Problems Harley Davidson Face

Harley Davidson was the only American brand for heavy weight motorcycle manufacturer. However, Harley Davidson faced problems on positioning in its core market segment, that is, those middle aged male baby boomers, since Harley try to gain business from new segments by targeting on female and young users, with new bike that acquired features that is small in size, which totally contrast with the products being offered by Harley previously. The troubles faced by Harley had been stated and emphasized as below.
When Harley tries to change from only targeting middle age male baby boomers into targeting female and young users in addition, Harley needs huge amount of financial sources, use for research and development (R&D) on the new product, as well as for conducting marketing communication with the new targeted prospects. The product features of new Harleys are smaller in size, which totally contrast with the features of heavy weight motorcycle offered previously. Hence, more R&D is needed for this new product. In fact, customers’ reviews are extremely important, as comments are needed for features improvement. To collect customers’ review, survey research is needed, which is costly to be conducted. Further, the marketing communication channel used need to be redesigned, as previously, media such as automobile magazine had been chosen to target core market, but to target new prospects, this media may not be suitable, since automobile magazines are mostly read by males. Other media are needed, such as via television program (at peak hour), or, promoting new Harleys via conducting events around shopping malls and universities, to generate brand awareness on prospects. Females do not concern on vehicles as males do in usual time, hence, more effort and more money need to be spent to get attention of females on new Harley.
It had been a mist on when Harley can get back returns on its investment. Although forecasting will be done on the returns expected to be acquired,