Harley Davidson Case

Running head: CAUSE RELATED MARKETING 1
Harley Davidson: Lifestyle Brand Marketing
Derek Arguello
Grand Valley State University

CAUSE RELATED MARKETING 2
Problem/Opportunity
Harley Davidson must capture market share in its identified “out reach”
demographic while retaining its current market in an economical downtime.
Critical Factors
Time: The market share for motorcycles is becoming saturated and Harley
Davidson is losing hold of its majority. In the current economy where cheaper is
better, the company must react to its narrowing gap in market shares before it is
surpassed by its competitors. Furthermore, the current chief marketing officer is
approaching the 27 months average in his position where it is likely that he will
be fired if he does not invigorate the brand.
Budget: The economical downturn is beginning to effect motor-vehicle
manufactures and consumers are refraining from purchasing new products. As a
result on decreased sales, the overall advertising budget has been cut by 20%
between the years 2007 and 2012.
Brand Image: The Harley Davidson brand image is one of American heritage
that instills a sense of living on the open road to its consumers. The brand builds
off of this All-American image as rugged and emulates a “can do” mentality.
Harley Davidson doesn’t see itself as a motorcycle manufacturer but as a lifestyle.
By owning a product, consumers feel a sense of community amongst one another
and embody this lifestyle. By creating this lifestyle, consumers felt that they
belonged to the brand’s culture, ultimately creating a more loyal audience base.
With an established image, it is crucial for the Harley Davidson to maintain this
ideal moving forward as to not hinder what the brand represents.

Lifestyle Branding: Harley Davidson riders believe that they are more than just
that; they believe that they are a community that embodies what it represents to
live on the open road. Lifestyle branding poses strong social benefits to the
consumers that are associated with a way of life. This form of branding creates a
sense of belonging and challenges the status quo. To do this, Harley Davidson
must make connections with its market that elicits emotional value. Harley
Davidson allows people to interact with one another within its community and
provides a clear image to its audience with strong values and distinct styles. In
order for the brand to continue making this connection, it must adapt with
changing times but still be an intimate and integrated identity.
Outreach Market: Harley Davidson’s outreach market consist of young adults,
women, African Americans, and Hispanics. In order for the brand to continue
holding its current market share, it must establish itself with this segment of
consumers who feel that they do not embody the Harley community. With its
current market growing older and purchasing less, the company must establish
itself in this new market in order to maintain it’s positioning.
Current Market: The current market for Harley Davidson is primarily composed
of men ages 35 and older. This audience has been loyal to the brand name and has
been established consumers for a majority of their lives. However, with this
audience growing older, Harley Davidson is beginning to experience a decrease in
purchasing from this current market. However, moving forward, the company
must consider the loyalty of this market base and be sure to not lose its hold with
this audience that has helped the brand create its community lifestyle.

Digital Marketing: Digital marketing is the use of online and mobile platforms
that utilizes content for the purpose of communication and entertainment.
America is entering a digital age where vast amounts of people are using websites
for content and social media for networking purposes. Furthermore, cell phones
continue this digital presence allowing consumers to always be in contact with
these platforms. Currently, Harley Davidson has a weak digital media presence in
comparison to other brands as a result of its current market not actively using
these platforms. However the outreach market, especially young adults, have built
digital media into their everyday lives. By not having a strong presence on digital
media, Harley Davidson is missing out on the opportunity to connect with a large
portion of its outreach market. Successful digital marketing campaigns utilize
multiple platforms, express the brand’s values, show personality, offer
professional knowledge, entertain, and incorporate real-world promotions.
Competitors: Major competitors in the large motorcycle market are BMW,
Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha. The Japanese brands in this market offer
American consumers an opportunity to purchase a motorcycle at a more
affordable price, which appeals to the audience due to economic hard times. In
addition, the motorcycles produced by these companies are more appealing to the
young adult due to their sportier style and cheaper cost. Although Harley
Davidson currently leads the market, these foreign manufactures are steadily
catching up and threaten the brand’s market hold.

Branded House: A branded house is where the company represents the whole
brand. All products produced by the brand are subsets to the original name. After
cutting the Buell line, Harley Davidson now represents a branded house.
Alternatives
Open Roads Campaign
This advertising strategy will look to focus on strengthening Harley
Davidson’s inadequate digital media presence while incorporating a real-world
promotional tour. In order to target the outreach market, Harley Davidson will
launch a large digital campaign that will work to engage new consumers. To not
lose hold of its current market, the campaign will incorporate a real-world tour
that riders will be able to attend.
Real-World. The Open Roads Tour will cross the nation with Harley
Davidson representatives traveling by motorcycle to a different city each day.
Riders will be encouraged to participate in the tour and travel together with brand
representatives in segments of the tour between cities. At each city, Harley
Davidson will host their “Learn to Ride” program allowing participants to earn
their own motorcycle endorsement after completion. In addition to the “Learn to
Ride” program, the brand will sponsor maintenance demonstrations at each city
that teach riders basic motorcycle upkeep techniques from a Harley professional.
Digital. To coincide with the real-world promotional strategy, Harley
Davidson will launch a digital marketing campaign to engage with the outreach
market audience. YouTube will serve as the primary platform where the brand
will launch a video campaign on its segmented channel. Videos will be created

