International Dealer News IDN 140 December 2017 / January 2018 | Page 4
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COMMENT • COMMENT • COMMENT • COMMENT • COMMENT • COMMENT •
Great Show…don’t be
fooled by the market stats!
his year’s EICMA was the best ‘Milan Show’ experience
we here at IDN have had for at least a decade. To judge
by the smiles on the faces among the exhibiting vendor
community, we are not alone in that opinion. The show
was busy and, compared to recent years full, with a lot less open
spaces in the halls. Some of that may be a result of better show
floor planning but, mostly it has to do with a larger exhibitor
count.
While there are still a growing number of once regular exhibitors who are
staying away, and while there still is turnover with more regulars leaving the
show again this year, returnees and a slew of new businesses meant there
was plenty for dealers to see – and that included a major outbreak of new
motorcycle models and new parts and accessory
product introductions, more than I can remember
for a long time.
While it is the new bike launches by the major
manufacturers that are the “sexy headline” from
the organiser’s perspective, in motorcycle terms
it was the higher than ever number of new,
comeback and start-up brands that is the real
story in terms of industry (and show) health. There
are an ever-increasing number of Asian
manufacturers making an ever more convincing
play for a place in the European motorcycle
market, an ever-increasing number of three and four-wheel vehicle projects
(European and otherwise) and an ever-increasing number of E-vehicle brands,
all adding to an increased critical mass.
ew products mean increased investments in marketing and R&D. These
have always been the twin pillars of downturn survival, and of prospering,
once better times return. The relativities of business performances can be very
precisely calibrated against investments in brand profile and new product
initiatives through any soft market, and in the more favourable economic
conditions we see in the Euro currency zone in particular now.
There is no question that the vendors we now see “shaking trees” at industry
events such as EICMA and INTERMOT are those who have been, and now are
consistently, making those investments.
The same is just as true in parts, accessory and apparel terms, and in case
anyone thinks that shapes and colourways are the only new product options
left for a mature industry, think again. We may think that we have seen it all
before, that there is only so much left to be invented, but capitalism and the
history and evolution of commerce doesn’t work like that.
Advances in manufacturing techniques and efficiencies, materials
developments and use and, above all, the impact that the electronics industry
is having on the transport industry, are all conspiring to create what
T
eventually will be judged to have been a fundamental re-boot.
One fuelled almost entirely by the expectations that the emerging generations
of consumers who know only a digital world are having on riding and
ownership expectations. Their transition from screen potatoes to gainful
employ to consumers, and therefore to fully functioning citizens, is as assured
as that of any generation. As usual it will be their values that will pave the
way to a mid-21st century motorcycle industry that in its own way will be just
as radically different to the one that those same processes shaped in the 20th
century.
They will make their own experiences, and a fair proportion of them will buy
into doing so on two wheels, provided we give them the equipment that meets
their expectations, which we now are starting to do. As consumers, and
nobody must overlook the fact that they are
going to be not just the largest consumer cohort
ever to emerge, in numerical terms, but also the
most “savvy” in terms of what their money is
buying them.
or our future generations of customers,
premium will be the new entry level and
experience the new buying hot button. However,
they will be the ones deciding what that
experience is, what it looks, feels, tastes and
smells like, not the vendor.
The only limitations they will be prepared to buy
into is that of their own imaginations, not that of the factory’s kit. Inspiring
those imaginations is the “new black” where marketing is concerned, and
their visions of what lies beyond product purchase will define new product
features.
Impressive though the developments taking place right now are in the context
of the past 30, 40 and 50 years, and equally impressive though those currently
being talked about for the near to mid-term future also are, we are still only
at the start of this story. So, I think that much of the speculation about where
transport policy will take us in the next 30, 40 and 50 years is misplaced. A
more meaningful analysis would be of where consumers will want to take
their transport policy – if we have one then, it is ‘V-to V’, that is our new black!
‘V to V’ is
our new
black
N
F
Robin Bradley
Publisher
[email protected]