Category Archives: powersports

vespa from oz

New Orleans alternative radio station WWOZ – one of my top five internet faves for the hippest in blues and jazz and the only consistent source for cajun, zydeco and swamp rock – is raffling off this icon of scooterdom, complete with autographs, to one lucky ticket buyer come May 9, 2009

Donated by The Transportation Revolution, New Orleans franchise dealer for Ducati, Triumph, Piaggio and Vespa, this kind of promotional tie-in is perfect for dealerships in need of a marketing shot in the arm. Go here to see how the station’s doing their part in making sure this Vespa is seen around town.

Signers (so far) include Terence Blanchard, Randy Newman, Irma Thomas, Marcia Ball and Dr. John, along with assorted Nevilles and a bevy of other notables.

we want homer! now!

I’m sometimes asked, “What, exactly, is PR?” Much more than the latest product release, public relations at its core is called on to put a public face on corporate behavior.

The latest, and best, example to date of seat-of-the-pants we don’t need no stinkin’ pr came when The Not So Big Three ambled their way to DC for some help from the public.

Forget the ordinary workers and businesses across the country who were depending on them. Ford, GM and Chrysler ceos landed clueless, cozy and comfortable just in time to be ridiculed from the cheap seats for their chutzpah.

For comparison, imagine if the airline chief execs showed up begging for help in Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Jeez, a blind man on a galloping horse could’ve seen this coming.

But no, Detroit’s elite decided to ignore what we surely can imagine were impassioned pleas from corporate public relations folk begging them to brown bag it to Washington.

So what happened? No money, honey, and probably less than they would have gotten when they finally do get their paws in the public coffers.

Perception counts, in any industry.

what works might surprise you

Rising like a beacon in the night from a sea of mediocrity and sameness, Florida independent dealer St. Pete Powersports starts every day fresh by sticking to the basics. The basics of good housekeeping.

After one more disappointing trip to a local one-time Top 100 dealer I began to despair at ever walking into a showroom that was clean, well lit, organized and inviting. Then I wandered into General Manager Mike Siano’s pride and joy. Continue reading →

obama marketer of the year

To paraphrase, marketing makes strange bedfellows. The Assoc. of National Advertisers named presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama Marketer of the Year at their annual meeting in Orlando, FL two weeks ago.

Though not unanimous, Obama’s 36-percent of the votes cast by the 750 CMOs in attendance eclipsed runner-up Apple’s 27-percent. Nike, shoe retailer Zappos and Coors were also in the mix, while the McCain campaign managed a 4.5-percent showing. (One thing’s for sure: after this election you’d better have a grasp of e-mail knowledge and computer literacy.

Continue reading →

harden to husqvarna

Powersports industry headliner Scot Harden moves from KTM back to Husqvarna, where his corporate involvement with off road riding first got its start.

After charting KTM’s performance course for the past 20 years, a stint that includes significant Baja and Dakar marketing coups that linked the orange and black mark with energy drink apex predator Red Bull, Harden will now split his time between his West Coast home in Temucula and Husqvarna’s New Jersey headquarters.

creative insight – how’d they do that?

Steve Bauer takes readers behind the scenes for an in-depth look at how Polaris’ Victory division served up the revolutionary Vision in the August 11 issue of PowerSports Business.

The article features interviews with lead designers Greg Brew and Michael Song as Bauer breaks down the importance design and focus feedback played in creating Victory’s bold stroke in the touring market segment.

Obviously Polaris had the resources to mount the effort, but the takeaway here is why they’ve succeeded in launching a truly breakthrough product that goes far beyond slapping new graphics on familiar styling and calling the result fresh.

Recommended reading for a variety of reasons – team goals, administrative encouragement, marketing insight, breakthrough styling and creative freedom.

brand id required

PR Week reports on what’s surely the tip of the iceburg – the hijacking registration of a major corporate brand by an imposter “employee”.

Twitter, the social flavor of the week site that’s attracted a huge following and is now closely followed by corporate America – just ask Comcast – began issuing tweets from ExxonMobil, registered on their site by someone called Janet.

Imagine the surprise when the corporate cats at the real ExxonMobil found out after the brandjacking was first reported in the Houston Chronicle a few weeks ago. A quick petition to Twitter and control of the account name reverted to the real owner, no damage done for now. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how bad the mischief could have been.

The lesson’s probably this: if you’ve got a brand worth protecting, it’s your responsibility to perform the due diligence required for policing the internet and making sure everything said in your name is, in fact, something you meant to say.

marketing dilemma: ink or web or…

While no one’s writing obits for the most popular titles in automotive print, it’s difficult to fathom how the most popular form of information delivery for the past half-century’s going to fare in the very immediate future.

Folio yesterday put up a jaw-dropping stat (left) on the 07-08 half-year change in circulation among automotive and tech titles. Not good, definitely not good.

We’re not bright enough to know why, or what to do next. We suspect a combination of more and more info posted to the web, mostly free and increasingly sophisticated, combined with a shrinking newstand market. Albertson’s Supermarket, for instance, is closing down most of their remaining stores over the next few weeks.

In the end the answer may be nothing more complicated than a finite resource – time – and a nearly infinite information source – internet – on a collision course that’s competing with print’s limited page count and production cycle.

Are those, like us, who continue rooting for print’s survival hopeless romantics? Or is there a solution, a hybrid, that can blend the best of both in a fresh and utilitarian way? The answer can’t be far off, that much we know.

american quantum? quick, get the stake!

Let me first say that my odds of getting a phone call from advertising’s The One Club are slightly more remote than a hi-def video of me windsurfing on the moon. Not so industry guru Jerry Della Femina, who was inducted into their Creative Hall of Fame last month as announced in this spread that ran in Ad Age. Read on.

His shop, Della Femina Rothschild Jeary, has churned out big ad hits for, well, decades. Including the notoriously hilarious Isuzu “lie” campaign that broke new ground back when broadcast was king. So far be it from me to rap a real creative heavyweights’ work that’s featured in perhaps the top forum of advertising greatness – except for that one ad shown that few will recognize for what it represents – pimping a disaster of a client that was a forerunner of many more to follow in this industry. Continue reading →

don’t mention it – just kidding

We provided stick and ball manufacturer Shock Doctor with sorely needed ink and a few public relations hookups at Dealer Expo this year.

Despite brand recognition in the motorsports venue, as recent entrants in the powersports industry they’ve been acutely invisible, lacking minimal awareness among dealer and trade attendees about their line of gear bags.

We connected them with

  • off-road vendors,
  • b2b and consumer publications,
  • a distributor,
  • and a major OE.

They left Indy with a pocket full of key contacts to go with their freshly minted status as fully fledged two-wheel participants.

Building recognition with connections and communications – all in a day’s job that starts with the industry and extends to the marketplace.