Quote:
Originally Posted by fT-z33wor
Yea bro, it's called a shit ton of money lol! They have deep pockets, and HJC can afford to pay him substantially more than what his Lorenzo's old helmet sponsor could. I was having this discussion with Ben at work because I was baffled too.
HJC is one of the single largest helmet producers/contractors in the world. The sheer volume in which they pump out of their factories can be hard for people to wrap their head around. Motorcycles is only one of the many branches in which this corporate giant is involved in. There's all various types of 2-4 wheeled motorsports, bicycles, an array of extreme sports (spectrum goes from skydiving to skateboarding) and the list goes on.
HJC's sales volume in the motorcycle industry comes from their lids priced in the $200 range. It seems to be the magic number in the industry for the majority consumers, and that's the market HJC has come to dominate in over the years.
It's funny because it's not uncommon practice for racers in the past to wearing an Arai with their helmet sponsor sticker slapped over the Arai logo. 
But yeah, people simply go where the money is.
There's no official figures released, but its estimated to be in the 1,000,000€ range (£822,122) and would be paid annually. |
$200 is not necessarily the magic number in the motorcycling industry . Cheap doesn't mean people will buy it. It depends how you market the product and who you are targeting.
This is part of the marketing and public relation (PR) side of things. Obviously Arai has a lot more riders wearing those helmets than HJC in MotoGP and also in WSBK. People might not know those riders, but each rider has their own graphics and Aldo Drudi (Drudi Performance) created more graphic designs for Arai than HJC. Result is Arai has more style to choose from, so when riders are looking into helmets arai has more selections.
The marketing aspect side of things is that I believe HJC pricing is one of their problems. When you set a price for a product you can't set it too low or too high. The reason is because many competitor's product are priced between $400-$800 and having the same product priced between $100 - $300 gives consumers a perception that the product is "cheap" or "poor quality"
Helmets are designed to protect your head from a collision. So the question is why would you rather spend more on a helmet? HJC hadn't really ask themselves that question before they priced their own products. I am not saying HJC sucks, they are still profitable in other areas and people still do buy their helmets but in comparison, I think majority would rather buy an arai than HJC.