• by Sarah Mahoney , September 14, 2017

Think your job’s tough? Procter & Gamble’s Secret wants us to know what it’s like to be a woman working inside the National Football League.

The campaign for Secret — the first deodorant made just for women — kicks off with a video congratulating ESPN’s Beth Mowins for making history as the first female play-by-play announcer for Monday Night Football, interviewing nine female executives about her breakthrough for a tribute video. And P&G says it plans to follow that with a four-part video series, highlighting the stories of women breaking through in a male-dominated industry.

It says the project is a great fit for Secret, which has been helping women handle pressure-cooker situations for 60 years. “At Secret, we understand the pressures women face both in their personal and professional lives on a daily basis,” says Janine Miletic, Secret’s brand director, in its announcement. “When you add the stress of working in a male-dominated industry to navigating societal and cultural expectations, it can be a very real barrier to achieving your dreams.”

Barrier may be something of an understatement. While P&G has long relied on the manly men of the NFL to star in its ads, from Joe Montana and Rob Gronkowski for Tide or Odell Beckham Jr. for Head & Shoulders, the NFL has a serious problem with women.

While women make up about 45% of the NFL fan base, a glance at Twitter’s response to Mowins’ historic night reveals just how much men hate women, and don’t want them anywhere near their football games: “I’d rather feed grapes to a naked Nancy Pelosi than listen to her,” groused one. “Like nails on a chalkboard,” complained others. 

And the league has been losing viewers, including women, in recent years. J.D. Power’s 2017 Fan Experience Study released last month, dug deeper into the 12% of the football fans who say they watched fewer games last season. About 26% say it’s due to national anthem protests. And 24% cite the NFL’s persistent domestic violence problem, while 24% say they’re sick of game delays. And 20% hate the excessive commercials. (Sorry, P&G.)

Viewership was down again for the first week of the season, and commissioner Roger Goodell got booed by New England Patriots. 

Mintel, the market research company, says antiperspirant and deodorant sales in the U.S. rose 2.7% last year, to $3.17 billion.