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And don’t be fooled about the dated male
stereotype, women are drawn to Harleys too.
“When you’re on your bike and in your gear, no-one
cares who you are, just that you’re part of a big riding
family and very much your own person with your own
story,” says Kylee Kay, president of the Visit USA
Organisation and managing director of APTMS, one of
Australia’s largest travel marketing companies. “And
when all’s said and done, a Harley is just darn sexy!”
BRAND POWER
Since the first prototype was tested in 1903 and for the
next century and beyond, the H-D brand has continued
to reflect freedom and hard-edged glamour with an
exceptional degree of brand loyalty and respect. US
branding strategists Tenet Partners regularly places
H-D in the top 10 per cent of its 100-brand CoreBrand
Index (CBI), streets ahead of the next motoring brand
some 20 places below.
Even casual observers know that the motoring
industry is riding a rough road, and H-D is not resting
on its laurels despite being one of the longest
continuously operating motoring brands and hitting
an all-time sales high in Australia in 2016.
MODEL SHAKE-UP
New models and global marketing strategies are being
constantly devised and some ambitious plans are laid
out for the years ahead.
In 2014, after something of a stagnation in the
model line-up, H-D introduced the Street series,
750cc and 500c water-cooled bikes on an entirely
new, Indian-built platform. The first all-new platform
in 13 years, the series was designed primarily to attract
new and novice riders. The 500cc Street is ‘learner
approved’ and has turned out to be a sales success
despite early misgivings from critics and purists.
“It is a big part of our push to make sure we get to
all parts of the market,” said Matt Levatich, president
and CEO of H-D in a 2016 CNBC interview, “and
at the same time remain a premium brand and
profitable company.”
Since then, H-D has set itself some ambitious goals,
one being to release 100 new bikes in 10 years.
The CEO Magazine caught up with Bill Davidson,
the great-grandson of the company’s co-founder,
William Davidson, when he travelled to Australia last
year for centenary celebrations.
“We’ve all been working really hard to crank up
our product development machine and looking at
everything from styling, engineering, manufacturing
and cost, so we can now develop these new models
much more efficiently than we have in the past.“The other thing we’ve done is go out and listen
to customers. For example, the new (750cc, water-
cooled) Street Rod we’ve launched is the result of
speaking to more than 3,000 customers and making
sure we’re giving them what they want in a motorcycle.
We have really engineered this bike to meet the
specifications obtained from that data.”“ LIFE ISN’T ABOUT WAITING FOR
THE STORM TO PASS ... IT’S ABOUT
LEARNING TO RIDE IN THE RAIN.”- WITH APOLOGIES TO VIVIAN GREENE