Sports-Related Nutrition Marketing and Its Performance Impact on Athletes in the Republic of North Macedonia
Sports-Related Nutrition Marketing and Its Performance Impact on Athletes in the Republic of North Macedonia

Author(s): Gjorgjina Sherovska
Subject(s): Sports Studies, Marketing / Advertising
Published by: Udruženje ekonomista i menadžera Balkana
Keywords: Sport; Sports nutrition; Athletes; Sports marketing; Performance
Summary/Abstract: Nutrition is increasingly recognized as a key component of optimal sporting performance, with both the science and practice of sports nutrition developing rapidly. The sports nutrition market has witnessed robust growth in the past few years; it is gaining pace due to the increase in health awareness among the population, new product development, the rapid increase in urbanization, and growth in a number of sales outlets, health clubs, fitness centers and gyms. Athletes use a range of nutritional and diet strategies to improve sports performance. Nutrition plans need to be personalized to the individual athlete to take into account the specificity and uniqueness of the event, performance goals, practical challenges, food preferences, and responses to various strategies. A key factor is the related marketing used to reach the core aim of the athletes for specific sports nutrition so they can meet their energy and nutrient requirements, whether that is speed, endurance, recovery, or strength. The marketing strategies in the sports nutrition industry are wide. Companies understand the power of sports endorse¬ment, the trending on social media, and after all the factors of advertisement, through the different marketing communication channels impacting the athletes’ behavior for the final decision-making process of purchasing the product. In this paper the purpose is to investigate the effect of sport-related nutritional marketing as a communication strategy reaching athletes, and, its second relationship, the effect of the marketed sport-related nutritional products impact on athlete’s performance, from the athlete’s aspect. The importance of this paper is to examine a new topic of a connection between sports nutritional marketing and the eventual performance effect on a particular sub-category of athletes because very little research is being conducted on this topic of interest. The research framework used in this paper will help to guide future research and improve marketing communication strategies with great insight on what are the key methods to reach out to short and distance athletes from a marketing point of view, as well as the key factors that make marketed sport nutritional products impact on athlete’s performance.

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