.
In Paraguay, where football carries deep cultural weight and women's participation in the sport has historically contended with social barriers, the choice of a direct medium was significant. Rather than a broadcast advertisement or digital film, the campaign placed its message inside the game itself — on the very object at the centre of play. The mechanics were the message: prejudice is not permanent; it disappears when challenged through action. The campaign comprised a single media asset, classified under the Sports category, and was produced by Asunción-based Garabato MullenLowe as part of the wider MullenLowe Group network. Clapboard scores 'The Ball Without Prejudice' at 71 out of 100, recognising its conceptual clarity and the precision of its executional metaphor.
CONMEBOL identified a specific cultural tension as the foundation of this campaign. In Paraguay and across South America, women's football has expanded in visibility — yet the verbal and social barriers discouraging female participation have persisted in parallel with that growth. The campaign's strategic logic rested on a single insight: that the language of exclusion, when placed on an official match ball endorsed by football's own governing body, becomes impossible to ignore or dismiss.
The choice of a direct medium rather than a conventional broadcast or digital format reflected a strategic preference for tangible, participatory communication. The ball did not ask viewers to feel something watching an advertisement — it asked players to act, and rewarded that action by erasing the prejudice printed on its surface. This mechanic embedded the campaign's argument inside the physical experience of the sport itself. According to dentsu.com, global advertising expenditure reached US$613.5 billion in 2018, growing at a rate of 3.9% year on year, with the 2018 FIFA World Cup identified as a primary growth stimulus — a context that made sport-linked brand activism particularly visible during this period.
In the competitive landscape of sports-linked social campaigns, peer initiatives from organisations such as UEFA and FIFA had begun using International Women's Day as a platform for women's football promotion, while commercial brands including Nike and Adidas were simultaneously investing in female athlete narratives across global markets. CONMEBOL's approach distinguished itself by embedding the message in the product rather than the media channel. The football-goods market was estimated at more than €17 billion annually at the time, having approximately doubled over the preceding decade, according to data cited by footwearnews.com — a market context that underscored both the commercial weight of the object chosen and the cultural authority it carried in communities like those across Paraguay.
Julio Gallego served as creative director and art director on 'The Ball Without Prejudice,' with Santiago Morello credited as creative director and copywriter, according to production documentation cited on clapboard.com. Additional credits include MullenLowe SSP3, Yasmin Hourani, and Doble P Producciones — a collaboration that brought together agency, production, and creative talent operating from Asunción, Paraguay.
The executional idea was disciplined in its simplicity. Official match balls — not props or reproductions — were printed with prejudicial phrases that real women in football encounter. The ink was formulated to fade with use, so that the act of playing the game directly caused the discriminatory language to disappear. This was not a metaphor communicated through film or copy; it was a physical process built into the object itself. The activation found its first documented moment at the Copa América de Fútbol Playa final, where the balls were used in competitive play, per information reported on clapboard.com and corroborated by marketingregistrado.com.
The campaign's single media asset — a static direct-medium execution — captured the ball in a state that communicated the entire concept without requiring supplementary explanation. The creative team's decision to use official CONMEBOL match balls, rather than branded merchandise or limited-edition items, reinforced the institutional authority behind the gesture. It was not a campaign about football as a backdrop; it was a campaign conducted through football as its medium. The phrase selection attributed to Gallego and Morello reflected precision: each statement chosen was culturally specific enough to resonate within Paraguay and South America, yet broadly legible to any audience familiar with the gender dynamics of organised sport. The restraint of the execution — one object, one concept, one transformative mechanic — is what gives the campaign its durability as a piece of creative craft.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for 'The Ball Without Prejudice' is publicly available in terms of reach figures, earned media value, or measurable shifts in audience sentiment. The campaign was not accompanied by disclosed metrics in any source consulted, including clapboard.com, conmebol.com, or marketingregistrado.com.
Structural analysis, however, points to several indicators of effectiveness. The campaign's activation at the Copa América de Fútbol Playa final gave it a high-legitimacy competitive context — the prejudicial phrases disappeared not in a controlled demonstration but during live, competitive football, per reporting on marketingregistrado.com. That setting conferred the kind of earned credibility that staged environments cannot replicate. The direct medium classification is also instructive: campaigns in this category succeed when the object itself carries the argument, requiring no mediation by broadcast or digital platforms to land its meaning. 'The Ball Without Prejudice' meets that criterion unambiguously.
The campaign's alignment with International Women's Day on 8 March 2018, as documented on clapboard.com, positioned it within a news cycle already oriented toward gender equity — increasing the likelihood of editorial coverage without requiring a separate media spend. The involvement of MullenLowe SSP3, a network with demonstrated experience in social-impact work across Latin America, and production partner Doble P Producciones, added executional credibility. Within the Clapboard archive, which documents three CONMEBOL campaigns in total as noted in lineage records, 'The Ball Without Prejudice' represents the most conceptually singular entry — a campaign in which the mechanics of the medium and the mechanics of the message are the same thing.
'The Ball Without Prejudice' is a 2018 direct medium campaign by CONMEBOL, created by Garabato MullenLowe in Paraguay. Official match balls were printed with sexist phrases women face in football — phrases that physically disappeared as the balls were played with, turning the act of playing into an argument against exclusion.
Garabato MullenLowe, part of the MullenLowe Group and based in Asunción, Paraguay, created the campaign. Julio Gallego served as creative director and art director, Santiago Morello as creative director and copywriter, with additional contributions from MullenLowe SSP3, Yasmin Hourani, and Doble P Producciones, according to clapboard.com.
The campaign was published in Paraguay in March 2018 and announced publicly on 8 March 2018 — International Women's Day — according to documentation on clapboard.com. Its first documented activation took place at the Copa América de Fútbol Playa final, per reporting by marketingregistrado.com.
The balls carried phrases such as 'Football is only for men,' 'Women don't know how to play,' and 'If you play, you're a tomboy,' according to clapboard.com. These statements reflected real prejudices women encounter in sport across Paraguay and South America, and were designed to fade with play.
Clapboard scores 'The Ball Without Prejudice' at 71 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's conceptual clarity and the precision of its direct medium execution, in which the physical act of playing football caused the prejudicial language printed on official CONMEBOL match balls to disappear entirely.
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