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Meh, at least HD had a strategy and executed it. The Motor Company has a market cap of nearly $9 Billion, so you can rank on their bikes and lifestyle marketing, but I've never met anyone with a Polaris tattoo....
And they've identified an explicit strategy to target M's. Harley-Davidson Rebrands Itself To Reach Millennial Generation : NPR
Of necessity I had to research Gen Y's because we were hiring them (and raising three). It just proved to me that "In general, you can't generalize." Of a dozen, there was really only one who represented the stereotype, including the "gig economy." After some missteps we put him to work making training and marketing videos, and he did a fantastic job. And it was Y's who did most of the heavy lifting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the career officers I know think well of them and their efforts.
Boomers seem to work with them better than Xers, but that may be my limited experience. This thread does seem to demonstrate Xers ain't got time for that.
I see quite a few what look like new riders on new bikes in Boston. But scooters are far more popular.
Last edited by Garandman; 07-12-17 at 11:39 AM.
Between the cost of living in metro areas of New England, the cost of education(s), the relatively stagnant entry level office wages, and presumably a shortage of people entering the trades, I've noticed a lot of people outside metro areas working trades since they were 18 enjoy a decent standard of living.
We all remember when we hear debt numbers in the $100k+ range, but I think the average debt is something like $25k. In my opinion, that's because plenty of people go to state schools, commute, or someone else paid part/all of the tab. That might have been a national number. I wonder what more local averages are.
nedirtriders.com
2012 Tiger 800 XC
I had debt. I don't know if it qualifies as "a lot" or "a little". I estimate my post-school debt was equal to about 50% of my first gross salary.
I graduated with a tech degree right as the tech bubble was imploding.
I still had bikes. Took my sign-on bonus and first two paychecks and threw them at my local Suzuki dealer.
You pretty much have to put in 10 years of hard work to move up the ladder, or 5+ years and an advanced degree, to make a lot of money these days.
This means entering the workforce (or hitting your stride if you go back for that extra degree) at a lower pay, or later in life, or both, compared to the past... and doing so with significant debt. But it's a pay to play game. I know college is hotly debated on this forum but for the majority of folks, it's needed to get a job these days. Plain and simple. Working hard or adding degrees, or both, is needed to differentiate and move up.
I'm lucky enough to only have debt remaining from one of my three degrees, which cost 100k. If i had all the debt from all three, no way would I be a homeowner or a motorcycle racer... probably be a poor chump in a shitty 4 bed apartment with 3 other poor chumps.
Zip-Tie Alley Racing
LRRS/CCS #103
PPS | Dunlop | Boston Moto | Woodcraft & Armour Bodies | 35 Motorsports | Pit Bull | K&N
I'm not regurgitating some stories I heard from gramps. I'm an eyewitness. A barely old enough to be a young eyewitness. Not to the dawn of computers, obviously, but to the proliferation of portable devices and the Internet. Freshman year of college at Clarkson in '83, it was a big groundbreaking move for Clarkson and I think one other university in the US...case western maybe?...to supply each entering student with a PC (a zenith, running Z-dos) and some of us were bummed that the school didn't choose to use software from some new better company called Microsoft. Pretty sure I remember making some statement to my mom (systems engineer for IBM at the time) about how PCs were a unnecessary luxury. <self head slap> I was messing around with stocks already, could've bought Microsoft stock then...or Amazon or Dell or EBay later. I'm still not saying the proliferation is good for society or that my initial impression of PCs was wrong; I'm saying I could've gotten rich from it. Just like some of you are...
It's not everywhere, this decline in real face to face interaction and going outside and riding motorcycles and using a screwdriver or wrench for once, at all. But it's here. Not so much here on this forum , because we all have riding in common...but take an informal poll, anywhere, of how many younger people...or even older people...are interacting with others or doing stuff with their hands vs faces buried in the phone or at home on their ass connecting away. Now imagine if the wired up choice didn't even exist. It was either do shit, or watch 3 channels of drivel in black and white. Not too many people chose the drivel, at least not when the sun was out.
Granted, I'm a hypocrite to complain about the internet on the internet, but I can see I've hit a nerve with all the folks making a living from IT, here...Blasphemy to suggest it all sucks, right?
I won't be able to respond to any grampattacks in response to this post, sorry...I'm leaving for grey fox festival, where the 8000 people there thankfully overwhelm the one cell phone tower in the area, so no one's really connected for the next five days...
Last edited by Imbeek; 07-12-17 at 12:47 PM.
That's a good point.
I came out of the gate 53k in the hole. In-state school, includes housing. I don't think I'd do it differently if I had the choice. Except maybe the last two years I should have bought a trailer home or cheap condo. But a few years from now, I think there's going to be a drop in the expectation/demand for degrees as part of the hiring process. They've been overvalued.
When I was an intern, a manager who's kid was applying to colleges was half-seriously calculating the amount of money he was going to spend on 4 years of private school and putting in a stock fund for the kid instead. Tell the kid to find their way in to a job path without the degree knowing that money was snowballing.
nedirtriders.com
I feel that generalizing an entire generation based on how the 20people u saw were is not a great idea. I am 23yrs old and that fits me in GenY. I graduated with a masters degree this year and have 100K debt to my name. My gross income(first ever job) is around more than half of my debt. My signing bonus and initial months of salary went to a nearby kawasaki stealership and I am happily roaming the streets of New England everyday after 4PM. Another three classmates of mine did the same thing with their first pay-stubs. Among 6 friends(including me) three of us bought bikes within first 5months of our first job. So, I guess it just depends on what kind of friends you have.
