Yamaha’s marketing just got weirder
Firm creates fictional department and staff to help sell bikes
A WEEK ago Yamaha launched its ‘Revstation’ teaser website – showing glimpses of the Tricity three-wheeled scooter and the much-anticipated R25 sports bike and featuring a clock counting down the seconds until all would be revealed.
Understandably, the expectation was that the firm would reveal the bikes shown in the teaser when the clock reached zero. But that’s not quite what happened. Sure, the firm has now launched the production version of the Tricity, but there’s no sign of the R25 and the ‘big unveiling’ wasn’t a bike at all. No, it was a set of made-up characters – all blatant rip-offs from existing genres – which the firm is pretending designed and built these new machines
What?
Yes. It seems Yamaha has decided that, because sci-fi and superhero movies are the flavour of the month in Hollywood at the moment, we all want to be told that a bunch of ripped-off, imaginary characters are the team behind Yamaha’s bikes.
You can see the full horror here, but in brief there’s an emotionless android called Trika as the PR manager (cue chuckles from the world’s press and constant taunting for every real Yamaha PR from here until the end of time). Then there’s an ‘outstanding young engineer’ called Nick, who ‘continues pursuing his dream of creating a machine that will thrill the entire world.’ So far, he’s been credited with the Tricity, a 125cc three-wheeler, so we’re not being too harsh when we suggest he needs to keep trying for that dream…
Of course there’s a stylist, called Skape, who seems to be a bit short on character, and a chief engineer, Dr Troy, who plays the violin and wears inexplicable, glowing red earmuffs. Oh, and there’s a test rider, called RT, who never removes his helmet, which goes to prove that even the lunatics at Yamaha who come up with this guff watch Top Gear.
The whole thing is put together in a series of videos. Episode one is out so far, with acting that lies somewhere between laughable and cringe-worthy and a soundtrack that desperately tries to impart drama to a plot that’s essentially the story of a man making a fairly ordinary three-wheeled scooter for commuters.
Yamaha, you’ve been making some awesome bikes recently, but please, stick to giving us more like the MT-09 and MT-07 and leave movie-making Hollywood. Oh, and where’s that R25 gone?
