Advertising: Mending A Bruised Image

In one spot, a father sits on the sofa with his young children, reading to them from a large book while a daughter nestles her head on his neck.

The N.F.L.s new TV advertisements:

Braylon Edwards

Willie McGinest

Brady Quinn

Matt Hasselback

Matt Hasselback and Children

Vince Young

Chunky Soup ads this year will feature eight players, twice the usual number.

In another, a man talks on the telephone to his mother — telling her I love you — then tells the camera that she encouraged him to play football as a child to keep him out of trouble.

In a third, a man describes his goal of going to law school and talks about how hard he worked as a student at Notre Dame.

The latest Hallmark campaign? No, the National Football League.

Concerned by growing uneasiness among fans and marketers about athletes gone wild, the league is embarking on an effort to burnish its brand image by accentuating the positive aspects of the on- and off-field lives of its players.

In a television and online campaign that is to begin today, the league and its advertising agency, BBDO Worldwide, are borrowing the playbook, so to speak, of industries like Big Oil and the big drug companies, which have relied on the magic of Madison Avenue to redeem their public images. The N.F.L.s idea is to counter the outcry over the criminal behavior of some players — not by apologizing for the misdeeds of a few, but by shining a spotlight on what is presented as the good behavior of the many.

Its as simple as this, said Lisa Baird, senior vice president for marketing at the National Football League in New York. Were going to do everything necessary to protect the strength of our brand.

The past year has brought plenty for the league to want to neutralize. The news coverage of professional football has read more like a police blotter. This week, Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge of conspiracy stemming from a dog-fighting kennel, while Lance Briggs of the Chicago Bears was charged with leaving the scene of an accident after crashing his Lamborghini sports car.

The commercials feature five players — selected for their marquee names and clean-cut images — and are planned to run through the 2007-8 football season, appearing on television and on Web sites like nfl.com.

The man reading to his daughters is Matt Hasselbeck of the Seattle Seahawks. The one who loves his mother is Willie McGinest of the Cleveland Browns, whose teammate, Brady Quinn, is the aspiring lawyer.

In another spot, Vince Young of the Tennessee Titans discusses how all his rose tattoos are in honor of the women in my life, including his mother, sisters, nieces and a grandmother.

Im trying to get another rose, Mr. Young says, for my other grandmother; I dont want to upset her.

An agency executive who is an expert in football-related advertising said he approved of the leagues decision to eschew direct discussion of the problems given the challenges posed by the misbehavior of players like Mr. Vick.

When youre directly addressing a particular issue, you run the risk of reminding people of that issue, said Abe Novick, business development director at the Baltimore office of Euro RSCG Worldwide, who for many years conducted consumer surveys about Super Bowl commercials.

By contrast, if you keep the focus on the good the players do, people will realize theres this whole other side to their behavior, Mr. Novick said. This humanizes them, and thats a good thing.

Executives of the N.F.L. are taking additional steps beyond the campaign, which is to account for about a quarter of the consumer advertising the league will run during the coming season, which begins next Thursday. For instance, standards on player behavior are being tightened, and league security employees discussed issues like animal cruelty during the presentations made to players at preseason training camps.

The origin of the campaign dates to January, Ms. Baird said, after discussions among league executives about player misconduct. Within the league, people were worried that the misdeeds of a few were starting to represent the image of all 2,000, she said.

In research the league conducted, younger fans in particular, teenagers to age 24, said they were interested in these stories about misbehaving players, she added, finding them and following them in media that included the Internet.

As the creative approach for the campaign took shape in the spring, Ms. Baird said, we did give some thought to a more direct discussion of player misbehavior, but the final decision was to have team members talk about their families and themselves as an alternate way to make the point about the character of our players.

I dont want to be in a defensive mode with my brand, Ms. Baird said. We want to be proactive.

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