Yamaha took motorcycling to ‘The Dark Side’ at last years Motorcycle Live! show, with the launch of multiple brand new models, spearheaded by the MT – a revolutionary new range featuring compact new chassis designs and super high-torque 3-cylinder engines.

More than just heralding a new era in motorcycle design and development, MT was the jumping off point for a whole new market positioning for the Yamaha brand – one which UK Marketing Manager Jeff Turner was keen for as many riders as possible to experience for themselves.

“Having the ‘full Yamaha experience’ was central to the brief” said WDA’s Lee Waterhouse. Yamaha wanted riders not just to see – but smell, hear and feel the new bikes. To experience them at their maximum potential, to ride them for themselves; to really engage with the brand and the new bikes. This was as much about changing perceptions of the Yamaha brand as showcasing the exciting new bikes coming through. ”

Jeff wanted both riders already loyal to the brand, and also riders who may not have considered a Yamaha before – to really get to grips with the new bikes. To do so meant targeting riders who may not have seen the new bikes at the show or visited Yamaha showrooms.

The Dark Side of Japan

Yamaha’s ‘Dark Side of Japan’ concept was devised to position the brand as a new, edgier and more distinct proposition to riders already aware of the brand’s reputation for market leading technology, build quality and reliability but who had started to look at more unconventional, supposedly more ‘exciting’ machines offered by some of the European manufacturers.

Dark Side is a bold and radical move from a brand often considered as conventional, safe and conservative. A positive step away from its status as just one of the Japanese ‘Big Four’; the company now offers all those great benefits associated with being such a large, established manufacturer – whilst now developing and delivering bikes which are arguably the most interesting, exciting, individual machines – from ANY manufacturer.

MT Tour 2014

WDA assisted Yamaha in creating ‘The Dark Side MT Tour’ – a revolutionary new tour event where riders could ‘Find and experience their Dark Side’ on their ideal MT bike, whilst also enjoying a whole host of other fantastic biking experiences including Dave Coates famous Stunt Show, test rides, an MT extreme wheelie machine, partner exhibitions, demonstrations, and VIP guest appearances.

Central to each event was a fully branded MT Tour Truck which transported an entire fleet of MT machines, covering every model within the range from the ultra-cool new MT-125 through the awesome MT-07 to the simply stunning new MT-09 ST (Street Rally).

Completely FREE to attend the tour covered five major UK cities across the UK during this summer, included biking favourites Box Hill, the National Motorcycle Museum and the Scottish Motorcycle Show.

The Tour represented a considerable investment to our client, so it was critical that the promotional campaign drove significant traffic to each event to ensure a good marketing return both in visitors buy-in to the campaign (with good numbers being picked up by the attending dealers), and also creating enough noise to generate good publicity and press coverage.

Promotions revolved around a digital campaign on Visordown consisting a whole range of different inventory including Geo targeted Home page takeovers (serving to viewers within a 50 mile radius of each event), targeted search lock outs, and sponsored digital content (newsletters and stories). The digital campaign program was designed, implemented and managed by WDA including media negotiation and purchase.

Digital was supported by press with full and half page ad executions placed within every major motorcycle specialist print title. Additionally WDA created in-store dealer promotional materials, as well as branded collateral for the Tour events themselves.

Significant sales increases

This years MT Tour event helped drive significant demand for Yamaha and in particular the MT range, so much so that the tour has now been extended to include this years Motorcycle Live at the NEC in Birmingham in from November 22 to 30. Moreover, the stage is now set for more important Yamaha launches, not least the eagerly anticipated all new R1, which was unveiled at Eicma this week.

Latest figures* now place Yamaha at the very top of the manufacturers charts in terms of sales increase (up 18%); and up into second place in terms of total units sold. *Latest available sales figures at the time this post was published (September 2014 compared to the same period in the previous year). Figures supplied by the Motor Cycle Industry Association.

WDA are proud to announce the birth of another brilliant brand, this time created for Taiwanese scooter manufacturer CPI – and you don’t have to take our word for it:

“WDA really opened our eyes to the world of branding. The team at WDA have been professional and friendly at every step of the way. We feel the launch of the new branding will help us achieve a better market position faster and make our brand stronger over the coming years” – CPI Motorised Division Manager

To begin with, CPI were very focussed on the products; their widgets, bells and whistles – and how all this was being sold for an unbelievably low price. The team enthused about the specifications and how they compared to those of rivals, from an extra 1bhp here to a better MPG figure or a larger capacity fuel tank.

The reality is that brands only ever exists in the minds of the consumers and as such WDA suggested that whilst important, all these things were not strong points of differentiation as they could all be copied or (eventually) beaten.

We pointed out that CPI now operates in a very crowded market place consisting lots of far eastern bikes of similar specification also being sold on price. We argued that the real task was to successfully halt a downward image plunge and that what CPI really needed was a brand to go around its great products.

A brilliant brand was also going to be critical if we were to achieve the stated objective of wanting to move away from the poor quality image associated with Chinese manufacturing and take the fight upmarket to capture share from the quality European brands and even the Japanese big four.

Scooter is a challenging market as it is home to a very fragmented and diverse audience. In the case of CPI this was compounded by the company’s strategy to widen the product range beyond scooter. Looking over the 2012 model line up it was clear we had to appeal to riders young and old, from learners to commuters; sports riders, off roaders, female bikers – the list went on.

Basically CPI were asking us to appeal – and connect – to the WHOLE motorcycle sector.

WE ARE MOTO…

WDA’s final positioning – ‘We Are Moto’ gave CPI the platform to immediately communicate the brands clear intention to diversify out of small capacity scooters into the wider market – almost inferring ownership of the entire sector.

‘We Are Moto’ was designed as a tribal call to arms for the brand; acting as the glue to connect with the diverse audience – freedom and a sense of camaraderie being shared values all riders can enjoy. The drill down allowed us to engage the individual who ‘becomes’ moto once part of CPI, with messages such as “I AM CITY: I AM MOTO”, and “I AM MX: I AM MOTO”.

WHAT’S YOUR MOTO?

WDA created CPI’s fully integrated ‘Whats your Moto?’ campaign which comprised both consumer and trade advertising, online promotions, email marketing and viral activities based around Facebook and twitter integration.

The campaign launch took place at the Motorcycle Live! show and our objective was twofold: To get CPI on bikers’ radar, and also to get our audience talking about the brand during and after the show.

WDA implemented show activities which prompted the public to inspect the entire CPI range and answer the simple question: “What’s YOUR Moto?”. On answering the CPI girls took details and entered show goers into a competition which encouraged interaction online through blogs and the official Facebook fan pages – this in turn gave us a viral effect which generated further interest in the brand.

Virality (the number of people who have created a story from our post as a % of the number of people who have seen it) on Facebook peaked at 15.79%. The median virality rate for Facebook pages is currently 1.92% according to edgerankchecker.com. The response rate for the competition itself was equally high, peaking during show week at 26%.

In addition to creating the ‘theatre’ on the stand, WDA produced all the stand graphics and literature, including the official range brochure.

So happy were the team with the job we had done that one of the three motorised division managers put a call into our offices to thank us personally, followed up with the following emailed quote:

“Thanks to WDA’s brilliant marketing strategy and of course the vibrancy of our new brand CPI, we are having the most successful retail show ever. The footfall on to our stand in the first day alone far exceeded what took a week last year with our old brand and dated marketing to achieve. Their innovative ideas have hit the mark for us. – CPI Motorised Division Manager

Interested in turning your great product or service into a brilliant brand?

Contact Lee Waterhouse for a chat or an initial free consultation.