Erik Buell with the redesigned 2010 Buell Blast

I think the “Purple Cow” just came home for the slaughter…  I’d love to hear what marketing moguls had to say, preemptively, about this campaign…

Okay, so I’m going to go a little bit of the way down the rabbit hole with this one, but ride along with me if you don’t mind…

I was on the AMA’s web site last night and I saw an advertisement (it was a skyscraper ad for Buell) that caught my attention.  It said “Introducing the 2010 Buell Blast”.  Immediately, a crushed block-o-motorcycle dropped into the ad and they swooped in their tag line of “Ruthless Engineering”.

Interesting.

Going to their site, I came across this campaign.

It’s all about how Erik Buell “Ruthlessly Reengineered” the 2010 Buell Blast into a block of trash because it wasn’t inline with their corporate culture of performance biking.

In essence, people were identifying Buell as the company that makes that tiny, cute little bike, the Blast, rather than the company that makes high-end street and racing bikes.

Genius!

Many other companies would have just let the brand/model die.  When was the last time you saw a Chrysler in a car crusher?  Erik Buell, on the other hand, used it as an opportunity to kill off a potentially under performing brand that wasn’t in line with the corporate strategy AND (AND AND AND) reinforce the overarching, high-performance brand.

B E A U T I F U L!!!!

I just wish I was a fly on the wall when Buell’s creative agency came to them with that strategy…  Either Erik Buell has one hell of a sense of humor or that was one hell of an interesting conversation/pitch.. 

Just trying to keep your brains fresh!

- Ray
The road gets you wet.
Biker Rain Chaps keep you dry!

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