Striking The Millennial Chord

Increasingly luxurybrands have to look for ways to connect with a younger, more individualistic consumer

- Pravin Palande

Anushriya Gulati sat on her own HarleyDavidson when she was 19 years old. It was a Street 750 which she got as a birthday gift. She rode the bike from the showroom in Chandigarh to her home in Dehradun. A couple of years later, in September 2014, she made the Kashmirto-Kanyakumari journey along with five other Harley-Davidson riders. This wasn’t a joyride: The objective of the trip was to create awareness about “saving the girl child”. In the three years since, she has clocked 70,000 kilometres, one of the few women in India to do so.

“I think it is all about this Harley-Davidson community. You become a part of the family from day one and nobody looks at you as a woman rider or a newbie. If you have a Harley-Davidson, then you are a part of the group,” says Gulati.

Harley-Davidson entered the Indian market in 2009 as a luxury bike maker, and has leveraged its identity as one that embraces freedom. “Harley-Davidson is about personal freedom. We have appealed to broad generations over 150 years. We connect to individuals and create brand experiences which range from bike rallies, rafting and swapping stories. We are the original social media club before

Facebook or Twitter,” says Peter Mackenzie, managing director, Harley-Davidson, India and China.

And therein lies the rub. Brands like HarleyDavidson have understood what customers want. Specifically, the millennials, an increasingly important segment for luxury brands. Take a recent Bain & Co report which projects that, by 2025, millennials and Generation Z will account for 45 percent of the global personal luxury goods market.