The Yamaha Super Tenere XT1200Z Big Thread

Jeez...I must have just teleported straight to age 56.

I love to ask the same question now and again so I can listen to the sound of silence.

I usually do it after a BMW troll makes an appearance.

Funny thing is, I had a chat with Nick at a UK bike show just before he went. He was promoting the trip at the time using a Yamaha supplied bike. IIRC, there were no mods done to the bike at all.
I asked him what he thought of the bike.
His answer: "Dunno, haven't sat on one yet".

Nut case !!!

I'll see if I can help you out with that in April....

Very funny but...

Price is not an excuse. This is s 15.000€ bike!! :eek1

Advertising is expensive, so companies don't do it unless:

1) They want to assure a successful launch of a new product
or
2) There is excess inventory building up that needs to be cleared.

So what does that tell us about the tenere? The market was probably hungry for a bike the the tenere, so it sold well during it's iniital launch and probably inventories have not gotten anywhere near the levels where "extra encouragement" is needed to move them. Companies don't waste money when they don't have to, and the fact that they are moving these bikes without flashy adds is nothing but good news in my book!

And what does that say about the bmw then? I'm not going to comment.

I don't agree, BMW sells so many and they still advertise

On the other hand, my dealer has had one sitting on the floor for a long time

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy II

OK, let's see...

- Ford's # 1 selling vehicle in the USA is their F-150 truck (in fact, it's the best selling vehicle in the country, period), and they spend a ton advertising it.
- GM's # 1 selling vehicle in the USA is their Chevy Silverado truck, and it has the highest advertising dollar percentage of all their vehicles
- Toyota's # 1 selling vehicle in the USA is their Camry, and what do they spend the most money advertising? Why, their Camry.
- Jeep's # 1 selling vehicle is the Grand Cherokee, and what do they spend their money advertising the most?
- Honda's # 1 selling car in the USA is their Accord, and it gets the majority of their advertising dollar spent.
- Honda's # 1 selling motorcycle in the USA is their Gold Wing, and they advertise it heavily.
- BMW's #1 selling car worldwide is their 3-series, and guess what?
- BMW's # 1 selling motorcycle worldwide is their big G/S, and it gets the majority of their advertising budget...

- Apple's # 1 selling product is the iPhone, and what do they advertise the most?


I could go on, but can you see a pattern here?

And my local Yamaha dealer has had a nice, brand new 2012 Yamaha Super Tenere sitting on his floor for 9 months, heavily discounted.

Dallara



~

You're not comparing apples to apples.

Advertising does come into play when you have a high volume product in a very highly competetive undustry (fast food, beer, banking, autos). But that doesn't apply to a market like the adv bikes.

It's possible that bmw produces many more bikes than yamaha in this class, so they have to make sure they move them all in a timely fashion, thus they advertise.

My point wasn't that if a product is being advertised it isn't a best seller. I'm just impressed that the tenere has not NEEDED advertising so far to be successful.

Now imagine what Yamaha could do if they really advertised, maybe the Tenere would become the new adventure bike for someone looking to do a round the world trip or a trip to Alaska

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy II

Nice dance move... And we're not talking fruit here. We're talking motorcycles, which are motor vehicles last i checked, just like the BMW G/S and the Honda Gold Wing.

I think it's safe to that Yamaha's FJR1300 sells in an equally small market niche as the Super Tenere, yet it gets more advertising dollars than the Tenere.

Using your logic, the Super Tenere was truly a "new product", and one I'm sure they wanted a "successful launch" of, yet advertising for the Super Tenere was almost non-existent in the USA, and certainly not as much as a simple rehash of the FJR has gotten.

Further, Yamaha was launching the Super Tenere into a market dominated by one brand/model - the BMW G/S. There were literally no other competitors. One would think Yamaha would have wanted as many potential *adventure* buyers as possible to know they were entering that market niche.

And now there is even another relatively major player entering that market niche - Triumph with it's new Explorer 1200 - and what is Triumph advertising the most heavily right now? Why, the 1200 Explorer!

Meanwhile there are numerous Yamaha dealers all over the USA with 2012 Super Tenere's sitting on the floor (I personally know of at 3 or 4 in South Texas, and you can see plenty more on Cycle Trader, eBay, etc.), yet no advertising gets spent on the Super Tenere. Have you seen even one ad showing the new colors for 2013?

All this reminds me of an interesting story I heard back when I was in the car business...

William Wrigley, Jr., of Wrigley chewing gum fame, was giving an interview while riding on a train. The journalist interviewing him commented that Wrigley's products were the best selling in the world yet Wrigley still spent massive amounts of money advertising. So then he asked him "If your chewing gum is the best selling in the world why do you spend so much more than your competitors on advertising?" Wrigley simply smiled and said, "Here we are, traveling on a train going over 60 MPH... Do you now suggest we unhook the engine?"

Advertising *drives* product. You can have the best product in the world, but if not enough potential buyers know about then it is destined to fail...

See Yamaha TDM850 for just one example.

