Z: Hello everybody. Welcome to the next episode of Straight Shot. My name is Zachary Bennett. I am your host and with me, coming in right now is Jennifer. Hi, Jennifer.

 

J: Hello. How are you?

 

Z: I am good. How are you?

 

J: I am great. I can’t wait to start this episode of Straight Shot. She puts her headphones on and is here and gathered, collected, and happy. Let’s do this.

 

Z:  I see you’re wearing your Label Village shirt.

 

J: I am wearing a Label Village shirt. Isn’t it snazzy?

 

Z: Label Village for those of you that don’t know, we’re going to plug a client. Label Village is one of our clients.

 

J:  A brand we built actually.

 

Z: Actually, you’re right. When we started, they had a completely different name. They are a label supply company for entrepreneurs and businesses that need custom and blank labels. You should check them out: labelvillage.com. I am also wearing a client. What are we doing today?

 

J: Selling out.

 

Z: I am wearing Rhino Shield. For those of you that don’t know who Rhino Shield is, Rhino Shield is a ceramic coating for your house. It’s an alternative to paint. Matter of fact, the tag line that we came up for them was –

 

J: - Punch paint in the face?

 

Z: No. They did not take that one. That was a different creative option. The one that they did take is “It’s not paint.”

 

J: We usually like to punch something in the face during all of our creative sessions.

 

Z: Isn’t that around the time that you were hired here several years ago?

 

J: Yeah, the Rhino Shield campaign was the campaign that won me my job. That was my interview process for getting my job here at Reformations one hundred and seven years ago. It was a group interview which is not uncomfortable at all.

 

Z: It’s helped me get the best talent.

 

J: I had to fight for it. I had to show my skills. That was my first campaign that I ever participated on. I was hooked from then on.

 

Z:  Enough about them, let’s talk about Harley Davidson.

 

J: Back to Harley and the Davidsons.

 

Z: It’s hard to say once you’re used to saying Harley Davidson.

 

J:  I want to keep saying it correctly. In case anybody out there is listening and wants to find the movie, it’s on the Discovery Channel, probably Discovery.com. You can locate it. It’s called Harley and the Davidsons. It’s a mini-series.

 

Z: This is part two of our marketing analyzation of the Harley and the Davidsons movie that was on the Discovery Channel. The episode before this which I believe is our episode number three. Now, let’s continue talking about Harley Davidson. We are going through the Harley Davidson mini-series that was on the Discovery Channel. Last episode, we talked about showcasing the brand. We talked about the importance of the brand, how they have developed their brand, and how it was showcased in the series.

 

J: In case you did not catch the last podcast, shame on you. Just in case you happen to be watching these out of order, the last podcast we were talking about a mini-series on the Discovery Channel called Harley and the Davidsons. Look it up. Watch it. It’s pretty great. We’re going to be talking about it a lot. If you don’t want to be super lost, we’re going to be playing clips throughout the podcast. Don’t panic.

 

4:28: Brand Foundation and Positioning

J: One of the things that we talked about in the last podcast is the brand foundation and building upon that foundation. We established that the brand was built on this rough and tumble, outlaw antiestablishment behavior that the Davidson brothers exhibited in their real life. That seeped into what will end up becoming the emotion around the brand that is Harley Davidson motorcycle.

 

Z:  We talked about the foundation of the brand and where it was based on those brothers. As we continue talking about it, what I want to talk about is the positioning of Harley Davidson. How did Harley Davidson position themselves against their competition and how was that shown in the movie. One of the things that you’ll notice is they often deliver what we often call negative marketing. They also do some positive as well at different times. They do a lot of negative marketing. What do I mean by negative marketing?

 

J: Yeah, I was going to ask you to explain that.

 

Z:  Negative marketing is most often recognized when politicians start their advertising campaigns. They are still a big proponent of using negative marketing campaigns to take down their opponent. The premise is centered around “pick me because they’re bad.” If you break it down to its simplicity that’s what it is. In this series, Harley Davidson positions Indian Motorcycles as the prominent bad guy throughout the whole series.

