You’ve seen Manny Pacquiao on TV, but pretty soon you’ll start seeing the Filipino boxing champ on billboards, in your wallet – and even in the produce aisle.
The world’s most popular active boxer is expanding his endorsement portfolio and a good part of that is happening in Los Angeles.
“L.A. is the mecca of Manny business in North America,” said Lucia McKelvey, executive vice president of Las Vegas boxing promoter Top Rank Inc. and the agent in charge of Pacquiao’s endorsements. “His marketability in the Filipino community is 100 percent. And boxing is huge in L.A. – it’s a strong Latino market. Even though he’s not Latino, he’s the brand ambassador of boxing.”
The professionalization of Pacquiao’s endorsement business is a change. He has done ads for a California casino and, in the Philippines, for a sexual enhancement drug. Those deals and others, including a low-dollar endorsement contract with an Asian electronics chain, were haphazardly negotiated by members of his family and vast entourage.
As a result, Pacquiao has generally been considered a marketing featherweight. The boxer made about $25 million in the year ended May 1 from prize fights and endorsements, according to Forbes’ list of highest paid athletes worldwide – not bad, but that tied him for 24th overall, well below lesser names such as Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso and motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi.
Now, Pacquiao, who has two homes in Los Angeles and trains for fights here, is getting more aggressive in parlaying his in-ring success into a more lucrative marketing profile. Top Rank, a promotion company founded by veteran promoter Bob Arum, has taken over his endorsement portfolio and aims to more than double the boxer’s endorsement earnings, which should total about $10 million this year.
Since Top Rank took over, Pacquiao has signed deals with Nike Inc., which makes a line of Pacquiao gear, and with Hewlett-Packard Co., which featured the boxer singing “Sometimes When We Touch” in ads for its products.
Jeff Marks, managing director at L. A. sports marketing firm Premier Partnerships, said most brands have shied away from individual boxers for fear of bad behavior or personal baggage – think Mike Tyson – but companies are more willing to step into the ring with Pacquiao.
“He’s one of those guys who, if you’re a Madison Avenue brand, you might consider,” Marks said. “Manny is a proven guy. If you play it right, you can probably get a nice bang for your buck.”
Pacquiao, currently in the Philippines, was not available to comment on this story.
Local deals
Anyone watching L.A. sporting events on TV over the last year and a half probably has seen Pacquiao in an ad for the San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino near San Bernardino. It features Pacquiao playing cards, eating at a buffet and dancing at the casino – all while wearing a robe and boxing gloves.
It is not only low-budget but very regionally focused for such a big-name athlete. Pacquiao signed the deal with San Manuel in 2008 but didn’t film the ad until last year.
Allen Reyno, president of Pacquiao Produce, the boxer’s new L.A.-based brand of fruits and vegetables, said he thought the boxer could do better.
“I was comparing him with other athletes – Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods – and thinking, ‘Why doesn’t Manny have the same kind of (national) endorsements these other guys have?’”
Reyno, who was born in the Philippines and is chief executive of a shipping services company in Long Beach, started talking to his business partner, Mark Eisenhut. Initially they discussed approaching Pacquiao to endorse an all-natural energy drink, but the company behind that product folded. Then they brought Eisenhut’s brother in-law, Ted Ludeman, into the discussion. Ludeman is chief executive of State St. Produce, a San Antonio produce distributor. They all decided vegetables would be a good fit.
“Basically, the whole pitch was, ‘If Popeye is associated with spinach, then broccoli will be associated with Manny Pacquiao,’” said Reyno. “We wanted a healthy image for Manny.”
Reyno and Ludeman approached Top Rank’s McKelvey this spring, and Reyno met Pacquiao in Los Angeles when the boxer was in town to train for his bout last month with Juan Manuel Marquez III. They came up with a three-year deal worth at least $2 million – about as much as Pacquiao’s three-year deal with HP.
Pacquiao Produce expects to export vegetables, most of which are grown in Mexico, to the Philippines. The brand is already being delivered wholesale to restaurants, but will be in grocery stores nationwide in January.
“We’re hoping to export to all the other Asian countries, but we’re definitely going to start in the Philippines,” Reyno said.
Pacquiao also recently signed a deal with 24/7 Card, an L.A. company marketing a prepaid debit card of the same name to Filipinos in the United States who want to send money abroad.
In a press release, Pacquiao called the card, “the first debit plus remit card designed especially for Filipinos who work hard to support their families back at home.” Company officials did not return calls for comment.
McKelvey said she did not know the value of the 24/7 Card deal, which Pacquiao and his handlers negotiated themselves. But she believes it’s a good fit for Pacquiao because it reaches Filipinos as well as immigrant Latinos.
“There’s such a big Hispanic and Latino fan base, and they send money home a lot,” she said.
Pacquiao, who was elected to Congress in the Philippines last year, is a big hit with Filipinos in the Philippines and in the United States. Joe Arciaga, executive director of L.A.’s Filipino-American Chamber of Commerce, said the boxer’s fights turn into massive family gatherings for local Filipinos, and the appeal crosses gender and generational divides.
“I have college-age kids, and even with that demographic, he’s wildly popular,” he said. “When there’s a fight, it becomes sort of a homecoming. People gather at houses and get cable and it becomes a big whoop-de-doo.”
Home base
Pacquiao’s recent endorsement deals go well beyond companies with ties to Los Angeles, and well beyond deals specifically targeting Filipinos and Latinos.
Along with the Nike and HP deals, he inked a multimillion-dollar endorsement deal this fall to sell Hennessy cognac for LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the Paris luxury goods holding company. He also will be seen in a book featuring photographs of the boxer in action, and he signed a “global, multimillion-dollar deal” to be announced in January, said McKelvey.
The glut of recent deals is thanks in part to a new, more professional approach to endorsements. Until Top Rank took over, Pacquiao’s deals were set up by his band of family and friends.
“It was a mess,” McKelvey said. “It was everyone from the chauffer, the gardener, the cook – everyone was trying to make money off him, and nothing made sense. Manny is a global brand ambassador, but at the same time, when you have 15 people calling you claiming to represent the same person, it’s a problem.”
Because of that history, Top Rank has had to be aggressive in hunting for potential partners. But deals are now getting made, and McKelvey said they’re often signed in Los Angeles, where Pacquiao owns two homes and trains for about 10 weeks before each fight.
“Anytime we invite people to meetings or dinner, it’s always L.A. based. We see a lot of successful deals originated in L.A.,” she said. “I love hitting companies in the L.A. area because they can see him in action, feel him, touch him, meet him.”
That face-time in Los Angeles is especially important, she said, because Pacquiao doesn’t do phones.
“When he’s in the Philippines, I text or e-mail Manny. He hates the phone,” she said.