through user-generated content where audience members are asked to record their
motorcycle trips through devices such as GoPro. Selected videos will be ones that
showcase the brand’s sense of community, adventure, outdoors, and ruggedness
from a current Harley rider’s perspective. Clips from each submitted video will be
edited together into an individual video that aims to broadcast stories that relate to
the brand’s current values and culture. The hashtag #HarleyOpenRoads will
accompany all media released on digital platforms and appear in videos. Riders
featured in each segment will share their name and occupation to demonstrate that
there is no one stereotypical Harley rider.
Unifying Digital & Real-World. To unify the Open Roads Campaign,
social media will be used to track the progress of where and when the tour is
heading to specific cities to encourage the outreach market to attend. Each new
user generated video will be released for physical viewing at each city and
following the conclusion of the event will be released via the Harley Davidson
YouTube channel. The video will then be distributed across multiple social media
platforms to increase reach and ultimately strengthen the brand’s digital presence.
Due to the brand’s reliance on word-of-mouth advertising for its current market,
the tour will be showcased in the brand’s community magazine, “Hog.” In
addition, official Harley retailers and mechanics will serve to inform consumers
on a personal level.
Pros.
 Strengthens the brand’s weak digital media presence by using a multi-
platform campaign to appeal to the outreach market.

 Digital media is traceable and allows Harley Davidson to track user
engagement to know if the campaign is proving successful.
 Digital media is cost efficient and does not require a large amount of
advertising spending from a brand on a limited budget.
 Utilizes consumers’ real stories to reinforce the brand’s sense of
community while encouraging involvement in actual tour.
 Address both the outreach market and current market to become involved
in the campaign.
 By providing an opportunity to endorse new motorcycle riders, the
campaign is creating a new market whose first impression of riding will
relate to the brand.
 A national tour will provide the opportunity for consumers from all
markets to experience the brand.
Cons.
 A national motorcycle tour will be expensive to fund both traveling and
set-up cost while working with Harley Davidson’s limited budget.
 Planning for a multimedia platform campaign will take a long amount of
time and may allow competitors to narrow market share gap.
 May not receive expected participation from intended markets and
ultimately waste an already limited budget while being perceived as a flop.
 Utilizing digital platforms for the campaign may imply to some of Harley
Davidson’s current market that they are not welcome or are being left out.

My First Bike Campaign
Harley Davidson will introduce a campaign with a strategy that introduces
value-based marketing to the brand. The company will partner with Save the
Children Federation. The mission of the organization is, “To inspire
breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and
lasting change in their lives.” The campaign will incorporate digital media
platforms as well as television to deliver the message of the campaign to its target
audience.
Value-Based Marketing. Harley Davidson will ask members of its
current target market to share their memories of the first time that they rode a
Harley Davidson motorcycle. The videos will attempt to capture the emotional
experience that each rider has connecting their stories to the brand. Chosen videos
will utilize the person in each video as a brand spokesperson.
Once each video is selected, Harley Davidson, the brand spokesperson,
and representatives from Save the Children Federation will reach out to families
with children who do not have their own bicycles due to their financial situation.
The families will be personally delivered a custom Harley Davidson bicycle that
is given to the child. The families and partnered representatives will spend the day
with the child teaching them how to ride their new bike. The reactions from the
child being able to ride for their first time will be recorded and used in the video
that will be released. Ultimately, the new video will have a 30 second clip of the
Harley Davidson rider sharing their story of riding their motorcycle for the first

time. The video will then switch to the 30 second clip of the child riding their new
bicycle to create a 60 second video commercial.
Distribution. The videos will be released on YouTube and distributed on
social media to Harley’s outreach market. Accordingly, the 60-second video will
also be used to distribute on television to continue reaching out to the company’s
already existing market. The video campaign will be carried out during the
upcoming summer, which is the peak of Harley Davidson’s riding season. By
utilizing the video over digital media platforms, the campaign will be a first
attempt to strengthen the brand’s digital presence. Television will serve as a
platform to continue interacting with current Harley Davidson riders while
attempting to reach to new riders as well. The television version will also provide
a call to action that attempts to get viewers to continue following the series online
to interact with the digital version of the campaign.
Pros.
 Uses storytelling to connect with both markets on an emotional level.
 Incorporates digital media platforms to connect with audience in the
outreach market.
 Contributes to the Save the Children Foundation to partner up with Harley
Davidson for a supportive cause.
 Children will spark an emotional attachment with the brand that provided
them with their first bike, ultimately turning them into future Harley
Davidson consumers.