 

J: This is how you know that this particular mini-series is probably heavily backed by Harley Davidson.

 

Z: They also showcase the Ford Motor company as the big corporate bad guy. There are two bad guys, but the most prominent one would have to be Indian Motorcycles in this series.

 

J: Because it’s their most formable competition.

 

Z:  In these next scenes, Harley Davidson positions themselves as the underdog, doing whatever they have to survive.

 

J: They are very scrappy. It’s a chance for them to show that they have integrity and that they are “for the little guy.” They’re for the blue collar worker while saying the exact opposite about their competition.

 

Z: That’s how we start to see the positioning done.

 

J: It’s interesting to see how that’s actually built.

 

Z: Let’s watch this tie in.

 

12:21: First Scene Explained

Z: Obviously, they are positioning Indian Motorcycles as the bad guy. There are also a lot of things in there that we will talk about. Right now, we’re talking about positioning. Those were examples of showcasing negative marketing. Everything that Harley did in this movie that we just watched showcases Indian Motorcycles in a bad light as the bad guy that’s negative marketing. Positive marketing does the same thing without being negative. For example, further in this series, we see that Harley Davidson positions themselves as being superior to their Japanese competitors by claiming to have started them by selling them their schematics for their previous designs. They’re saying that they have a superior product so much that their competition bought their plans so that they could then make their own. It’s positive in that they are saying that they’re better without going negative by saying their competition isn’t. It’s almost like taking the high road. You say that you’re good and you showcase how you are better without calling the other person out. If you notice with negative marketing and politicians, they don’t do that. They literally say “that’s the bad guy, he’s horrible, I’m not like him, vote for me.” This is actually saying I’m better.

 

J: It’s highlighting your benefits rather than highlighting their shortcomings.

 

Z:  Let’s look at the next clip and see what it says about the Japanese competition. This is something that a lot of people actually don’t know about the history of motorcycles. In general how the Japanese came to make such a decent counterpart to the American motorcycle.

 

16:15: Second Scene Explained

Z:  In essence, what Japan did is legally do what Indian did which is taking their motorcycles and figure out how they’re made. They actually bought the designs and the rights to make those designs underneath a different brand name in a different country.

 

J:  Why would Harley do that?

 

Z: Harley did that because they were in financial –

 

J: - because they needed to fight Indian basically for the patent.

 

Z: Yeah. As we continue watching the movie, we’ll talk about some of the financial up and downs that they went through with their competition.

 

J: Desperate times call for desperate measures boys.

 

Z: That was a quite shot of cash. Sometimes, you have to look at those as a business owner and figure out what is going to be the best thing for the longevity of our company. There are a few missteps that Harley Davidson has made over the years. Through course correction, they have been able to right those wrongs and still come out to be one of the top brands that they are today. Back to negative and positive marketing, knowing which method is going to work for you and when to incorporate either strategy. Largely, it depends on who your audience is. Knowing your audience is extremely important to communicating your business as well. If you know your audience, you are able to determine based on what we know, this method is going to work better than this method. In a large propaganda film like this series, it’s possible for you to incorporate both methods. However, most of the time, a company only has enough media time or space to implement one method at a time. Usually you’ll see nowadays a social media video that video will either be positive or negative. It won’t be both, but since this is a big series they’re able to showcase both sides in it. That brings up another thing that as an agency, we have a responsibility to do. That’s to help companies learn their customers and then how to make decisions based on that knowledge with confidence.

 

J: Customer targeting. I mean you can’t hit a bull’s-eye if you’re not looking at the right target.

 

Z: Exactly, that has a lot to do with what we call the listen stage which is consumer research. This is the homework behind consumer targeting.

 

J: That makes all the difference. It really does. You can’t say the right thing to the right people, if you don’t know who the right people are. When you were just talking about the negative ads, it made me think of politicians in particular since I think a lot of us equate negative advertising with politics. I think it’s easy to draw that parallel.

 

Z: It’s so obvious.

