Model Sportsmen : Makers Putting ‘Real People’ in Photos Advertising Sportswear

If you think the rugged sailor types in the Newport Blue clothing advertisements look like some guys you saw hanging out at an Orange County yacht club, you may be right.

Newport Blue, a maker of upscale sportswear, decided to use local regular guys rather than models in its newest ads, which appear in the March issues of magazines such as Outside, M and Sail.

Newport Blue, a subsidiary of Tustin-based Ocean Pacific, was not just looking to save money on models, who can charge up to $125 an hour. It was looking for a realism that professional models sometimes can’t convey.

Although the use of “real people” instead of professional actors or models has been tried by other clothing makers--including Esprit, Benetton and Irvine-based Gotcha Sportswear International--it is still relatively unusual, ad industry experts say.

San Francisco-based Esprit has been using the technique successfully for at least five years, says Cleveland Horton, Los Angeles bureau chief for Advertising Age magazine. Esprit even includes a short biography of its models for a more personalized effect.

The men in the Newport Blue photos--local sailing enthusiasts--”are holding the lines properly, trimming the sails properly, (and) standing where they should be,” says Grif Amies, president of Amies Marketing in Irvine, Newport Blue’s ad agency. They are friends of Amies, who also enjoys sailing.

Those are details calculated to impress potential customers of Newport Blue--active, professional men between 25 and 50.

Gotcha’s marketing targets a younger market, males between 12 and 25.

The company, which designs beach and casual apparel, is launching its biggest ad campaign ever next month using nearly 1,000 billboards, which will feature one of Gotcha’s own employees.

Wolfgang Bloch, a shaggy-haired assistant art director for Gotcha, will appear on billboards across the country beginning this month. He’ll be shown from the shoulders up, wearing a top hat with the Gotcha logo.

“These companies are making lifestyle connections, and you need real people to make that connection,” says Mark Price, vice president of marketing for Gotcha.

Since starting business in 1978, Gotcha has used its warehouse workers, drivers, even Price himself as models for its ads.

“I don’t know if it started out as a budget issue or what,” Price says. “We had cool people working for us. They had the look; we didn’t have to wait for a stylist to create it.”

Jim Buckingham, a 33-year-old real estate developer from Newport Beach, says a few friends called him after he appeared in some Newport Blue ads last summer. But the ads didn’t exactly bring him fame.

“They commented that the real estate business must be really tough if I’m doing this,” he says, adding that he was somewhat uncomfortable with the idea but agreed to model to help his friend Amies. “I don’t really feel comfortable with the male hunk image,” he says.