Pele's in Prime position to capitalise on his biggest asset
This week, the Dubai-based AST Group were awarded the Pele Brand License for real estate projects in the Middle East by Prime Licensing, the exclusive worldwide licensee for the Pele trademark. Paulo Ferreira is the Chief Executive Officer for Prime Licensing and the first man to acquire the rights for using the legendary Brazilian footballer's name throughout the world. He spoke to Emirates Business about the legend.
Pele has never given anyone permission to use his name to brand projects. How did you get him to agree to let you use it?
We acquired the rights two years ago, buying the global rights for a period of 40 years. It was very difficult and we had to spend one year in negotiations. Pele is very concerned about allowing somebody else to use his name or his brand. It's his biggest asset, something that he's built for 50 years of his career, but we succeeded in the negotiations and signed a deal in March 2005. We then founded our company and have been working hard for the past two years.
Pele is known to take an active role in all the work he does away from football. How much of an input will he have in your company?
We have meetings with Pele every two weeks and his office is inside ours. We invited him to work with us and he agreed. Although he's not a shareholder or part of the day-to-day administration, we have those meetings with him in order to show what projects we want to do and what's under development. We get his feedback, his ideas and approval so he's 100 per cent involved in everything we do. Pele believes that his name and his brand are in the right hands and we are very happy about that.
Is there anything specific that Pele has asked you to incorporate into your designs or projects?
He always asks us to do something for kids. It's his passion and that's why we started a partnership with the Walt Disney company. Pele's also an ambassador for a football championship for boys and girls aged between 10 and 12 years old. We're also launching a book about Pele's life in a few weeks, in partnership with Walt Disney. It will be totally developed by them because everything with Pele is about kids and social programmes. He is very conscious about that so we give donations from our revenue to hospitals in Brazil, such as one in Curitiba.
With you working so closely with Walt Disney, will we eventually see a Pele movie sometime in the future?
In fact, the Pele movie is already close to being finished. We have another partnership with the William Morris Agency, the oldest and largest entertainment agency based in Hollywood, LA. In a few weeks, we're going to announce the production of a live action movie about Pele. It will be produced in Hollywood, in the English language and for the big screen. We also just signed a deal with FremantleMedia to develop three television documentaries about him too, so we've a lot of things coming up.
Moving onto your projects here, you intend to make sure every one of them will have some sort of element that conveys Pele's character. How do you do that?
This is our biggest challenge. We have hired a team of architects and they have been working for the past four months on ways to develop what Pele brand values and attributes fit to real estate, which they will be able to introduce to this region. We don't have an answer yet, but what we will not do is something called 'character slapping'; like a building with his name in the reception. We will do a team project and it will be good. I think we're going to present the first project and the first location here and I can guarantee you that it will be a surprise for everybody.
How happy is Pele to have his brand launched in the region and when can we expect to see him in the Emirates?
He's very happy indeed. He has visited the Middle East twice in the past six months when he went to Abu Dhabi. I talked to him yesterday to tell him that we finally signed the contract with the AST Group and he's very pleased with that possibility. We are not sure if we're going to be launching in October or December, but I can guarantee that Pele will be here at the launching time. I hope that we are here in October, but he'll be here by the year-end for sure. He loves the region.
Paulo Roberto Ferreira
CEO of Prime Licensing
A graduate in Business Administration and Marketing, Paulo Ferreira worked in various multinational corporations, including IBM, Johnson & Johnson and American Express. He has also been general manager of The Walt Disney Company Brazil and Creata Promotions for Latin America, looking after their branding and licensing business before setting up Prime Licensing. The 53-year-old resides in Sao Paolo with his three children and wife, who works as a Director of Ernest & Young Consulting.