 

J: It’s really obvious when you see them going around from state to state doing their thing. If they’re a blue candidate in a blue state or at their own rally, they are saying more negative things because they are around like-minded people.

 

Z: The other thing you’ll notice is, particularly with their T.V. advertising –

 

J: I don’t mean just blue people by the way. It could be red people too.

 

Z: With the T.V. advertising, not red, blue or in between, politicians in general will say these negative things. Then at the very end as a caveat, they say “Paid for by somebody that’s not me.”

 

J: Not my fault, paid for by the committee of not my fault.

 

Z: They don’t take responsibility for saying it. They put that off on someone else because for them to directly say it would be negative. Every once and a while, you’ll see one that says “My name is so and so and I support this message.”

 

J: And my name is Donald J. Trump. I hate everyone equally.

 

Z    It depends on how negative message was. If it’s a positive message, they’ll definitely say their name.

J: They want their name stapled to that for sure.

 

Z: It’s all about knowing your audience and what’s going to work. If you’ve ever seen, the movie with – what is her name, Wildcat?

 

J: Sandra Bullock. Sorry, we do this all the time. I know exactly what he’s talking about all the time.

 

Z: If you don’t know, the Wildcat reference came from –

 

J: Speed.

 

Z: - from the movie Speed which she was in which is how she was able to find out.

 

J: Yeah, I don’t know why I know that.

 

Z: The movie I’m talking about is, I think it’s called, Brand or Branding?

 

J: Well, I think it’s called just Brand.

 

Z: It’s a movie about political marketing. In it, she is a consultant that leads these politicians in how to market themselves. Again, we are marketing geeks. We watch all this stuff.

 

J: It’s what we do in our spare time.

 

Z: It’s how we keep up with what’s going on. If you care to see how negative and positive marketing really works out in the political spectrum, that’s a good movie.

 

J: That movie shows up the good ways to do it and the bad ways to do it. If you do negative advertising the wrong way, it could really hurt people. It could hurt reputations, damage people or worse.

 

Z: Remember last episode where we talked about whatever you build your brand on has to be authentic. In that movie, they showcase what happens when it’s not authentic.

 

J: Yeah because you have to consistently stand behind your platform or your brand. If you can’t keep the momentum going because it’s so opposite of who you are, that is definitely something to consider.

 

Z: We should probably do a podcast on that movie specifically because there is so much to highlight from that. Maybe in that, we can tie in the whole “everybody hates Trump right now.” Maybe we can find a way to tip toe around that.

 

J: How do you tip toe through that mind field, I wonder?

 

Z:  As you know, a lot of our podcasts are coming from ideas from blogs we’ve already developed. I did a blog series based on Trump as a brand. I started that before he ever won the presidency in just how he was building his campaign from a marketing perspective. That’s what we’re talking about. I’m not here to tell you who to vote for. I’m just here to talk about how it was built.

 

J: He’s already been voted for. I will say that Donald J. Trump had a brand before he was president. He has a brand now that he is president. Those two things are actually quite different. They coincide at some point. At the end of the day, he has actually had to reinvent his own brand in the middle of his life.

 

Z: He now has to deliver on what he promised when he was running for office. Enough about that, maybe we’ll talk about that in a future episode.

 

J: I have opinions.

 

Z: Everybody in this country has opinions about this particular subject.

 

J: But mine are better than everyone else’s.

 

Z: We are going to take a break and hear from our sponsors real quick. Then, we’re going to talk about the marketing trends that are showcased in the movie that are actually set by Indian. You’ll know a little bit more about the history of marketing motorcycles.

 

J: Get back on the motorcycle.

 

Z: Let’s hear from our sponsors. We’ll be right back.

 

J: Hey all. Welcome back to Straight Shot Podcast. I am Jennifer. With me always is my lovely assistant Zachary.

Z: I’m your assistant now.

