If sexiness sells, pro beach volleyball should be an advertiser's dream.
Its stars men and women who wear shorts and bikinis. Their bodies are sculpted for their sport. They spend a lot of time at the beach.
An article in the New York Times looks at a new campaign for the Association of Volleyball Professionals' (AVP) 2009 season.
"What if, say, the association that puts on beach volleyball tournaments -- where young athletes compete against each other dressed in nothing but swimsuits, visors and sunglasses -- wants to run a campaign featuring close-up photographs of its volley girls and volley boys in all their muscled, sun-tanned glory?
The answer, most likely, would be another question: How speedily could they get into their Speedos?
That is what the association, the AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals), is doing in its campaign for the 2009 professional beach volleyball tour. Print, online and outdoor advertisements present AVP players dressed (or undressed) for work, among them Phil Dalhausser, Holly McPeak, Mike Morrison, Todd Rogers, Sean Scott, Tyra Turner and Kerri Walsh."
Project Design, of Torrance, created the campaign with the AVP.
"We looked at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of photographs, and we didn't find a bad-looking body, not one," Andrew Edelstein, of Project Design, told the New York Times.
Edelstein told the Times the campaign is geared toward the sport, not just the tanned and sand-covered bodies that play the game.
The AVP has several Southland events, including the 2009 AVP Crocs Tour Riverside Open on April 17-19.
