Great Show… don’t be fooled by the market stats!This 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.
‘V to V’ is our new black
New 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 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.
For 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!
