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 !

Just For Feet - Racist Ad

Sometimes the marketing strategy is good, and the fail is in it application. That has been the case of Just for feet, an american shoes brand. In 1999, as the company was becoming more and more popular, it decided to (and could afford to) do an advertisement that would be seen during the Super Bowl, that would gather more than 127 million homes in front of their TV. Here is the video of it:

Just for feet Super Bowl ad (1999)

A huge storm of protests immediately arose from the population to denounce this fully racist and violent ad. By what right dared the company to compare an african man with a wild animal hunted by a white man ?
Just for feet reacted in alleging that they trusted Saatchi&Saatchi, their communication agency, and relied on their expertise. The shoes company sued Saatchi&Saatchi for damages in advertising malpractice, and finally dropped the lawsuit.
Not only this ad was racist and violent, but also pointless: how would the consumers want to buy shoes that a top-world athlete doesn't even bear ?

Today Just for feet doesn't exist anymore as the last shop closed in 2004.

Morale of the story: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure !