the proof
HD Iron 883 Motorcycle Launch Event
Harley-Davidson hadn't been getting any younger. One pivotal launch aimed to change all that. The Dark Custom collection of bikes were brought together for the purpose of connecting a younger audience to the Harley-Davidson brand. One of the keys to doing this was to create relevance among youth lifestyle media, an audience largely unfamiliar to Harley-Davidson. While the company had established relationships with endemic motorcycle media, to truly break into the youth segment, the company had to prove it had something to offer younger readers. For this, the company turned to Caffeine.
Strategy
Bring media face-to-face with the new collection, serving it up in a way that inspires them to tell the story of how Harley is inspiring a new generation to cut against the grain.
To do this, Caffeine looked to NYC - where many of the younger lifestyle media outlets are based - to host a media event. Caffeine rented out a raw warehouse space that embodied the bikes' look and feel. The dark environment with brick walls and concrete floors set the tone for the bikes randomly spread throughout the room.Clips of young professional street skaters and snowboarders riding and boarding were shown on projector screens to a soundtrack featuring a mix of old and new beats, further supporting the collection's blending of old school and new school styling. Images of young counter-culture icons riding Harleys also were displayed.
Caffeine and the Harley spokesperson guided media through the experience, ensuring the story was told in a captivating way. At the end, media were given a media kit that featured a black Dark Custom press kit and Willie G. Davidson inspired t-shirt.
Results
During the two-day media event, Caffeine and Harley met and placed stories with more than 15 media outlets, including New York Times, Maxim, Nylon for Guys, Complex, Men's Fitness, Vice, Revolver, Penthouse and Popular Mechanics. Furthermore, this event served as a springboard for a yearlong campaign of storytelling featuring Dark Custom bikes. In the end, Caffeine placed more than XX stories and garnered more than XX million media impressions surrounding Dark Custom in 2008. By year's end, at a time when bike sales were down significantly, Harley-Davidson's Dark Custom Collection was up 24 percent in sales.
