JEDDAH, 22 June 2007 — Marketing agencies advertising different products use famous people as part of their advertisement campaigns. In Saudi Arabia football players dominate this industry and football remains the most popular icon in the Kingdom’s advertising world.

As a result, people see footballers in commercials and advertisements, at events and on billboards. The STC, for example, has also used football players to advertise a new service it is offering. Advertisements are appearing in newspapers and the faces of football players have even been displayed on billboards across the Kingdom. It does seem that advertising agencies are neglecting sports personalities from other sports simply because they are not as widely popular.

Fans and athletes from other sports believe the media and advertising agencies play a big role in the popularity of sports. They also feel such bodies favor and focus their attention only on football players.

“Attention has focused on footballers for too many years. Isn’t it time now to focus on other athletes, who have achieved similar acclaim in their respective sports?” questioned Adel Al-Malki, an Ittihad water polo athlete, who was part of the team that won the Asian Water Polo Championship for Clubs in Kuwait last April.

Al-Malki said that he has been thinking a lot with his fellow athletes of making posters to attract people to attend water polo matches. He added that stadiums are usually only full on final and semifinal matches. “We need more people to attend and watch games to boost our spirits, so we can perform better and attract more people to join the sport,” he said.

Al-Malki added that he and his friends are trying their best to increase the popularity of the game and feels that if the media and advertising agencies take the lead then things would become better. “That would help us a lot because other wise no one would know us or know about our game except for friends and relatives,” he said, adding that these agencies would be able to help them financially since they are amateurs and are not paid well.

Saudi basketball star Ali Al-Maghrabi also urged companies and advertising agencies to turn their attention to other sports besides football. “Footballers are famous but so are we and our wins are proof of this,” he said, adding that his concern is not about money. “We would love to do a commercial about our sport in order to promote it,” he said.

Nabil Bakr, CEO at iCom, Integrated Communications Group, said that advertisers tend to support games that attract larger audiences to get a good return on the money they invest.

“If a sports newspaper for example was to cover basketball on their front page, then their sales may drop… It’s a fact that in Saudi Arabia people follow football and only football,” he said.

Bakr believes there should be cooperation among sports clubs, federations and the media and that a joint plan needs to be developed to raise the profile of other sports.

“Sport clubs need to inform the media abut their efforts to raise the profile of basketball. These should include advertising and promotional activities such as advertisements about the Saudi basketball league, PR about big local and international players, and audience raffles,” he said. “When the media sees a big plan in place, they should then support it with regular and strong coverage.”

In response to athletes’ requests Mobily, which sponsors 13 sports federation, is now working on a new advertising plan that will spread awareness about sports like volleyball and water polo. “We promoted a car racing event recently and things will hopefully take a new direction soon,” said Mobily PR man Homoud Al-Ghubaini.

Mohammed Al-Mabaddal, PR coordinator at Mobily, said Mobily is currently focusing on footballers because of the Asian Football Cup and that when the Arab Games kick off in November, focus will move on the Saudi national team participating in the games.

Mark Sweeney, journalist at the UK’s Observer newspaper, discussed a similar issue in 2006 and explained how international advertisement companies spent a record £1bn during the World Cup to place brands — from chocolate to deodorants — in front of the global television audience.

Sweney interviewed Trevor Beattie, the creative mind behind French Connection’s hugely successful FCUK campaign, who had a different view. “Do an ad about cricket. Everyone knows it is all about football; they don’t have to be told. Do what people don’t expect. Don’t refer to the World Cup,” said Beattie.

“I am still waiting for the day to see a courageous sport newspapers that will put on its cover a photo of a table tennis player and an advertising agency that will use a gymnast to promote a new service instead of the typical adverts full of footballers,” said a Saudi athlete.