BackAfter Tiger Woods, Hero MotoCorp in talks with James Rodriguez
India's largest two-wheeler maker is in talks with the Colombian footballer to sign him up as a brand ambassador
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New Delhi: After signing a four-year endorsement deal with golfer Tiger Woods, India’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp Ltd is in talks with Colombian footballer and Real Madrid mid-fielder James Rodriguez to sign him up as a brand ambassador, two persons familiar with the development said.
The firm has also signed Indian hockey captain Sardar Singh as its brand ambassador for three years. “While we are still in talks with James (Rodriguez), the deal with Hockey India captain has been signed," said one of the two people cited above. The second person said the endorsement deal with Singh was signed in October, but the firm wanted to keep it under wraps till the announcement on Woods. Both persons didn’t want to be named.
Mint could not reach James Rodriguez for comment. GestiFute, the firm that manages Rodriguez, did not reply to an email.
A Hero MotoCorp spokesperson said talk about Hero being in negotiations with Rodriguez was “speculative". “As we expand our global footprint, we will have a combination of global and local icons as our brand ambassadors as part of our brand building initiative. However, currently, there is no particular name which is under discussion. This is therefore, speculative," he said in reply to a questionnaire; he confirmed Singh had been signed up as a brand ambassador.
On Wednesday, Hero MotoCorp said it had signed an endorsement deal with Woods as the firm looks to enter newer markets where it wants to cash in on the golfer’s brand appeal.
The first person quoted above said that Hero wants to tap Rodriguez’s popularity in Latin America. The firm which is setting up a manufacturing plant in Colombia, its first outside India, also plans to enter bigger markets in the continent such as Brazil in two-three years. In Colombia, Rodriguez’s home, Hero MotoCorp has a subsidiary named HMCL Colombia SAS, in which the firm will invest $70 million. Expected to be operational in 2015-16, the plant will have an annual capacity of 78,000 units that will be scaled up to 1,50,000 in the future.
Hero has been on a solo journey to expand its business overseas after breaking up with Japanese auto maker Honda Motor Co. four years ago. The Times of India and The Economic Times estimated the deal with Tiger Woods to be worth around ₹ 250 crore and ₹ 200 crore, respectively. “The spends for Rodriguez would be between ₹ 8-10 crore for a year and about ₹ 1 crore per annum for Sardar Singh," said Manish Porwal, managing director of brand marketing firm Alchemist Marketing Solutions.
Vidhi Choudhary contributed to this story.
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