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Amidst all the fanfare over seeing Valentino Rossi wearing Rosso Corsa and sporting his new Dainese leathers, which surprisingly aren’t being sponsored by McDonald’s, one announcement has gotten little attention (and no, we’re not talking about Nicky Hayden). The 2011 Wrooom event signals the end of a three-year strategic plan that’s been going on internally at Ducati, which has seen the Italian company release 12 new models, increase sales across the board, and ship 36,200 motorcycles in 2010 alone.

Ducati Corse is slowly becoming the Lord of the Rings in MotoGP — bringing together some of the largest brands outside of the industry into the pinnacle of motorcycle racing. Already announcing Mercedes Benz’s tuning house AMG as its official car sponsor to the Marlboro Ducati MotoGP team, Ducati announced ahead of today’s start to the Wrooom event that apparel company Diesel would be added to the team’s rostrum of sponsors.

The maker of tight skinny jeans and other fashionable items, Diesel will be adding its “Made in Italy” brand to Ducati’s Italian bikes, and will also supply the Ducati Corse team with apparel for the 2011 season, which we can also only imagine will be made available to the public as well with a modest mark up on the not so modest base prices. Still say what you will about Italians and their fashion, one thing remains impressively true: Ducati is crushing it right now when it comes to finding dollars to go race in MotoGP.

Get ready to pour some peanut sauce on your spaghetti as Bologna Bullets destined for the Southeast Asian markets will soon be produced in Ducati’s newly planned factory in Thailand.

Being called a “final assembly” plant, the move is similar to the one that Harley-Davidson undertook late last year, where the Bar & Shield brand setup an assembly plant in India in order to side-step the extremely high tariffs the country puts on foreign-made motorcycles.

In addition to Harley-Davidson, Ducati will be joining the likes of Honda, Yamaha, KTM, and Brembo, all of whom have increased their presence in the Asian markets within the past year to capitalize on the growing economies of India, China, and Southeast Asia.

Wholesale discounter Costco might be one of the great staples of free-market capitalism, allowing Americans to buy beef jerky in convenient seven gallon portions throughout the seasons (because you need that much jerky in your diet America). Steadfast to the rule that more must be better, it excites us to find out that Kawasaki has been testing a program since November with Costco, which sees the Japanese bike maker selling its motorcycles through 15 Southern California Costco warehouse stores. Taking place in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties, several Kawasaki dealerships have been working with local Costco stores on the pilot grogram, which includes having a Kawasaki motorcycle on display (starting with Team Green’s KX dirt bikes) at the Costco stores, along with other promotional materials.

Pirelli (makers of the 2011 Pirelli Calendar) and the Italian arm of ad firm Y&R (the NY arm of Y&R did the Xerox/Ducati ad set) want you to know that smoking can be hazardous to your health. Playing off the Surgeon General warning labels found on cigarette packages, Pirelli’s new ads show a motorcycling protagonist full of gusto putting one of his Italian doughnuts to good use with a puff of smoke and a mighty burnout (we’re working on our ad copy hyperbole).

There’s some good play on words going on here, which Y&R has put to good use with motorcycling imagery. We especially like the line “smoking can cause circulation problems” as the photo focuses on the time-warped spinning tire, while the “protect chicks: don’t make them breathe your smoke” seems a bit more pedestrian and blunt. Good photography, a hot custom bike, clever ad work. Chalk up a win for Pirelli (more photos after the jump).

No, we’re not encouraging you to step away from any planned New Years Eve wedding proposals, but the Nürburgring Nordschleife does apparently need your help. Known throughout the motorsports community simply as the ‘Ring, the Nürburgring Nordschleife track plays host not only to car and motorcycle enthusiasts, but also serves as a formidable test track used by many OEMs when developing new vehicles (recently the track has also been a place for manufacturers to lay bragging rights for quickest lap times in sports cars).

It seems however that the ‘Ring, despite its popularity with track enthusiasts, is not the profitable endeavour that the German government thought it would be. Four years ago plans began to be implemented that would see other attractions added to the Nürburgring venue, which have reportedly done nothing to help boost the profitability of the track, and now in May of this year the ‘Ring was turned over to the same pair of businessmen responsible for that transformation, with the goal of boosting the track’s revenue, and that’s where the controversy starts.

If one were to grade the marketing efforts in the motorcycle industry, you’d be hard pressed to hand out a grade better than a B- to one of the major OEMs. While some companies have produced some brand value, carved out a defensible niche for themselves, or caught on to this whole internet fad thing, none of the OEMs really do a bang-up job of hitting all the standard marketing best practices.

If we had to single out one company that needs a letter sent home to mom, it has to be Aprilia, as the Italian company constantly proves itself to be the pants-on-head retarded (sorry Sarah Palin) window-licking moron (sorry again Sarah Palin) paste-eating buffoon (we’re not sorry for that one) of motorcycling media. Report card: F with a “does not play well with others” note attached.

Unveiled this weekend in Madrid, Paris Hilton was on-hand in her pink, blue, and white skin tight set of leathers to help promote her latest business endeavor (her words, not ours): Team SuperMartxé VIP by Paris Hilton. While we generally hate everything about Paris Hilton, and even try to avoid staying in Hilton hotels just for good measure, we do have to say one thing: this weekend’s launch of the SuperMartxé VIP by Paris Hilton Team is arguably the largest team launch in history of GP racing (in one of the worst economic climates ever for the sport)…and that includes the upcoming Wrooom launch of Valentino Rossi and Ducati Corse.

After a long absence, Triumph North America has once again joined the Progressive International Motorcycle Show, after being absent from the American event for several. Looking to come out of the gates in strong form, Triumph is showing its largest collection of motorcycles ever in the company’s 109 year history. With 23 models spanning six motorcycle families, Triumph will make its 2011 American debut at Long Beach this weekend.

With the Tiger 800, Tiger 800 XC, Daytona 675R, and Speed Triple being the crowning jewels of Triumph’s new model line-up, Triumph’s North American subsidiary will also be introducing its new CEO Greg Heichelbech.

Harley-Davidson filed papers today with the SEC disclosing that the company has bought back $297 million in papers (essentially paying off a loan) from Davis Selected Advisers, L.P to the tune of $380.8 million. Taking the loan amount at 15% interest, Harley-Davidson borrowed roughly $600 million from Davis Select and Warren Buffett ($300 million each, despite what other blogs seem to think) back in February of 2009. This announcement marks the first step Harley-Davidson has taken in repaying that debt, and with the added $100 million in interest payments, it’s easy to understand why.

BMW Motorrad continues to shine in this down economy, as the company has reported a 7.8% worldwide sales increase compared to November of last year. For the rest of 2010, BMW’s sales have increased every month compared to last year’s figures, from January to November. In the same time period, BMW Motorrad sold 94,283 units internationally, up 15% from the 81,946 units sold during the same duration last year.

While it isn’t saying much that sales are improving over the devastating numbers from 2009, the motorcycle industry is still considered to be down by roughly 11%, which makes BMW still an outlier from the industry norm.