Building Brand Community on the Harley-Davidson Posse Ride

Case Study by Giridhar Venkateswaran (Net id: gxv141630)

1. Key Marketing Issues

Harley-Davidson is one of the leading automotive companies, which produces

heavyweight motorcycles. There are numerous marketing issues that Harley Davidson is
currently facing, many of which are redesigning and validating the profit making
potential and effectiveness of the Posse Ride, maximizing performance by validating the
role of HOG in enhancing Customer Relationship. The Posse Ride, which happens to be
the flag bearer of rolling rallies held by Harley Davidson, has had a cult following but
various strategies in marketing which were adopted have not provided the right
platform for Harley Davidson for making considerable profit and thus there is a need for
a redesign. Also, in order to further strengthen HOG with strong customer relationship
and more members issues like the low figure of just 13% female HOG members have to
be addressed by designing a new marketing strategy.
2. Alternative Solution 1

Harley Davidson would have to stop sponsoring the Posse rides and different chapters
should organize their own Posse rides. Chapters could then register and market the ride
with HOG. The Ride then could be publicized using the Harley Davidson tag. To rank
customers individual chapters must have hierarchical structures. Hence a competitive
edge can be provided, by integrating Harley Davidson brand in the customer’s life. This
can also facilitate increasing the brand value by increasing membership reaching larger
portion of local members. More effective and better rallies can be organized as local
members are well versed have good knowledge of the area. A new reward system could
be introduced for the local chapters. Harley can instead focus on organizing more
destination rallies in intra-states and help maximize the sales in regions where there are
low sales. Sales in low-sale regions should be maximized and there should be more
focus on organizing more destination rallies in intra-states.
This solution would help in integrating the brand image of Harley Davidson in the
customer’s life. It will also lead to an increase in membership and in the process
increase in brand value.
A major drawback to this solution would be the lack of integration between members of
different geographical locations and also the absence of interaction between

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 management and members. It could also hamper the brand value if the chapters do not
organize the ride well.

3. Alternate Solution 2

The second solution that could be effective to overcome these challenges would be
revamping the procedures that are used in organizing the Posse rally. This would mean
the involvement of the staff that is stationed in Milwaukee which will act as a potential
control center for all the events that would be organized across the U.S.
The events would usually manage to draw a significant number of biking enthusiasts,
and as such, Harley Davidson should proceed to invest in them in wide spread fashion
by roping in music bands, poets, historians and popular performance artists.
In this way, there is a good possibility that potential customers would be able to relate
with the brand and have a chance to feel a part of the community where every event
would be extravagant. This could also lead to sales of bikes including a variety of
merchandise. To help address certain issues like improper management of certificate
distribution in the Posse Rally, HOG has to be called upon.
The various needs of the riders such as what routes to choose, the duration of parties,
frequency of story nights have to be understood and addressed by making use of
various technological advancements like blogs and websites. These needs can also be
addressed by taking feedback and surveys. In many of the events, Harley Davidson
should have awareness programs which could touch upon its history and also show the
happiness associated with riding. The biking culture should be introduced to American
Women and this can be done by having veteran members of HOG work with the staff in
tandem. This can indirectly increase the number of females in HOG.
The major advantage of this solution would be in helping improve the overall experience
and also address the issues of riders with regards to the Posse ride and also in helping to
increase the number of HOG members and in the process increase the customer base of
Harley Davidson. A distinct disadvantage of this solution would be that by increasing the
members in HOG and also by increasing the involvement of riders in organizing Posse,
the exclusive nature of HOG is lost and also the fact that by managing events at various
checkpoints, the opportunity of gauging the performance of many dealerships is lost.

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 4. Recommended Solution
The following is a comprehensive solution for the issues that are currently being faced
by Harley Davidson. Exhibit 1 from the case study talks about the ratio of male to
members in HOG. If studied, the data shows that 13% of the 51% American females
are members of HOG while 87% of the 49% American males are members of HOG.

It can also be inferred that from the 45% of US Adults who have received a college
education, 38% of them are HOG members. This area of opportunity should be
exploited and looked into by increasing the number of awareness programs to
customers about the rich American Culture. Also to help promote women riders, the
management should work with the current women riders and must come up with a
various traditional outbound marketing campaigns.

Exhibit 7 and 10 draw the comparison between the mean value of specific questions
posted in the pre and post surveys. Our focus would be on 4 specific questions with
pre and post survey results which are
Mean (on a scale of 7.00)
Pre-Posse II Post-Posse II
survey survey
Harley really cares about me as a customer 5.1 4.8
Harley really understands my needs 4.8 4.2
I am satisfied with HOG 5.7 5.1
I would sign up for another long distance HOG rally 6.4 7.0

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 Based on this data, we can see that there is a drop in the mean values of 3 of the
questions of the 4 in the pre and post survey and all of these questions answer about
either customer satisfaction or customer service. But despite the drop in mean, we can
see an increase in the mean value for the intention of people to sing up for another long
distance HOG rally. This statement alone defines the loyalty of HOG members towards
Harley. As such feedback has to in-corporated from the HOG members for improving
satisfaction levels of the riders from the rallies.
5. Implementation

Harley Davidson must first being with Market penetration as it helps to protect
governance of growth markets. Harley has been very successful in retaining their
current customer as 45% of their current customers are repeat customers. Harley
Davidson is already established company. We know that Harley Davidson has been in a
price conflict with the Japanese manufacturer. It is a high end bike and as such to lower
price and minimize margins would be against the brand value of Harley Davidson. Since
the brand image is synonymous to performance and customer satisfaction, the below
mentioned steps will help profitability of the Posse Rally and also help strengthen HOG
and tie it with the rich tradition of Harley Davidson.
Technology should be used where in a new webpage has to be launched to get an
understanding of riders about the Posse Rally. The resulting feedback must then be
analyzed and incorporated to help improve the experience the riders have at the Posse
rally.
Next the staffs at Milwaukee have to be actively participating in all of the upcoming
rallies by working with dealers, organizing events at every checkpoint. A separate
budget has to be set aside, say an investment of about 60,000$ for advertising the
events at multiple locations. Awareness programs on educating women and college
students about what Harley Davidson has to offer to the American culture has to be
brought up by current HOG members who should work in tandem with the
management team at Harley. The next Posse Rally should be implemented after the
above steps have been implemented. Also in all the events, merchandises and
certificate distribution should be well organized without having to make the customer
wait. With profit in terms of revenue in mind, factors like increase in HOG members and
customer satisfaction are also of vital importance.

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