Harley-Davidson - Perfume

When someone asks you to think about a good motocycle, you have two solutions: to think about a japanese brand, or to think about an american brand. Would you think about Yamaha, or rather Harley-Davidson ?
Well, whatever was your answer, today is about the american brand, which is responsible for a wonderful and full-of-lessons failure.
Harley-Davidson's customers are extremely loyal to the brand due to its values: liberty, authenticity, power, testosterone. This brand has an iconic stature, and many customers even have the brand's logo tattooed on their body. In a noticeable logic, Harley-Davidson's marketers thought that if customers were that loyal, then they could buy tons of derived products. Starting from baby clothes to ties and lighters, Harley-Davidson developped a whole range of derived products that had nothing to do with the original product.
In the 90's, the motocycle brand finally crossed the red line when it launched the Harley-Davidson perfume and aftershave range. The purist fans strated to accuse the brand of "disneyfication" and to believe that Harley-Davidson was fallen into the "more products = more purchases" trap. Isn't that the worst thing that could happen for a supposed authentic brand ?

Does anyone see the authentic biker in this ad ? No one ? Great, me neither.

However Harley-Davidson didn't suffer that much from this mistake, which has finally been recognized and corrected by the company.
In 2014, the brand's market share was 57% in th US, with an increase of 20,5% in Asia and 8,2% for Europe. It is still the leader in front of Ducati, Suzuki, or Triumph.

Morale of the story: All that glitters is not gold !