 The only cost of the campaign will be for the new custom bicycles that
the brand will provide to the children and spots for television
commercials.
 Social media is incorporated to create word-of-mouth advertising for the
brand.
 Consumers in the current market are not being left out because their
stories are being shared with younger consumers.
 Continues Harley’s lifestyle branding techniques by portraying the brand
as a childhood memory turned into adult.
 This campaign will not take a long time to generate user content and
distribute amongst media platforms.
Cons.
 Traditionally, Harley Davidson utilizes word-of-mouth forms of
advertisement and this campaign breaks traditional norms by using social
media and television spots.
 The brand could possibly be seen as leveraging under-privileged children
in an attempt to sell their products.
 Highly viewed television commercial spots may be expensive for Harley
Davidson to use on a limited budget.
 Value-based marketing may take time to create enough impact on the
outreach market - turn-around investment time on the campaign may take
time.

 Audience members in the current market may not participate in providing
videos of their stories ultimately taking away half of the campaign
strategy.
Custom Harley Davidson
This strategy will utilize integrated marketing techniques that will allow
target markets to interact with the Harley Davidson brand. The three largest
motorcycle rallies will be the events where the interactive portion will take place
and then be incorporated into digital media platforms. The Sturgis Motorcycle
Rally, Laconia Motorcycle Week, and Daytona Beach Bike Week will be the
three rallies used in this campaign strategy.
Integrated Marketing. The integrated marketing section of this campaign
will take place at the afore mentioned motorcycle rallies which serve as the
largest motorcycle events in the United States. At each event, Harley Davidson
will have a large retail place-of-purchase venue set up and incorporate full size
digital touchscreen walls. Consumers will be able to interact with the touchscreen
interface to create their own custom Harley Davidson merchandise, apparel, and
motorcycles. The interface will use a camera to be able to capture the user and
place them on the screen in the custom made material. They will then be provided
the opportunity to purchase the products if they chose to do so. A similar
technique will be introduced on Harley Davidson’s website at the conclusion of
the event. It will use social media platforms in order to direct traffic to the brands
website in order to demonstrate the new interface.
Pros.

 Harley Davidson is able to utilize technology to interact with consumers
both online and at real events.
 The time it would take to set up this strategy will be short, allowing the
brand to quickly see turn around on its strategy.
 This method would be budget friendly and the only cost would be securing
a venue at each motorcycle event.
 Engages both current market and outreach market
Cons.
 The custom products will be expensive compared to the in-shop
merchandise and consumers may not purchase.
 Does not utilize emotion in order to demonstrate the brand’s sense of
community built between the market and Harley Davidson.
 Custom products for consumers are a strategy already being used by
several other brands.
 This strays from the traditional word-of-mouth advertising that Harley
Davidson typically utilizes and the brand may be seen as trying to change
to drastically.
 There is no storytelling utilized in this strategy and storytelling is an effect
way to create emotional connection with market audience.
Decision Criteria
The decision criteria for the Harley Davidson campaign selected will be
selected based on the strategy that most effectively continues the brand image that
Harley Davidson has worked to pride itself. Secondly, the strategy must

demonstrate the lifestyle brand that it is and must share the sense of community
that has been established between Harley Davidson and its market. As a result, the
campaign will need to effectively share this sense of community and belonging
that has been built between the current market to the outreach market.
Accordingly, time and budget is the next most critical factor in the
successfulness of the campaign strategy that will be implemented. In an economic
hardship, Harley Davidson is working with a significantly less of its marketing
budget that is has before in the past. The campaign chosen must be implemented
in a reasonable time period that will have a quick turnaround in results.
Recommendation:
Harley Davidson will partner with the Save the Children Federation in
order to implement a campaign strategy that demonstrates the brand’s values. By
working with the organization Harley Davidson is able to immediately impact
children’s lives. This campaign strategy also offers the brand a good chance for
continuity and if proven effective, may be carried out again and the partnership
between Harley Davidson and the organization can be built even stronger.
Justification
This recommendation most effectively adheres to the key factors in Harley
Davidson’s case. With limited amount of time and budget, the brand can quickly
execute the strategy over the upcoming summer. Furthermore, this strategy builds
the brand image by illustrating its values and sharing them with a younger
generation. Allowing current market members to share their stories with that of
the outreach market incorporates lifestyle branding.

Harley Davidson Case

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