American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 176 March 2014 | Page 4

Is that a recovery I see before me? F INALLY! Regular readers will remember that I had been speculating that having hit the bottom of the curve, the market would start to recover a tad many times, on many occasions. Not least some four years ago (2010 I think it was) when the V-Twin Expo appeared to suggest that the industry's confidence was returning and that the downturn was going to have turned out to have been a "mere" three to four year "thing". That year we returned from the show with record expo demand for ad space, and saw that demand continue throughout the year - from memory I think we saw a 20 percent increase (over 2009) by the end of that year. Our humble little operation isn't a terribly accurate bellwether of market fortunes, at the best of times, as the trade ad buying habits of the market (or not) are governed by a disparate range of considerations, most of which are ultimately driven by perceived market opportunities for advertisers, but as we have seen, those perceptions are not always robust. By the time the market gathered for the V-Twin Expo in 2011 it had become apparent that those perceptions were off, and the downward trend in exhibitor numbers and attendance accelerated to such an extent that the very viability of the show and distance to the bottom of the U-Curve were called into question. hile there were several further notable exhibitor absences from the show again this year, there was nonetheless a sprinkling of returnees and even some new exhibitors. What is more, the upward trend in advance dealer registrations recorded by the organizers as long ago as October and November, while not resulting in hall capacity being challenged, did at least make for busy enough aisles at key times, even if that was in part due to compact show geometry. The underlying good news is that while the bottom of the cycle's U-Curve has proven both wider and bumpier than hoped for, if V-Twin Expo does send any kind of signal, then regardless of the (now diminishing band of) naysayers, the one message to come out of the show louder and clearer than ever in recent years is that the formula, as refined in timing and duration terms, is still valid and that there certainly is "business to be done out there" now, even if it remains less and different to "the way we were". taples remain king, along with performance and tuning and all things Tourer. Indeed if new product initiatives are a test of market recovery (and I firmly believe they are) then the rapid development of the EFI tuning and diagnostics sector, the return to profile of items such as blowers, hop-up kits and replacement engine components, and the preponderance of new lines catering to the custom bagger and touring audio sectors, suggest that innovation is back - new product development budgets are being found and spent. Along with brand identity and profile maintenance, such investments have always been the two most important spends for businesses to make during a downturn. W S 4 AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - MARCH 2014 If you can't sell as much product, you sure as heck can sell brand values when times are tight (and generally more economically than when budgets are flowing like milk and honey), and if you can sell anything, then it sure as heck isn't going to be what you were selling before - because people have stopped buying that. his time honored and oft proven economic truism, this established equation of downtown and recovery cycle math, is now being seen loud and clear in the V-Twin parts and accessory market. Those who have stood their ground in show and advertising terms, and who are making sure that they are offering the products that people want to buy, are seeing their boats float first and fastest. For our part we are seeing this in our business. While we here at AMD Magazine have been immeasurably less vulnerable to the marketing spend decline that pretty much all other motorcycle media of all kinds everywhere have seen, we are though now eyeing better prospects for the 24 months ahead than has been the case at any time since 2010, and that is in no small part due to our own observance of the formula. While we have had to house-keep just as carefully (and sometimes just as drastically) as everyone else, at no time have we taken our eye off the ball in terms of brand profile and values; neither have we chickened out of new initiative investment - BIG BIKE EUROPE and our recently launched weekly online news service American Motorcycle Design being just two such cases in point from our own humble little backwater of motorcycle industry commerce. In our case our commodity isn't service, performance or bolt-on items, it is information. If there is a third wheel on the machine in addition to brand profile and new products, if there is an oil for the engine other than capital, then it is information. his year our company will write, design and distribute more pages containing more information of more kinds for more people in more sectors of the motorcycle industry than any other information provider. We've kept that going throughout the downturn in an exact mirror image of the plays that the smartest vendors have been making throughout the past five, six or seven years, and just as the exhibitors at this year's V-Twin Expo have done, having ridden-out the cycle maybe, just maybe now we are starting to look upwards at the