Hog Harley Davidson Has Traditionally Targeted Middle-Aged

HOG

Harley Davidson has traditionally targeted middle-aged white men. This target arises out of a couple of factors. The first is that most users do not rely on their Harley Davidson as their primary means of transport, so the purchase is discretionary. This skews the target demographic older because younger demographics do not have thousands of discretionary dollars to spend. The bikes are also priced at a premium, which further pushes them into an older target market. The image of freedom that the company projects is also symbolic -- Harley wants customers to reconnect with their youth now that their children have left the home, and to reconnect with the spirit of freedom in their lives.

The company has utilized both the cost element and the freedom element in its positioning strategy, but the product itself also reflects the positioning. Harley makes heavyweight and superheavyweight bikes, which inherently carry a higher cost. This all but forces the company to adopt premium positioning in the market, which in turns leads Harley to target a specific demographic that can afford such luxuries.

2. The animal that I would most associate with Harley Davidson is the wild hog. It's a big, burly animal, doesn't go fast, but has a certain freedom and wildness that its more domesticated cousins lack. It can snarl when threatened, but is generally interested in its own freedom.

3. Harley has explored the issue of appealing to women and to customers that are too old to have the strength to handle a full-sized bike. Both of these markets require lighter, easier-to-handle Harleys. The company has toyed with building these kinds of bikes. With women, a higher degree of customization would probably be a good tactical move as well, so that they can create Harleys in their own image, rather than having the image dictated to them.

4. Harley could experience some backlash from targeting women, yes, because the company's image might lose some of its macho factor. A female wild hog is just as gritty, snarly a beast as a male wild hog, but if the company makes smaller, prettier bikes to appeal to women, that could dilute brand image. There is a fine line that the company must tread, but it can do it with careful branding and positioning.

5. It generally does not make sense for Harley to use celebrities to endorse the product. Harley Davidson has a strong brand personality of its own, such that it is a celebrity; any other celebrity would distract from the personality of the bike. Remember that celebrities lend personality and credibility to a brand -- these are not things that Harley Davidson lacks. There is also risk that the celebrity's image changes, which is more likely to happen than the company's image changing. For example, there might have been a point where Clint Eastwood was a good choice as a cowboy and Dirty Harry kind of endorser; now he's an old man yelling at an empty chair. For Harley, the risks of any celebrity endorsement outweigh the benefits. The brand's strong, stable personality transcends time and generations in a way that no celebrity can trump. Celebrities use hogs to enhance their image, not the other way around.

SLP 2

For this assignment, I asked ten people what sort of smartphone they last bought. The results are summarized in Table A below. The demographics of the survey were college students, ages ranging from 19 to 27. The respondents were 5 males and 5 females. I selected a mix that roughly approximated the demographics of the United States, including different ethnicities and one foreign student.

The respondents illustrate that there are two dominant players in the smartphone market -- Android and Apple. The Android phones were five of the responses, with Samsung having four of those. Most consumers reported that they did not think too much about the brand, generally knowing in advance what they were going to buy. Android consumers indicated more thought about the brand, but I did not probe about whether they were considering Apple or simply choosing between Android phones. Most of the respondents chose the brand either on the basis of what their peer groups chose (30%) or what they were more familiar with (40%). Surprisingly few reported price (10%) or features (10%) as the reasons for their decision.

The animal question was open-ended, and generated a range of responses. The mode response was a rejection of the question itself (20%). Neither company uses animals in their marketing to a significant degree, so responses were otherwise varied. It is also worth noting that cats were a common feature of Apple responses, probably because the company names many of its operating systems after big cats (mountain lion, snow leopard, etc.).