Last week Sky Sports launched a new TikTok channel, Halo. Described as the “lil sis” of Sky Sports.
I had seen it promoted during the week, but did not really know what it was until I read the headline over the weekend:
“Sky Sports ditches ‘unbelievably sexist’ TikTok channel Halo after three days.”
A blink and you missed it moment in branding.
So what went wrong? How did they get it so wrong?
It wasn't the branding.
It wasn't the name.
Halo is a good name. One of Beyoncé’s biggest songs. Feels big, emotional, universal. So I don't think it was the name.
It wasn't the colour either. Barbie was a huge success. The film took over a billion at the box office. Girls like pink. Boys like pink. I like pink. Colour is not the problem.
It was the content.
Posts about “matcha + hot girl walk combo” laid over clips of men’s football. Captions that sound like someone scraping TikTok slang into a bowl and hoping it passes for culture. "Thinking about Zohran Mamdani rizzing us and Arsenal up.”
All while promising:
“We’re about ALL sports and championing female athletes. We’re here for the culture, community and connection. We don’t just watch sports, we live it.”
The reaction was instant. Patronising. Sexist. A dumbed down version of sport for women. Within three days, Sky shut the channel down.
“We’ve listened. We didn’t get it right. As a result we’re stopping all activity on this account.”
What surprises me every time we see stories like this is how late the listening happens. The apology always talks about listening. The work very rarely shows it.
Who did they actually speak to before they hit publish?
Last year I created the brand for Bills and Beats, a campaign to help Gen Z creatives understand the importance of financial literacy.
On the surface, it lives in a similar world. Plastic pink. Brat energy. Gig posters and zine culture. Bold, messy, energetic.
The difference is the work underneath.
Jin, who leads the project, is a parent of Gen Z. She hears the worries in real conversations at home. For the films, she spent hours talking to young musicians who are struggling to make money work. She runs events where they show up in person, share stories, and ask questions that are hard to say out loud.
The name, the visuals and the tone all come from that listening. Bills and Beats does not talk down to them. It talks with them.
That is the point here.
It is not about the name. It is not about the colour. It is not even about the branding.
It is about the message, the language and the tone.
If a self-initiated, non-profit project can take the time to listen to its audience before it launches, why can't a global media empire?
Enjoy your Quick PINT
Nigel
Read the Bills and Beats case study to see what that listening looks like in practice.
Read about how sport got it wrong with the launch of the Super League. Same story, 5 years later. Listen. Understand. Announce.
Nigel Davies
Read the full article about Halo in The Guardian
Alexandra Topping
