Harley-Davidson  Motors – December 2009

Intro
During my Media Planning course I worked with a three other students to create a year-long media plan for hypothetical client Harley-Davidson.

Context
Harley is facing many problems within the declining motorcycle industry resulting in a year-over-year loss in sales. Like never before, foreign competition is dominating the market and attracting new users. Furthermore, Harley’s dedicated riders are getting older, thus beginning to stop driving and buying the bikes they love. The Harley-Davidson motorcycle company needs a communication plan to run from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011 that will help to bring in a new generation of consumers. With a budget of $8M, develop an integrated communications plan designed to reach members of specified target audience and deliver on retaining 27% share of market.

Research
When starting on this project we assembled a dossier of information into the Company, Category, Competition and Consumer.  We assessed past Harley media plans as well as the competitions.  We also used psychographic tools to determine which consumers are best to target and at which connection points to reach them in their daily life.

Research methods: MRI, Simmons, VALS, SRDS, eTelmar, Nielson Ad$pender competitive expenditure analysis.

Discovery
Harley-Davidson provides people of all lifestyles with an opportunity to experience the thrill, freedom and passion of riding a motorcycle. Each individual enjoys the experience of riding a Harley in his/her own way. Whether they’re a stereotypical biker, a HOG rider who likes to work on their bike and engage with the community, a Zen rider who joy rides for recreation, an enthusiast who rides their bike as a primary mode of transportation, a speed demon or a comfort seeker, each consumer has a unique experience with Harley.

Traditionally, Harley has relied upon magazines in their campaigns.  However, magazines are limited in their ability to communicate the visceral thrill of riding a bike. The feel, the smell and the sound of riding a Harley is lost in their glossy pages.

Strategy
There are many different types of people who ride Harleys and many different reasons for why they do. It takes a lot of time and energy for people to go through the stages of seeking out, buying and using a motorcycle. To help increase sales of the bikes and to display the individual appeal, rather than the mass appeal, of a Harley, the advertising objective is to increase the target market’s desire to ride a Harley-Davidson by 35% in fiscal year 2010-2011. The ads will serve as reminders to seek out a brand experience, ideally leading the consumer to a dealership.

A combination of traditional media, new media, guerrilla and promotions will be used as part of the media plan to meet the media objective of achieving a frequency of five against 40% of the target market during each four-week period of the campaign. Because of the limited budget, the media is locally focused in the top 19 DMAs housing the most Harley dealerships per capita.

The media schedule highlights different regions of the country at different times of the year.  Most of the media is centered on a “win-a-Harley” promotion for people who visit dealerships to enter to win a bike. The schedule is broken down among DMAs in northern U.S. and the south. This is prudent because the window of time that people have to bike outside is considerably shorter in the north than in the south. In both cases, newspaper ads will begin their run prior to the release of the direct mail pieces. The “win-a-Harley” promotion will last eight weeks, commencing with the delivery of direct mail. Online advertising on ESPN.com and FoxNews.com will coincide with the promotion. Finally, billboards and guerrilla tactics will run year round in selected DMAs.

Result
After several all-nighters during Finals Week, the plan was completed. It earned the top grade in the class. WhooHoo!