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Hero may be losing ground to Honda in its smallest displacement categories in its home market of India, but the Indian brand is poised for good growth abroad. Already linked to a number of projects with Erik Buell Racing, Hero MotoCorp is said to be also eyeing the African and Latin American markets for its next international business moves.

Hoping to enter a few markets in Africa and Latin America by the end of the company’s fiscal year, Hero MotoCorp is cagey on specifics regarding its overall international plan. However, in September of this year, Hero’s CEO Pawan Munjal stated that the company would start assembly plants in Kenya and Nigeria, tipping those two countries as the starting points for the Indian company’s African market invasion.

As for Latin America, Colombian market is favored to be the first vector, with Munjal also tipping that Hero MotoCorp would establish an assembly operation in the South America country, and then presumably work its way farther north. The position also easily positions the Indian company for expansion south into lucrative markets like Brazil, Argentina, and Peru.

Making effective market communications in the motorcycle industry should be a relatively straight-forward and easy task. After all, motorcycles in North America and Europe have a strong personal component that revolves around self-expression and a rider personal identity. Making things easier, the motorcycle industry is littered with enthusiasts who themselves ride on a daily basis, and should understand this concept first-hand.

The idea that an ad or campaign should reach out and grab the intended consumer is not a novel concept, and motorcycle marketing professionals have their job simplified since they need only to develop and publish creative that would speak to them personally, in order to be successful. For whatever reason though, motorcycle industry marketers, by-in-large, were absent the day they taught marketing in business school…and it shows.

It is a subject I rail on about far too often, probably because it just simply baffles me how it occurs in the first place. How a motorcycle enthusiast fails to connect with people just like himself or herself boggles my mind, and yet it routinely happens in the motorcycle industry. However, every now and then, an OEM puts together something that renews my faith in the establishment, and for a split-second I have a vision that this whole two-wheeled thing isn’t going to hell in a hand basket. Such is the case with this promo video done by BMW TV.

The big news out of the INTERMOT show in Cologne, Germany is the public unveiling of the 2013 BMW R1200GS — the liquid-cooled progeny of the venerable air-cooled GS line. The bike that continues to define the adventure-touring market, the R1200GS not only gets a mechanical makeover for 2013, but a cosemetic one as well.

Wanting to give us the utmost insight into the design and engineering process that went into the new BMW R1200GS, the Bavarians have dumped nearly 300 photos into their media site for our consumption.

Naturally, we’ve uploaded them all here to Asphalt & Rubber because we loves us some tasty photos. Chances are the image viewing lightbox is too big for your monitor, so right-click as you see fit. We’ve picked our favorites out, and have them on display after the jump.