Dec. 1, 2008 – A pricey but provocative marketing ploy

How far are you willing to go to better reach your targeted audience?
This is a pretty standard question for dealer principals and general managers as they examine their marketing plan for the coming year. But let me ask this question again for some of us who don’t read these words as much as read over them. How far are you willing, truly willing to go to reach your targeted market?
Probably not as far as Kevin Calmes did.
Calmes, who is part of a family owned dealership in Louisiana, ought to be enshrined in some sort of dealership hall of fame for taking marketing to another level. Another stratosphere.
Of course, once you find out how much he spent to achieve that, you may rescind that honor and shout out unrefrained comments like, “You’re kidding me!” “You can’t be serious…”
We’re serious, and so is Calmes, who spent more than $300,000 this summer to produce a rap music video about the Suzuki Hayabusa.
After you’re done hyperventilating, consider Calmes’ situation and then the extraordinary measures he took to try to improve them.
Calmes’ family owns a multibrand dealership in Denham Springs, La., which is in the heart of what he describes as the “Urban Community,” a term used in the South to describe the black population. Sport bikes are a huge part of the powersports market there. In fact, of the more than 1,300 units Calmes Motorsports sells annually, sport bikes are easily the top seller, with the Hayabusa being No. 1.
So it’s no surprise that when American Suzuki Motor Corp. launched a marketing program aimed at driving the Hayabusa to minority consumers, they picked Baton Rouge, which is next to Denham Springs, as one of the main sites. Calmes Motorsports, in fact, played host to an event that was part of that marketing campaign, which included the creation of Busabeats.com and murals in big cities across the U.S. showing Hayabusas and prominent rap stars.
Calmes says he and his staff appreciated Suzuki’s effort in marketing to the Urban Community but at the same time didn’t think it went far enough. “Nobody is rapping about a motorcycle,” Calmes said about Suzuki’s marketing campaign, adding “and the guy (the rapper) they brought down here for my (event) didn’t even know what a Hayabusa was.”
Calmes’ staff, including salesman and rapper Quentin Matthews, had similar strong opinions and decided something had to be done about it. So they wrote a rap song, entitled “Walk it like a motorbike,” and then made a music video. (See it at www.winahayabusa.com)
And we’re not talking about any kind of low-budget job here either.
The cast for the video alone numbered 60 people, including a director, two producers and a crew that recently finished filming on “Final Destination 4.”
When the music video was filmed, the dealership shut down — along with adjoining roads — while some 300 people gathered to watch.
Two days and 14 hours later, the video was shot.
Sometime later, the first of the bills began arriving, much to the dismay of Kevin’s father, Butch.
“When he got a $30,000 bill from the motel for housing 60 people for almost a week, he said, ‘What the hell?’” Calmes said, noting his father’s ire hasn’t necessarily diminished over time.
“He’s my neighbor, so I hear about it before work, after work …”
For those who are quick to side with the older Calmes generation, remember rapping in the South, especially in Calmes’ retail area, seems akin to country music and Nashville. Nothing is bigger, at least in terms of reaching that all-important consumer sector. The names of rappers who have come out of the South, Lil Wayne to name one, in recent years is a list that just keeps on growing.
And the results from the “Walk it like a motorbike” song and the music video, still in its infancy in terms of possibilities, are staggering. The song itself gets more than 2,000 hits per day on its Myspace.com page. Plus, Calmes is working on getting the video aired on BET, an affiliate of Black Entertainment Television. To do that, Calmes says, the song has to be played 250 times per week on national radio shows. So far, it’s only being played about 60 times per week, but Calmes says that is a result of the song’s limited distribution in Louisiana. Plans are being made to take it regional in order to achieve that 250 objective.
It’s an objective that seems otherworldly for a dealer to be focusing on, doesn’t it? But then, really reaching an underutilized consumer segment means taking some risks, both in terms of creativity and financially. And Calmes’ online success shows these risks should not be left solely to the OEMs.
Yes, the hotel bill might be staggering. The six-digit commitment even more so. But the chance at connecting with your target audience in a way that has nothing to do with the price tag of a vehicle? Priceless. psb
Neil Pascale is editor-in-chief of Powersports Business. He can be reached at npascale@affinitygroup.com.