Chhota Bheem joins Honda family to promote road safety among kids

New Delhi, January 14th, 2014: As the leading two-wheeler manufacturer to inculcate safe riding habits in India since 11 years, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt. Ltd – the Only Honda in Indian 2Wheeler industry today announced its latest step for promoting responsible riding and road safety.

Partnering with POGO, Brand Honda has associated with Chhota Bheem – India’s most loved animation character for safety promotion among kids along with their families.

Honda wanted to promote safety riding among kids in a fun manner, as educating young minds on road safety is an effective way of spreading message to the entire family. As a next step, Honda saw perfect synergy & brand fitment in Chhota Bheem who is the role model to not just small kids but entire family. In his exploits with his friends in Dholakpur village, Chhota Bheem character conveys all the aspects of a superhero – be it strong values, might, courage, discipline or learning.

Very soon ‘Honda Safe Riding with Chhota Bheem’ will be organized in 11 cities across India where Chota Bheem will engage and interact with kids and people at large. The national inaugural event at Delhi will be followed by Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Greater Noida and Nagpur.

‘Honda Safe Riding with Chhota Bheem’ will provide an opportunity for kids to learn safety riding tips, meet ‘Chhota Bheem and get clicked with their favorite Super Hero. Fun and interactive activities like understanding road sense in CRF 50, painting competitions etc. will drive home the message of road safety through fun times with family.

Further, all Honda dealerships will carry new POP material for spreading road safety message amongst kids suitably supported with free distribution of Road safety education material in schools. We will also be running a Chota Bheem TVC on Pogo to spread road safety messages backed by aggressive digital media campaign.

Excerpts from Company officials-

“As HMSI expands in production capacity, the social responsibility of the company is getting bigger. HMSI has further built it’s commitment towards road safety by associating with Pogo and Popular character Chhota Bheem. Honda together with Chhota Bheem shall spread the message on importance of road safety across the country”, said Mr. Keita Muramatsu - President & CEO, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India

“Safe riding is Honda’s priority worldwide and in India too. Research showed us that not just 73% kids between 4-14 years but also a high percentage of parents regularly watch Chhota Bheem.  Hence, it was an obvious choice for Honda to align with POGO & we are delighted to welcome Chhota Bheem. With his lively presence, Honda will spread safety message forward among kids and their families”, said Mr. Y.S Guleria, Vice President – Sales & Marketing, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India

Juhi Ravindranath, Vice President, Ad Sales, South Asia, Turner International India Pvt. Ltd. said, “POGO is excited to partner with Honda two wheelers on this noble initiative. Chhota Bheem’s immense popularity and   admiration with kids and parents only helps us reinforce the message of road safety.”

About Road Safety Promotion by Honda:

Globally, road safety promotion has been Honda’s top priorities worldwide since 1970. Under the “People Come First” philosophy, Honda follows Safety as an integral part of all its business activities. In India, Honda established its safe riding concepts over 11 years back. Honda is committed to make Safe Riding an everyday habit of 2Wheeler riders and promotes Road Safety through ‘Lifetime Safety Education’ starting from 5 years young children to empowering females, new riders and even big bike customers. Democratizing mobility, Honda gives training to new riders and also educate experiences riders on the right method of driving a 2Wheeler. Honda currently has two traffic training parks in Jaipur and Delhi where the Safety team has trained more than 30,000 people already. Apart from this, we have also tied up with many corporate, PSUs, Govt. schools, RWAs to impart traffic training to their public.

About POGO:

POGO, a multi-genre channel created exclusively for kids in India, launched successfully by Turner on January 1, 2004and is distributed by Media Pro Enterprise India Pvt. Ltd. POGO is available in over 27 million cable & satellite homes. Today, it is the leading channel in the kids’ genre.www.pogo.tv is a hugely popular and highly interactive kids’ website with exciting features/content such as Online Games, Exclusive applications, video-on-demand, message boards and mini-sites of popular shows on POGO. The website attracts over 5 lakh* unique visitors per month and each of them spend an average of 24* minutes on the website. (*Source: Omniture Site Catalyst, December 2013).

About Turner International India Pvt. Ltd.

A division of Time Warner, Turner International India Pvt. Ltd. is the arm of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. that creates and manages the sales, distribution, marketing of Turner`s news and entertainment brands in India and South Asia region including CNN International, Cartoon Network, POGO and WB. The company also manages advertising sales and distribution for HBO and distribution for HBO Defined and HBO Hits in India