Advanstar’s announcement this week that they’re shutting down publication of their stand alone American Big Twin comes on the heels of the cancellation of the still-born Big Twin West counter to Easyriders V-Twin Expo.

What began as a quarterly in ’92, then bi-monthly, then monthly before folding into a regularly featured subsection of Dealernews ends life as an ambitious tabloid that entered a crowded field amidst lots of fanfare and minimum market support.

New plan is to produce a bi-monthly dedicated section. The marketing guy in me says, at some point events become trends. And this event’s time has come and gone.

Proctor and Gamble (P&G) is the world’s largest advertiser, and according to Ad Age’s Global Marketing Report earned that title by spending $1-million an hour making sure we knew who to turn to for teeth that sparkle and outdoors fresh laundry. To the tune of around $8.5 billion in ’06, nearly twice that of closest competitor Unilever. And that’s a lot of toothpaste and detergent.

The short take is that P&G wrote the book on knowing the product, knowing the market and supporting the message to reach the desired result.

LeMans Corp. Sales VP Greg Blackwell offers fresh insight on the dealer-internet situation in the Aug/Sept 2007 issue of Dealer World. In a candid, should-read interview he also touches on marketing, or lack of same, by the aftermarket segment in building brand and creating consumer demand.

“I think a lot of vendors have forgotten how to build demand for their product,” says the Parts Unlimited/Drag Specialties sales overseer.

He makes the points that to retail successfully dealers have to stock product in depth and offer it in a knowledgeable and exciting way, and that product demand and interest is created by the manufacturer, not the distributor. Along the way he also dispells the nagging doubts of some springing from the recent slowdown in two-wheeled sales.

According to Professional Motor Sport’s latest issue, the California tool manufacturer Haas Automation is on track as the fastest growing cnc maker on the planet. Sales in ’06 totaled more than 12,500 units. The 2007 target is nearly 14,000 machines, with an annual goal of 15,000 cncs and sales of $1-billion.

That’s a lot of capacity. A lot of aluminum. A lot of aftermarket for the automotive and motorcycle industries. I mention this only because it wasn’t that many years ago when a milling machine was strictly the domain of a tool and die shop, and setup and operation was at the hands of a dedicated toolmaker.

Times change. Once again, without a computer to interpret the programs humans write, it’s fair to contemplate an aftermarket much, much smaller. And at this rate of growth, it’s almost possible to imagine a time when shopping for a new home might include a 3br/2ba/gar/pool/NEW cnc listing.

Does advertising work? We learn from the current AdAge CMO Strategy column that

…the September, 2007 issue of Vogue weighs over 4 and a half pounds and 87-percent of that heft is advertising. Advertising! So the answer to whether or not consumers will pay to look at ads is – yes. Your specific ad, who knows. But a doorstop sized collection of coated paper pages titled Vogue, then yes.