SSC&B woos Hero's Champion from Enterprise Nexus

SSC&B's Delhi office has just picked up the Champion brand from Hero Cycles. Champion has come SSC&B's way after a long period of courtship. Yankee, positioned as a kid's bike, was SSC&B's first Hero brand. The estimated Rs 3-Rs 4 crore advertising account of Champion, a roadster from Hero Cycles, moves from Enterprise Nexus.

Enterprise Nexus had serviced the Champion business for almost three years. In fact, Enterprise Nexus was the one that had worked on the launch campaign of Champion. To find out why Hero Cycle decided to move the business from Enterprise Nexus, agencyfaqs! made several calls to Hero Cycles; but no one was available for comment. As things stand now, SSB&B handles Champion and Yankee, and HTA continues to service the bigger chunk of the Hero Cycles business, which is worth Rs 12 crore.

Hero Cycles has classified the cycle brands in its portfolio into six basic categories - the roadsters (Jet and Champion), the mountain terrain bikes (six brands under this category), the city bike (Neon), the lady's range (Miss Universe, Queen), the all-terrain bikes (Swing and Double Deluxe) and kids' bikes (19 brands in its portfolio, such as Little Angels, Piranha, Terminator, Kidd Deluxe etc).

Talking about the company's brief to the agency, Ajay Chandwani, president, SSC&B, says, "People perceive Hero as a fancy brand. It is well represented in personal transport. Hero Jet is an example. But in the load-carrying segment, somehow, Hero has not been able to make its place, the way Atlas Goldline has or Hercules has. So the idea is to create the perception that Hero is an equally strong brand in the heavy-duty carrier segment and that Champion champions the cause."

The company plans to use a judicious mix of print, television, radio and outdoor. Says an agency executive, "The idea is to tell people Champion is for the working man, who commutes from his house to his place of work everyday and on weekends he uses it for transporting heavy load." Summing up Champion's brand strategy, Chandwani says, "It is a cycle that rides easy but carries heavy."

But the agency is definitely not going to follow the footsteps of earlier agency Enterprise Nexus, which had signed up Sanjay Dutt to endorse Champion and Akshay Kumar for Hercules. It plans to steer clear of the celebrity endorsement route. "I do not think it is necessary to have celebs. Even if a celebrity were to be signed on it has to be a perfect match between the product and the celebrity. To sign up one for this brand may give out wrong signals to the lower middle class, who might see us being extravaganza." © 2002 agencyfaqs!