In July 2007, Mark-Hans Richer became Harley-Davidson's first chief marketing officer. Its riders were aging, which the company saw as an existential threat. Although Harley-Davidson had a record sales year in 2006 and had maintained a commanding share of the heavyweight motorcycle market for the previous decade, it needed to take new action to sustain its growth.
Richer needed to deliver a new generation of riders and a more diverse customer base, all without losing current Harley-Davidson customers. He also knew that he could not relax: the average tenure of a CMO in 2007 was only 27 months and a complete new product development cycle would take a minimum of four years.
After analyzing the case, students should be able to:
Recommend marketing decisions for a brand with extremely high loyalty in light of various consumer behavior indicators gleaned from market research
Understand the power of leveraging existing assets as opposed to innovating new products
Understand the psychological basis of customer loyalty, including drivers and metrics of loyalty