 

25:32: Indian’s Marketing Trends

J: Sorry, a girl can dream. If you’re just joining us, hopefully you’ve been here the whole time, we’re talking about Harley and the Davidsons miniseries on Discovery Channel. We’re discussing right now positioning and competition. I think we were just about ready to dive in to some good old fashion Indian advertising.

 

Z: Now we’re going to talk about some of the different marketing trends that were set by Indian. One of the things that you can do when you go back in these biopics is you can go back in the history. You can see how things have developed business-wise over time. Some of the things I want to showcase here are how a lot of these trends that we see today came into being. A lot of them were started by Indian as shown in the movie here. Though there’s a lot of negative marketing that we talked about before the break, there are also some elements that showcase Indian as being a champion, things they were a champion of. Indian was the leader of the industry when Harley Davidson was first born, but not for long. As the leader, they pioneered a lot of the marketing and business strategy that Harley Davidson followed as they were growing. Let’s unpack and explore what some of those were. The first one that they developed was racing. Organized motorcycle racing started out by being a promotional tool for Indian motorcycle. I believe we saw a clip earlier where you see them talking about it. Art uncovers this is a promotional thing. It was designed as a way to show that Indian was a superior product to all the up and coming competitors that existed that were out there. They organized a tour of small town competition around the country. They invited people to come in and whoever could best Indian, would join the company. This is also a recruitment tool. It’s recruitment marketing on top of being product marketing. This way they get these people that out there to build these machines. If their machine beats Indian, they then hire them. It’s a recruitment tool.

 

J: It’s a job interview.

 

Z: Which we talked about with you in the top of the hour here.

 

J: Seriously. Job interview, free labor, you know whatever.

 

Z: It’s also product marketing in which case it’s saying we are so confident in our product that we are betting other people can’t beat it. It’s kind of both. This ended up as we see in the movie not being true. It actually did not invite other people to come and work with the company. As they started to lose races, they changed their mind on a few things which makes them the evil competitor. Originally, that was the promise. Racing became a staple in the industry as the best way to showcase a product.

 

J: Harley’s always prided itself on being an honest company, so it would make since in this documentary that Indian is poised as untruthful.

 

Z: Let’s dive in a little and watch some clips of Harley and the Davidsons on the Discovery Channel and how racing was showcased in the film series.

 

31:48: Third Scene Explained

Z: That was a little teaser into what we’ll talk about here soon. You can see how Indian’s idea of racing was a promotional tool for Indian Motorcycles. I did not mention before, motorcycles were brand new. They were motorized bicycles at the time. Hendee which is the parent company of Indian Motorcycles was a bicycle manufacturer. They used one of the head bicycle racers. He was a celebrity in bicycle racing.

 

J: He looks like a bicycle racer.

 

Z: They used his celebrity to help promote Hendee Bicycles. He used his own celebrity to sell bicycles because he was a champion. Then, you start to see celebrity endorsement happening even though he developed it himself. He made Hendee Bicycles himself which then grew to become Indian Motorcycles.

 

J: The words right out of his mouth talking about how he was the world champion bicyclist. I don’t know what it is, but why does every evil henchman in the world have to have a fabulous moustache? What is that about? I don’t know if he actually did in real life, but in this series, he has a fabulous mustache. He’s a well-groomed man.

 

Z:  We won’t talk about mustaches here. I mustache you a question.

 

J: Oh no, you did not. That’s a dad joke.

 

33:36: Exclusive Dealerships

Z: I have little boys what can I say. Let’s move on to talk about the next tool or marketing trend that Indian developed. The next thing we are going to talk about is exclusive dealerships. We saw a clip earlier where Hendee positioned as the bad guy for having these exclusive dealerships. However, it is a marketing trend that continued beyond that. Indian developed exclusive dealership agreements as a way to proactively shut out their competition. In the very beginning of the industry, there were motorcycle dealers that were like a grocery store. You got to a grocery store and you can buy Kraft, Velveeta, or any other manufacturers that are out there. The idea is that you go to a marketplace and you can buy whatever you want. Motorcycles were very much the same thing. You could go in and purchase any brand of motorcycle that you wanted to. Brand exclusive dealerships are now common place. Now, you see them everywhere, but at the time they were not. We also have hybrid dealerships now: dealerships that sell more than one brand. The every brand selling has been left behind. The only places that still do that are used car or motorcycle dealerships. They will sell anything. Most of the rest of them either have their own or they partner up with one or two other brands. Ford has their own dealership and that’s all they sell. You can see Suzuki and Triumph Motorcycles partnered up here in Gwinnett County. Dealerships are not marketing you say.

