The automotive world must reject the toxic political marketing chosen by Indian Motorcycle
I’ve often thought, and sometimes written, that politics could learn a thing or two from the automotive industry when it comes to advertising.
Car adverts tend not to shout down or abuse competitors; rather they big-up the virtues of their own product. They try to sell me something: a benefit, an idea, a dream. Even if the dream is just that I too could be going surfing with beautiful companions in a compact crossover. An aspiration is an aspiration.
Lately, politics has spent rather too much time doing the opposite. Rather than pitch me an ideal, often it will tell me I’m wrong for liking a particular policy or a person it opposes. Rather than acknowledging that, yes, perhaps everyone has a point, but this is our dream, it’s too often argued that there is only one true way, and that those who think differently are several kinds of numpty.
This is not a compelling way to change somebody’s mind, incidentally. Automotive, bluntly, does better marketing and advertising.
Until today. Now, this column contains motorcycles, but before you comment, it’s not actually about motorcycles; it’s about the insidious creep of politics into an arena I had rather hoped it would avoid.
Recently Indian Motorcycle – an American motorcycle maker whose bikes I like a great deal – launched an extraordinary broadside against its chief rival, Harley-Davidson.
“The culture is not confused. Neither are we,’ says the caption on its video. “Harley hired a CEO from a pizza company,” the script begins, about Harley’s new CEO, Artie Starrs, who was formerly CEO of Topgolf and Pizza Hut. “Indian chose a lifetime industry veteran and avid motorcycle rider,” it continues about its new CEO Mike Kennedy, who until 2018 had spent 28 years working at Harley and who was appointed after Indian’s sale by Polaris to private equity firm Carolwood LP in February.
“They chase electric bikes and moved production to Thailand,” the ad says about Harley. And Harley does build things overseas, albeit predominantly for export. “We built PowerPlus engines and American bikes right here in Spirit Lake, lowa.” Yet Indian had overseas production too, in Vietnam and Poland, although it has now ended.
Then comes the really divisive stuff: the politics. “They chase political trends,” it goes on, highlighting Harley’s DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) programmes, which Harley felt obliged to wind down in 2024. “We back the people who matter,” says Indian, in what it presumably thinks is an enigmatic way.
This follows Indian’s appointment in February of Noise Media as its paid media agency – the people who pay influencers and celebrities to push a message. “The brand is entering a new era-one focused on sharpening its position, reconnecting with its roots and showing up with renewed confidence as the OG American motorcycle brand,” said Noise at the time.
Then it added, in a paragraph since deleted from its press release (but archived, because the internet is forever), that it would be “working closely with Brad Parscale, President Trump’s ex-campaign manager, who is leading Indian Motorcycle’s wider brand and positioning work. Brad is setting the vision for how the brand returns to what made it iconic, and our role at Noise is to help bring that to life through paid media.”
This is the stuff I find so tiresome: ‘culture’ and ‘politics’ brought into an area that simply doesn’t need it. I hope that Indian and the wider bike and car industry will see it for what it is: a grim piece of marketing and advertising aiming to stoke division in an arena where, frankly, there isn’t room for it.
Whether it’s cars or motorcycles, there aren’t enough of us loving the hobby to stoke and inflame the differences between us. Because it matters so little to us. I own a classic car literally commissioned by the literal biggest Nazi of all time. And yet nobody in the automotive industry has thus far thought to bring politics into Beetle ownership.
I don’t want to label myself, or be labelled, as a libtard for choosing a Harley-Davidson or a fascist for choosing an Indian. I just want to ride a motorcycle and drive a car. Keep politics, culture wars and division out of my hobby.