Harley-Davidson Advertising

Harley-Davidson's advertising has become something of an art form in itself. The Milwaukee advertising firm of Klaus, Van Peterson and Dunlop obtained the Harley-Davidson contract in 1907, and incredibly kept it for the next 50 years. Not until well after the AMF takeover was there a serious change in advertising policy, but when there was, it caused a serious rift with AMF. In 1976 AMF hired the prestigious Chicago advertising agency, Benton & Bowles, for all its recreational subsidiaries, of which Harley-Davidson was one. All Harley-Davidson national advertisements now had to adhere to strict guidelines. The trouble was that B & B had no experience of the motorcycle market, and the advertisements it produced were unsuitable. Harley-Davidson got around this by expanding other forms of publicity, such as dealer co-operative schemes, and direct mail. This was not popular with AMF, particularly when Harley-Davidson placed a full-page ad in Easyriders magazine for, at the time, AMF wanted to distance itself from the 'outlaw' end of the market. In the end, the parent company relented, and put Harley-Davidson back in charge of its own advertising budget.