Why Is A Harley Worth More Than A Honda?

Few American brands are as powerful as Harley Davidson motorcycles. The image of a Harley chug-chug-chug-chugging its way across an American highway is part of our mythos, right up there with jeans and baseball. Another defining element of Harley Davidson is the price of their motorcycles. Simply put: They’re expensive. A Harley often costs thousands more than a similar Honda, especially after add-ons. Why do people pay more? Because they have an emotional attachment to the Harley brand. After a bump in the road in the 1980s when quality suffered greatly, Harley Davidson has spent the last 20 years concentrating on making and marketing great bikes. With more than a century of brand equity behind them, sales are strong – even though the Harley name itself demands a premium.

When your company successfully combines the elements of the marketing mix into a high-octane mix, you can appeal to a customer’s heart. That’s much more valuable than appealing to a customer’s head. Our heads tend to think about things like price, while our hearts care more about how we would look with a leather jacket on that big, bad Softail. Want to know how seriously Harley takes their image? In the 1990s, they spent six years trying to trademark the distinct sound of their engines (they failed when other motorcycle manufacturers challenged). Now that is attention to detail. Do you pay that much attention to your brand, and all of the elements that go into it? From your employees to your parking lots, from your products to your website, every touchpoint builds (or detracts from) your overall brand. Make your business into a Harley. We can help.