Gustaf Tenggren's -- The Little Trapper
In less than 5 minutes on the internet you’ll notice that Harley is using a barrage of online tools, advertisements and video such as YouTube to push its recently announced guarantee to provide full value on trade-ins of its Sportster motorcycles.
Who are they kidding? This is the mother of marketing gimmicks wrapped in company hype about strong trade-in values! This is about as absurd as Flynt (Hustler) and Fancis (CEO, Girls Gone Wild) seeking a $5 Billion federal bailout for the “Adult” industry. Now I could debate that that is an idea which makes sense with our tax money, but won’t!
Anyway, the deal is you buy a new Sportster motorcycle or trade in a recently purchased Sportster before March 31, 2009, and you’ll get the Sportster’s original manufacturer’s suggested retail price value when you trade up to a Big Twin or VRSC motorcycle.
There is nothing new here. It’s déjà vu all over again…Harley did this back in the late 80’s. In the fine print I’m sure the motorcycle has to be in mint condition on return, you don’t get any taxes back, you’ll have to pay for any repair/maintenance work, you won’t get any incremental value for custom modifications or enhancements, you may have to pay to bring the motorcycle back to “dealer ready” condition and of course you’ll have to pay full on for the new one your trading “up” too.
Mark-Hans Richer, Harley-Davidson SVP and CMO, said in the press release;
“This effort is driven by the uniquely strong value of Harley-Davidson motorcycles,” and went on to say “Our strong trade-in values allow us to offer something nobody is likely to match.”
Has he been on the internet and looked at motorcycle prices on Craig’s list? They are in free-fall. There is a place for absurd cause-related marketing…but this incongruity is like those ads for swimsuits benefitting the cure of skin cancer!
I’m sure the company and dealers are hoping this promotion will drive traffic, someone to the showroom and boost sales. I guess Hyundai’s preemptive no-penalty return incentive program had the folks in Milwaukee wondering how to compete with their definition of “life-changing” event? Maybe they should ask Joe-the-plumber what he thinks of this promotion? Wait he’s off to Israel reporting on the Gaza conflict.
All this absurdity…is funny.
Photo courtesy of ASIFA-Hollywood Animation archive.
[…] Free” program. First announced back in January my thoughts on the program were posted HERE. Dealers reported the initial program provided an uptick in showroom traffic and many requested […]