If anyone is interested in the “Brands” we millennials bought,
One HD-1650miles in 1month
2 Kawasaki-2100miles each in 1month.
So obviously we didn’t buy them to show off on social media. We bought them because of passion we have towards riding.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Last edited by abhi9cr7; 07-12-17 at 02:11 PM.
State by State Data 2015 | The Institute For College Access and Success
MA average: $29,391
NH: $33,410
Assuming ~2% inflation, that's right about right compared to the debt I had when I graduated.
Still not seeing what the BFD is..
Looks like they're including those with $0 in the average?
That kinda debt isn't a huge deal if you're entering a job field that has decent starting wages and stability. Like the various science/engineering/computer jobs. But there's a whole ton of millennials who were told 'you have to go to school, that's the only way any one will get a job', and then to ensure that prophecy was foretold, their baby boomer parents didn't want to hire floor sweeps without a degree.
I believe residential costs, especially in this region, have outpaced inflation. Though I'm not sure that adds up if inflation is supposed to be a composite of all those values. Then I believe average starting pay has not increased at inflation pace, though I haven't looked at data about it in a while.
nedirtriders.com
Yeah, the job requirements have become ridiculous over the past 50 years. Few vocations require 4 years of university training. However, I don't think it was a concerted effort to make sure people went to college (assuming some hyperbole there). In the few years post-WWII, only around 5% of Americans had a 4-year degree, and in 2010 it was just over 30%. Basically, a college degree doesn't necessarily give you an edge over the entry level job population (college degree rate likely much higher for people in their 20s) anymore. Boomer employers can afford to be picky because they have multitudes of people in their 20s and 30s with college degrees waiting in the wings. We need to start looking at the economic value of the education instead of just accepting it as part of life. I graduated in 2004 and the 2017-2018 tuition, compared to my first year tuition, has over doubled. I can confidently say that the starting salary for my particular field has not risen at a fraction of that rate. If I were faced with the same decision now, I couldn't justify that kind of return.
Also probably true. We're living in a period where capital resources are valued more than human resources, so one outpaced the other handily over the past few decades. Not making a moral judgement about it, but it's just how the myriad of economic factors are working out.
2004 SV650S
05GSXR75005SV65090DR350
A great post from the FZ1 forum:
"Well Harley is certainly trying to appeal to millennials by blaming someone else for something that is their own fault."
That's the American way. It is, by no means, unique to a specific age bracket.
Cliff's Cycles KTM
NETRA enduro B-vet
Close your eyes, look deep in your soul, step outside yourself and let your mind go.
Dad's Dream: Earn enough money to live the life that his wife and kids do.
I don't know how to respond to that without sounding like a complete asshole.
You know you have to fix that, right? For not just him and you, but for society.
I'm still relatively new to the whole parenting thing, so take that for what it's worth.
Cliff's Cycles KTM
NETRA enduro B-vet
Close your eyes, look deep in your soul, step outside yourself and let your mind go.
Pretty much all of the legitimate research I've seen in my job on millennials points to social media and it's tremendous impact on individual perception. When you start to wrap your head around the mentality of the millennial generation it becomes easy to see how it mostly stems from the fact that they are regularly being exposed to a constructed reality through Facebook, Instagram, etc.
When I was young Saturdays were about venturing out and finding something to do. This process led to all kinds of great experiences that shaped my life. Now, the need to explore and learn through experience is severely diminished when you can figure things out with your fingertips by jumping on the web through your phone (which is on you at all times). These days, kids learn "cool" things to do by what's seeing what's posted on Facebook etc. They see it, decide it's fun, and do it. This is very different from not knowing what the rest of the world is doing and therefore having to explore and figure things out for yourself.
As a result they are a generation heavily influenced by marketing. Generally speaking they respond to what they are told. Find a campaign that works with them and you've struck gold. While this is true for any demographic, the effect is amplified to a much greater level with millennials. The key to good marketing for this generation is being aligned with what they are looking at. That means using the right channels and shaping the message in a way that is consistent with everything else they are seeing within those channels.
In regards to motorcycles specifically...In this case I think economics is definitely factor but at the same time I don't see the kind of marketing that's necessary to reach millennials happening in the industry. Then again, it seems Harley may be going in the right direction so we will soon see.
Yes, completely and believe me it is something that my wife and I work on to the nth degree. We are only parents though, we know little to nothing in his eyes. I had always heard about the extremely strong influence of peers but until I witnessed it, I didn't know the true implications. If you see your child spending time with kids that have characteristics of which you do not approve, you should "influence" your child to spend limited time there. They will develop similar qualities. We have found this out the hard way and are slowly but surely correcting said issues. Funny thing about parenting, you never learn how to do it, it seems to be a constantly adapting role.
Dad's Dream: Earn enough money to live the life that his wife and kids do.