 

J: Dealerships are not marketing.

 

Z: Everything is marketing.

 

J: And marketing is everything.

 

Z: For those of you that don’t know where that quote came from, it’s from Regis McKenna. We always do nods back to our previous episodes I’ve noticed.

 

J: This is why you have to keep up people. Keep up or get off the porch or stay on the porch or I don’t know. Go on.

 

Z: When it comes to communicating your business to the public in the marketplace, every effort, every process, and every tool is part of marketing. Marketing is everything and everything is marketing. In this case, dealerships are very much a part of marketing. Let’s watch a little clip on how that was shown.

 

37:54: Co-branding

J: That’s how we squeeze out our competition.

 

Z: The other thing you’ll notice is that the motorcycle dealership was in the store front. You don’t see dealerships in store fronts anymore. Actually, that’s not true. In the airport, they will have a retail store that has one motorcycle in there and the rest is all merchandise.

 

J: They have one of those at SunTrust Park. They have Harley apparel gear merchandise. I’m sure they have a bike onset.

 

Z: Bite what I just said. For the most part, there are not store front types of dealerships anymore. Let’s continue talking about the tools that were developed and still in use today that were showcased as being part of what Indian brought to the table through this movie. The next thing I want to talk about is co-branding in this case industry associations. The act of racing led to Indian organizing and leading an industry-wide organization for motorcycle manufacturers. Of course, they were the leadership of the organization. Now, when you look at the whole idea of industry associations, they are very common. You see them all over the place banning together even with your competition. This allows companies organize and govern larger events than they would be able to do on their own. For example, for them to continue racing and to have Indian specific racing all around, that would be very difficult on their own because it’s a very large event. It would be very costly. If they have all these different partners that come together, that’s co-branding where you join together with another company even if it’s the competition. In this case, it was the competition. Joining together with another company for the mutual benefit of both companies works because they have the same target market.

 

J: You’re borrowing from their target audience as well even if it’s your competition.

 

Z: Right. Co-branding is all about banning together for the benefits of all the different companies that are involved. Let’s watch a clip where they talk about the development of the motorcycle association.

 

42:02: Fourth Scene Explained

J: Zachary, with the clip we just watched, can you explain a little bit about how that is co-branding?

 

Z: In that clip, you saw the MMA which is different than the MMA today.

 

J: Mixed martial arts?

 

Z: Though there might be some violence in both groups, the MMA from the movie stood for Motorcycle Manufacturing Association. There are industry associations like that today in which case you have different manufacturers. In this case, they are all competitors that come together for the purpose of reaching an audience. What they did was the MMA became the sponsor of these racing events. The racing event was the marketing tool that was put together by all of these different companies. This one tool is what makes it co-branding.

 

J: So that instead of it just being sponsored by Indian, now Indian is sharing the burden financially with resources by pulling all these other people together to be on the same ticket.

 

Z: When you’re looking at doing co-branding, there are lots of things that you may want to look for. One of which is what does this other company have that you don’t have. When you’re looking at co-branding, you want to find somebody that has the same target audience that you do. There’s a mutual benefit for both of you, preferably, the same target but not in the same industry where they aren’t competing against each other. Another example is a restaurant and a soft drink manufacturer. They have the same target, but are not coming at it from the same place. You may have a particular manufacturer that’s from Milwaukee that has a really good relationship with the people of that town. You can capitalize on that by having access to their target market which is something that you wouldn’t be able to get on your own. Usually when you’re looking at co-branding, it’s about reaching people that you can’t reach otherwise. For example, people co-brand with restaurants all the time because restaurants have an audience that comes in and spends time with them. It’s that captive audience that you’re trying to gain access to. You’re trying to utilize their audience. They are trying to utilize your audience. You bring something different to the table. Co-branding is very customized depending on who you are going after and why. A lot of times we will recommend co-branding as a marketing strategy depending on who the company is. It always looks different because no two companies are the same. The strategy is always built specifically to whoever that person is.