Dallara



~

It's even worse in Canada where the Tenere has not had much sales success. Most dealers up here are stuck with them sitting on the sales floor too and yet the GS continues to sell well at a much higher price.

I'm not sure if advertising will be much help.

Well, it's pretty safe to say that both of them - the G/S and the Super Tenere - both sell better than the KTM 990 and its brethren...

Of course, both are more reliable than the Katoom... even the BMW!

Dallara



~

Our local KTM/Yamaha dealer has sold out all his 990's & Tenere's. GS's are like arseholes, everybody has one. All my BMW's were garage whores. Always at the dealer for recalls or warranty work. My 3 KTM's never saw the dealer after I bought them. (two 950's & 990)

I have no idea what y'all are goin' back-and-forth about. However, from my skimming of the posts, it brought something to mind that has always stayed with me (in regard to the ST).

When the H-D execs pooled their cash, and bought H-D from AMF (thereby resurrecting The Motor Company), they focused (aggressively) on three major things...

-R&D,

-QA/QC, and

-Advertising

And, when I post "advertising", I'm not talkin' the run-of-the-mill stuff that we see on a daily basis. Their marketing folks set-out to sell the "lifestyle". Their main focus was to make you believe that your life was shit...and that an H-D was the only thing that could change all that.

No matter what you feel about H-D (Personally, I love 'em, and bleed Orange&Black.), their marketing was PURE FUKKIN' GENIUS.




Now, getting back to the ST...

I have travelled the world (maybe not as much as some, but quite a bit, nonetheless). And, if there's one thing I have noticed, it's that we Americans are (many times) looked at as the big, dumb jock: not very smart, but can lift heavy things.

So, bearing that view in mind, we miss a lot of the cool stuff/designs that are offered in many countries. In fact, when I heard about the ST coming to the States, I was quite surprised, and thought, "That shit will never sell, here: not because it's junk, but because most folks don't know what the hell it is, and don't realize that they want (need) one."

After having that epiphany, I saw the below commercial. In my very humble opinion, if Yamaha woulda' advertised like this in the States, and sold the "lifestyle" instead of just the bike, the dealers woulda' been in the same spot as all the gun dealers, right now: sold-out, cash-rich, and frustrated...


<IFRAME height=315 src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MqI1Hzd7ABQ" frameBorder=0 width=560 allowfullscreen></IFRAME>

Amen to that, Bruddah! Amen!

One thing, though... Don't let Pluric see those shots of that Super Tenere in the sand. He'll crash his office chair just watchin' it!

Dallara



~

"I've fallen, and I can't get-up..." pluric





.

Just out of curiosity, if you don't mind my asking...

How many miles did you put on each of the KTM's?

Thanks1

Dallara



~

Forgive my ignorance here, but as I recall, Yamaha didn't release the S-10 in North American. We weren't on their radar as a market. They had no intention of taking on BMW here. We BEGGED Yamaha to bring it here, and they didn't. They treated the S-10 like the initial FJR sales in NA - you had to pre-order it. Then, finally, Yamaha began to ship inventory stock (of FJR's) to the US and Canada (after 3 or 4 years???).

So, the S-10 never had an advertising budget or marketing campaign in NA because they were just meeting the (by Yamaha standards) "small demand" without the added expense of marketing. They don't expect to sell large numbers of the bike here; they really aren't trying to challenge the BMW R1200GS in this market. So even when those of us who buy it really love it, Yamaha gets a self-fulfilling prophecy of not selling many units.

It is a matter of corporate expectations, or perhaps "corporate blinders". They don't see themselves as an ADV manufacturer in NA. We only get the WRR/X, not the 250 Tenere (made where? Brazil?), or the 660 Tenere (made in Italy, so the cost of production is relatively high if they were to ship the NA, but shipping is relatively low in the local target market of the EU). If all of the S-10 production capacity (world-wide) is already consumed, then Yamaha doesn't want higher demand in NA, and I'll bet that Yamaha is selling every unit that they can build in other markets - a lone 2012 sitting for 9 months in Texas notwithstanding (what is that dealer's phone number again?).

Just my $.02. I hope that Yamaha changes their attitude in NA, because they alone have all the pieces on the board to really change the game. And new triples on the way, on top of that! I believe that Yamaha needs a broader, but no less sharp, focus on sub-markets in NA. But maybe they are just too busy to care right now.

The 660 would be very cool here in the USA, but has to compete with the V-strom's in price... That's going to be tuff..

Dallara: Your post was longwinded, with a lot of content but I have no idea where you're going with any of it. If you don't see the difference between low volume specialty products and commoditiezed large volume products, then this is a very difficult discussion to have with you. The next time you can pick up a Tenere next to the bubble gum at your local convenience store check out, you let me know. This isn't about dance moves, although I admit, mine are pretty good.

Gryphon12: . What you say actually helps to make sense out of the way Yamaha introduced the S10 onto our market. It does seem like maybe Yamaha is quietly testing the waters in this niche bike segment. That's some interesting new information, you got me intriqued, I'll have to see if there's any additional info out about that.