On The Gas Again
It has to be said that in the course of the past two or three months, the thought of the May 5, 2026, the unveiling of yet another new Harley-Davidson strategic plan hasn't exactly been filling me with the warm and fuzzies.
Since the cohort of managers who were a part of the 1981-1984-1986 'revolution' aged out and institutional memory got replaced by 'my way or the highway' résumé stuffing self-aggrandizement, Harley's Heritage has not been in safe hands.
Indeed, and especially since the mojo of the legendary messaging that Carmichael Lynch brought to Juneau Avenue had disappeared from the rear-view mirror, Harley's marketing especially has just gotten progressively poorer, misguided and ill-judged.
However, as one who is always prepared to admit I was wrong, indeed as someone who lives in the hope of other people showing me 'better ways', am I about to rediscover the thrill and excitement of being close to a brand that seems to matter, have meaning and reflect positively on ones endeavors?
I remember feeling that way when I first stumbled into the motorcycle industry in the late 1980s and found myself internalising what the brand had meant in those heady days - through the noughties and since - even while wring ever more acerbically about just how badly all Harley's wheels had come off in recent years.
Despite it all I am still here, and, like so many other thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands, millions even, who long for 'the good old days', am I, are we, about to have our loyalty and faith repaid?
please sir, can I have my shares back?
That's not say that I am one of those idiots who wants the world to look and feel how they mistakenly think it did in the 1970s, and '80s and '90s, far from it. I am an apostle of change. I'm with Steve Jobs when it comes to viewing the importance of the passage time being a force for change and for change being the sole force of good. In my world view evolution is the way of the world, evolution is growth and Darwin was as much an economist as evolutionary biologist.
However, I am one for bringing the best of what we had along for the ride whilst jettisoning and re-inventing that which is no longer advantageous, appropriate, or apposite.
When Harley announced (December 2025) that their then new CEO Artie Starrs moved to re-build his management team, there were several appointments that sounded especially promising.
Among them Matt Ryan joining in a newly re-built combo capacity heading up Marketing and Tech, and a former Carmichael Lynch executive, Marcus Fischer, joined as Chief Brand Officer both got my attention.
That was the same tranche of announcements that saw Karen Davidson confirmed as a Brand Ambassador and her brother Bill Davidson ensconced in a Juneau Avenue office alongside Artie Starrs as Brand Ambassador and Special Advisor to the CEO. As sure as heck this latest turn of the Harley marketing wheel rolled through his office – you can just tell.
Fast forward to April 2026, and the first insight into the direction of travel that the new Strategic Plan will take, with the announcement of 'RIDE' as a new Brand Platform that anchors the future in the past without throwing away what Harley's heritage can still mean if it is handled carefully, professionally, optimistically. If it is seen as a Brand Benefit rather than Brand Baggage.
As Artie Starrs is quoted as saying: "I'm thrilled to launch the RIDE platform as a full reset of the brand ahead of our company strategy rollout in May. It celebrates the fun and joy people experience riding the world's greatest motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson."
It is often in the nature of things that unless you are reading this Op-Ed in the online digital version of the edition, by the time most of you have your copy of the reassuringly 'pure' presence of the print edition, the May 5 announcement will have been and gone and, with a bit of luck, have appeared blindingly obvious, have been welcomed and stamped with a big fat HURRAH!
However, if you have not yet seen the 'RIDE' launch video, find it and then think about how different it is to the garbage that has passed for progressive brand management in the past fifteen years. It wasn't, but this is.
The Zeitz era, especially, was embarrassed about the heritage and the past and couldn't distance itself from the real, rider owned brand love that is Harley's primary asset. Possibly even more so than the sound of the 45-degree V-twin.
What the new marketing team have managed to do is to walk the line between over- and under-investing in past and future, rejecting an aging out customer base in favor of 'newbies' and manage to achieve the remarkable feat of presenting the past as of value and importance to the new, and of looking forward through the lens of what has been.
As Harley is saying, "RIDE is turning the page to the company's next chapter - one that celebrates riders who have been with The Motor Company from the beginning and those ready to join in."
The video itself, to the soundtrack of 'On The Road Agan' (Willie Nelson's song of that name, as opposed to Canned Heat's 1968 homage to Floyd Jones and Tommy Johnson) is only just over a minute long – but there is enough in the production values and authenticity to say it all really.
Yes, they get it. This management team may not be life-long riders or motorcycle industry or Harley-Davidson insiders, but I have always said that understanding a brand is not "all about me" (in the way that Zeitz and his team clearly thought it was) it is all about respect for what you can learn by listening to others.
Zeitz and his outsiders thought that knew best and that they could take Harley forward as a business by cutting the umbilical cords that attached the brand to the customers and dealers who, in effect, owned it. The existing customer and dealer footprint was part of the problem, not the opportunity.
Artie Starrs and his Band of Brothers look set to do the opposite - humble, not hubris.
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