 

J: That sounds like we’ve learned a lot in this particular episode.

 

Z: Today was a lot about strategy.

 

J: It was. We’ve talked a lot about competition and positioning because the bottom line is competition is out there. Your competition is out there and it’s watching you. There are several different approaches that you can take to that pressure. You can compete negatively. You can compete positively or you can co-brand which is basically joining forces. I think we’ve seen from the Harley and the Davidsons how that’s been happening for a really long time. Those people might have even been the pioneers of some of that. Just to rap everything up for this particular podcast, Zachary do you have the straight shot?

 

Z: We’ve got to find some sort of intro for that. If we were to give you the straight shot or the take-away from today’s episode, it’s that knowing your audience. You have to find ways to be proactive and strategic in your marketing approach. Whether your approach is going to be that of negative campaigning or positive campaigning, you have to develop your approach and then make the necessary, strategic tools to go into the marketplace. We’ll dive more into strategy, marketing tools and methods in future episodes. The ones we talked about today are just a few examples of how you have to know your audience so that you can know what sort of messaging is going to relate to them. Once you do that, you have to figure out how you’re going to go after them. That’s the wrap-up for today are those two things.

 

J: Understanding if you have any limitations is how you can share the burden with other companies by co-branding. Make sure you join us again for the next Straight Shot Podcast. I’m sure it will be exciting. It will be a wrap-up to this one.

 

Z: Actually, I don’t know if we’re going to do the next one which is the final of the Harley Davidson series.

 

J: You think we might just put a pin in that for just a second?

 

Z: I think we might because it’s Christmas time.

 

J: It is Christmas time and there’s so much marketing and advertising happening on T.V., social media, billboards, buses and everywhere. One of the reasons the Straight Shot Podcast was invented is because marketing is everywhere. You walk outside and it bombards your senses everywhere you go. It’s on everything you see. It’s on the radio. It’s on everything you hear. It’s on the clothes on your back. It is no more prevalent than it is during Christmas time. We would be remiss to not have a podcast about Christmas marketing.

 

Z: I think that’s what we may do this next go around. We’ll see if we can talk about seasonal marketing and how that works.

 

J: Capitalizing on peoples’ emotions during the holidays. Grab your tissues kids. It’s going to be a bumpy one.

 

Z: We’ll see if we can get that to you sometime before the New Year. We will be working on developing that. We will talk to you again soon. Thereafter, we have the closing podcasts for the Harley Davidson series. If you have enjoyed this series, you can sign up for notifications by texting the word: reformation to 90210.

 

J:  It will sign you up for notifications.

 

Z:  If you would like to be a guest on our show, go ahead and go to straightshot.net to find out how to do that from there. You can also support our efforts to bring you this show by using our patreon page. All of that and more: straightshot.net.

 

J:  If you don’t feel like you want to go to the Internet, you can always use the good old fashioned telephone which is 678-825-8086 ext. 300. That should get you to the Straight Shot Podcast as well.

 

Z: That’s right. Thank you for joining us and we’ll talk to you again next time.

 

 

 

Reformation Productions is a full service marketing agency in the Atlanta, GA metro. To find out more about the agency  visit www.ReformationProductions.com. Connect with us on Facebook at fb.com/reformationproductions. Blog content is © Reformation Productions. To receive more marketing tips and insights, sign up for our newsletter, Straight Shot, at www.ReformationProductions.com/contact.html to be one of the first to know when they are published here at www.ReformationProductions.com. You can also sign up for notifications by texting "Reformation" to 90210 from your mobile phone.