An image of a man in a sports advertisement

Abstract

Sport is an attractive business platform for communication not only with customers, but also with all stakeholders. It can be observed not only in advertising communication of the producers operating on the broadly understood sports market, sponsors or companies using ambush marketing. It is also used in brand marketing by companies which, despite their lack of connotation with sport, willingly benefit from a number of sports attributes, values and connotations.

The study aims to present the image of a man in marketing communication based on sports motives. The selected aspects subjected to analysis will help to define the role of a man in advertising sports communication and verify the declarations of the companies that pursue their goals using this level of communication. The author analysed selected advertising campaigns (audio-video format) containing sports accents. Communications of 1,270 advertisements representing 254 brands were analysed. The analysis covered six different areas: image and product advertising, share of sports disciplines, sports accessories, the man's attitude, an area of the sports involvement, and the valued presented.

The analysis showed that the man presented in a sports advertisement is multidimensional, just as sport is. Traditional areas connotated with sport, such as competition and team support, are not the only ones to penetrate the advertising’s contents. While the former area is very common in general, this is one of the least frequently used sports motives. Much more often, sport appears as an element to build man’s identity, his inner strength, heroic spirit. The sport spirit and values underlying such an identity appears to be more important than most of the sport disciplines presented in advertisements. Exception to the rule is football, which continues to be the number one, regardless of whether it concerns the man’s image promoted by a male sports star or by an anonymous man.