The challenge
Harley-Davidson is one of the most protected brands on earth. As an official franchise dealership, Road & Sport had to honour strict global brand standards while still winning attention in its own market against 51 other dealerships across Australia and New Zealand competing for the same corporate recognition, and against every other way a customer could spend a significant discretionary purchase.
The marketing function was mine end to end: research, strategy, budget, creative, events, digital and reporting.
What I did
- Turned the community into the channel. Social media and influencer marketing built around riders, rides and the dealership's own events, growing engagement by 75%.
- Executed every layer of the marketing mix. Market research, campaign development, materials creation, retail execution and performance analysis, keeping global brand standards intact while giving the store a local voice.
- Ran the commercial machinery. Marketing budget, competitive analysis, copywriting, website maintenance, CRM and event management, the complete operational stack behind the creative.
- Made events the heartbeat. Ride-outs, launches and in-store experiences that converted brand love into showroom traffic and sales conversations.
The results
- Key contributor to winning "Dealership of the Year" out of 52 AU/NZ locations
- 75% growth in social media and influencer engagement
- A repeatable local marketing system inside one of the world's strictest brand frameworks
Why it matters
Working inside Harley-Davidson's brand framework taught me discipline: how to be creative within guardrails, how to build community-led marketing, and how to make a local business outperform its peers with the same brand toolkit. That discipline has carried through every multi-brand portfolio since.