Remembering History & Tradition Will Make Marketing Better!

Thanks to twitter I’ve met some really cool people who also ride. Today I received a tweet from Chessie talking about her feelings regarding Harley-Davidson making May Women Rider’s Month. I’d been trying to decide how to write about it.

I have issues with May being anything other than Motorcycle Awareness month within the community. We should NEVER add anything that encroaches on, what I feel should be, the single biggest issue in motorcycling. The stats speak for themselves…the MSF’s campaign saves lives!

Secondly….as Chessie so eloquently points out in her rant on the subject: http://chessiestales.blogspot.com/2009/04/celebrating-female-riderif-youre-gonna.html, the impression is that the women riding today is a new phenomenon wiping away for newer riders the very proud history of the woman rider.

Here in Alaska we have some serious women riders (we have one woman that’s the daughter of a long time rider – her mother would get in trouble in the 50′s for wearing pants – even though she was riding) and they definitely tow their own against the guys. In some cases I’d prefer them over the guys when riding!

Harley Davidson has done a very successful job of marketing the “biker lifestyle” to its customers creating a very large following for their brand.

However, I would love to see them stick to tradition and/or history in their marketing.

Case in point, the reemergence of the FLTC Tour Glide, now called the FLTR Road Glide. Why the new name? My personal favorite, the “harley wave” (which I speak about in my FAQ), was not a Harley invention by any stretch of the imagination.

It seems that when the Harley marketing team gets involved in adding to the lifestyle, they don’t research any history or traditions which is sad really. You’d think a company of “motorcycle enthusiasts” would be…oh…I don’t know…more into maintaining history/tradition.

Maybe that’s what the new Harley-Davidson museum will do!

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