Advertisers should soon discover GAA players are worth it

Could DJ Carey be swooshed, will there come a day when Oisín McConville pouts on the cover of a woman's glossy magazine or will anyone ask Liam Hassett to run his fingers through his hair, eyeball the camera and say "because I'm worth it"?

Ronaldo, David Beckham, David Ginola and other soccer stars have capitalised spectacularly on their sporting fame; around the time of the World Cup finals in June, it was difficult to avoid Irish football players advertising everything from beer to crisps. Yet, despite a late summer of GAA supremacy, the advertising industry hasn't yet shown any real signs of clamouring at the door to sign up individual players.

In theory they should be, not least because Ireland is notoriously short on home-grown, advertising-friendly celebrities but also because sportspeople are always a first choice with advertisers as potential product endorsers because they tend to be positive role models. Add to this the Croke Park effect. This summer, when the World Cup was over, sports fans in Dublin (the State's biggest market) appeared to take down one set of flags and put up another as if there was some sports void that needed to be filled immediately with bunting.

Such popular enthusiasm is usually followed by marketing people with chequebooks. It certainly appears to be happening but not on an individual level and, tellingly, not using real players.

The GAA does figure large in the advertising media through its sponsors. AIB's "Not men, but giants", Bank of Ireland's "Ask not what your county can do for you" posters, and Vodafone's 48 sheets with gritty images of the game headed up by words such as "glamour" and "respect" have been visible all summer.

Internationally, the first advertisement in the new Guinness campaign featured hurling as a symbol of national identity, bravery and power.

There were grumblings at grassroot GAA level that the hurler was an actor and not a real player.

The amateur status of the game and the official stance that endorsements cannot be in direct conflict with any of the GAA's own sponsorships does make the subject a complex one, with at least some advertising practitioners unaware that individual players are available for endorsements.

Players are available. The GAA's own sponsorship programme is a scheme run through Murray consultants, which matches players with likely sponsors. Gillette and Bord Glas were just two of the companies that signed up players to appear in PR photo opportunities around the time of the recent final. FBD insurance has cleverly used players in each county in local press and, nationally, Dairygold easi-singles is offering cards featuring a player from each county as a promotional giveaway.

As a sign of increased marketing savvy, 1,000 players have assigned their rights and images to the Gaelic Players' Association in an effort to protect their potential earnings from sponsorship.

Mr Jonathon Stanistreet, creative director at McCann Erickson, the agency behind the Bank of Ireland "Ask not" campaign, says that, with all celebrity product endorsements, you have to choose wisely.

"It's only a matter of time before individual GAA players are used," he says. "The image of the game has changed so much and there's so much television coverage of it that naturally advertisers are going to follow."

In the 1970s, Tony Doran advertised Leo Yellow, in 1995 Jason Sherlock modelled for Penny's. For next summer's championship season, expect large national advertisers to have sifted through the teams looking for advertising friendly players.

The Heineken pitch is down to three agencies, Ogilvy & Mather, Chemistry and McCann Erickson. It's been seen as a welcome return of the brand to an Irish agency after years of US-generated creative work.

It's one of the most hotly contested pitches of the year and the final creative pitch takes place the week after next.

Wedgwood has appointed Ms Laura Hicken as a its new marketing director for Europe. In recent years, the brand has signed up some of the most popular and prestigious designers for its tabletop range including Paul Costelloe, Vera Wang, Jasper Conran and Kelly Hoppen. The appointment of Ms Hicken is to target new customers with a major rebranding initiative.

She has worked in senior marketing roles at Shell Consumer UK, British lottery company Camelot and has held brand-management positions within Kellogg's

A €1 million marketing campaign has been set up by The Gift Voucher Shop, a partnership between An Post and Total Shopping Convenience. Of that, €600,000 will be spent on an advertising campaign by Cawley Nea.