SPORT ENGLAND

Helping SPORT ENGLAND KEEP THE NATION ACTIVE DURING 
LOCKDOWN

imin was selected in a competitive procurement process to deliver OpenActive aggregation services for This Girl Can - Sport England's award winning physical activity campaign targeted at women and girls. Whilst OpenActive is funded by Sport England, this is the first time the organisation sought to use OpenActive data in combination within other key projects. By using imin's sector leading APIs and technical advice, in the face of changing priorities caused by COVID-19, Sport England was able to use open data to power This Girl Can, as well as the Join The Movement campaign, with just a short period of time between design and go-live.

the situation

  • This Girl Can and OpenActive represent two key Sport England projects. This Girl Can is a physical activity campaign, with the aim of motivating and inspiring women and girls to take up physical activity. OpenActive is a data standards initiative seeking to make it easier for people to find and book physical activities. By using OpenActive in the next phase of This Girl Can, Sport England was seeking to remove yet another barrier for women and girls, thereby making it really simple to find appropriate local physical activities.

  • There was an existing This Girl Can campaign website, so we were tasked with working with Sport England's incumbent digital agency to design a user facing interface that helped users to find local activities.

  • As with most of the sector, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the original campaign plans. Therefore, together with Sport England, we needed to quickly and efficiently replan the implementation strategy to cope with continually changing guidelines about what physical activity was advisable or even permitted.

how we helped


  • Working alongside Sport England's digital agency, we helped develop a novel approach focussed on "inspiration" as opposed to providing lots of search options. This resulted in the implementation of a simple postcode-based search, with the focus on a simple and appealing UX.

  • To ensure the data provided was as engaging and relevant to the audience as possible, imin implemented a bespoke tagging process to filter through the tens of thousands of OpenActive activities and select only those suitable and relevant for the campaign audience.

  • Sport England also made use of imin's customer image product - we were supplied with brand-approved images that we displayed instead of those provided in the open data by the activity providers.

  • With some careful (but quick!) re-planning, and by delivering considered advice, imin was able to develop new functionality to deliver open data about online (virtual) physical activities. This enabled Sport England to provide a "Get Active At Home" section during highly restricted lockdown periods, displaying online activity options for women and girls to get involved in. This was considered so useful that it was expanded to form part of the Join The Movement campaign, set up to help the entire population to stay active whilst at home during lockdowns.

what they said

"imin have been a fantastic partner to work with. Their understanding of the sector and work with other clients gave us confidence in their ability to deliver what was a completely new project for Sport England, while the expertise was evident from the outset. Against the challenging backdrop of COVID-19, their flexibility, dedication and overall client management was excellent."

Campaign Executive at Sport England

"Badminton England has worked with imin for about two and a half years. In that time, they have always been extremely helpful and supportive of our ambitions with excellent client management, providing regular updates and clear useful advice. They are particularly strong on ensuring the customer journey and experience is as effective and simple as possible – their advice on the customer experience for our new activity finder (based on their own work and excellent understanding of the sector) has been invaluable in delivering a very clean design that makes finding activity and courts a really simple process for our users"

nick rimmer, head of development at badminton england

how can we help you?

we're dedicated to delivering innovative digital solutions that help people to be more active.

We believe that if we change the way we collaborate and share data in the physical activity sector, we can get more people more active and put an end to the rising global physical inactivity epidemic.

We aim to help all organisations use digital solutions that help more people to be active. We're always happy to share our experiences and provide guidance where we can (even if you don't end up working with us!).

Get in touch today to talk through your project - a free 30 minute consultation is available to any organisation seeking advice.

GET IN TOUCH
Proudly Supported By:
Copyright 2023 © IMIN LTD, a company registered in England & Wales. Company No. 07716450
VAT NO. GB 209 8429 86
PRIVACY POLICY
SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE
OUR COMMITMENT TO NET ZERO 2050
All icons and pictures used are licensed under CC BY 3.0 with attribution required