Echoing what car companies discovered years ago – that women, too, buy vehicles – motorcycle icon Harley-Davidson has launched an advertising campaign aimed at Canadian women.
The Canadian division of the Milwaukee, Wis.-based company is running female-targeted print ads in the May issues of Chatelaine and Modern Woman magazines encouraging women to get in the driver’s seat.
‘We’ve traditionally advertised in men’s cycle magazines,’ says Doug Decent, national marketing manager at Deely Harley-Davidson in Concord, Ont. ‘But we have a growing consumer base that is female and we should pay attention to that.’
The female-specific creative plays on a theme of independence, strength and freedom.
It features five professional Canadian women, including a pilot, a computer training specialist and a bank manager, who are all real-life Harley-Davidson owners. Wearing black leather clothing, they are shown standing behind a shiny, red 1997 Sportster 883 Hugger.
The headline reads, ‘You never took a back seat before.’
The ad is a slightly different take on Harley-Davidson’s traditional print advertising, which appears in publications like Cycle Canada and Canadian Biker, as well as Maclean’s, The Financial Post and L’Actualite. Those emphasize details of interest to the primary target – the thirtysomething male.
‘The thunder and roar for less than you’d expect,’ says one ad. Another states, ‘The streets never sound the same,’ alluding to the unique sound made by Harley bikes.
Larter Advertising of Aurora, Ontario developed the female-targeted creative.
As for the cycle featured in the ad, Decent says 46% of the Sportster’s buyers have been women. He attributes that to the fact that the bike is lightweight and has a high seat.
Although women form a relatively small proportion of Harley-Davidson’s market – less than 15% – Decent says the number of women riders is increasing exponentially. The company’s warranty and registration records indicate the number of women buying Harleys has more than doubled to 12% since 1992, says Decent, adding, ‘We want to target our dollars in this growth market.’
He says the majority of female prospective buyers are in their 30s, independent, with moderate to high incomes. According to Tia Kingston, account supervisor at Toronto-based Maclean Hunter, publisher of both Chatelaine and Modern Woman, that is also the demographic the two magazines are targeting.
‘This ad is a real breakthrough because Harley-Davidson is not a stereotypical advertiser found in a women’s publication,’ she says. ‘This type of [female-specific] advertising can be extended to automotive or financial planning, two areas which advertisers have not considered areas of interest for women.’
The ad is an example of how companies that don’t usually market to women can successfully develop campaigns, says Kingston.
The Harley execution is being used as a test to see what kind of response it gets from female readers, says Kingston. If the ad is successful, she says, Harley-Davidson may consider transplanting the concept to the u.s. market.
While it will take time to see what response the ad gets from readers, Kingston says it has already made an impact at the magazines’ offices.
‘I’ve gotten lots of calls from staff who were impressed by it.’
