Harley-Davidson advertising: the ad line rose 41 percent while revenue fell, and the company's own filing says what it is for

Harley-Davidson spent 184.7 million dollars on advertising in 2025, up from 136.7 million in 2024 and 131.0 million in 2023. Those three figures come from the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025, filed on 26 February 2026 and read on 20 October 2026. Over the same three years total revenue went the other way: 5.836 billion dollars in 2023, 5.187 billion in 2024, 4.473 billion in 2025. So advertising moved from about 2.2 percent of revenue to about 4.1 percent in two years while the top line shrank. The more interesting sentence in the filing is the one describing how demand is created at all: awareness, interest and advocacy happen, in the company's own words, "primarily through consumer events, digital marketing and social media as well as more traditional promotional and advertising activities". Advertising is named last.

What the 184.7 million dollar line actually contains

Before using any public company's advertising figure as a yardstick, read what the company says is in it. Harley-Davidson's filing defines marketing and advertising expenses as costs "related to digital and print media, social media, website maintenance, consumer experiences, product placement, sponsorships and market research".

Website maintenance and market research are in there. So are events and sponsorships. That is a demand-creation budget rather than a media budget, and it is the reason comparing your own media spend against a reported advertising line is almost always comparing two different things. If you want a like for like number, build your own line with the same definition and label it.

One accounting detail is worth knowing because it changes which year a campaign lands in: the filing states that production cost is expensed the first time the advertising takes place, inside selling, administrative and engineering expense. A film shot and paid for in December and first run in January is a January cost.

Three systems create the demand, and advertising is the smallest

Read the filing as a description of machinery rather than as a financial statement and three separate engines appear. Each one is funded differently, and two of them earn money rather than costing it.

System	What the filing says it does	How it is funded
Trademark licensing	Creates "reach and awareness of the Harley-Davidson brand among its customers and the non-riding public" by licensing the name and marks for use on other companies' products	It is a revenue line. Royalties are recognised as the licensees' own sales happen
Membership, riding and events	The Harley Owners Group, H-D Membership and the Harley-Davidson Riding Academy, which together "focus on connecting Harley-Davidson riders, inspiring interest in riding, fostering motorcycle culture, training new riders and building a passionate community"	Also a revenue line. Other revenue is described as coming primarily from membership sales, museum admissions and events
Advertising and media	Digital and print media, social, product placement, sponsorships, research	An expense. 184.7 million dollars in 2025

That is the structural lesson and it travels to businesses of any size. Awareness among people who will never buy the main product is bought by licensing the name onto things they will buy. Advocacy among people who already bought is bought by running the club, the training and the museum, and the members pay for it. The advertising line is left with the narrowest job of the three, which is why it can be the smallest.

The retail advertising is somebody else's decision

Harley-Davidson sells its motorcycles at wholesale, through a network of independent dealers, and its own risk disclosure says it "must rely to a large extent on a network of independent dealers and distributors to manage the retail distribution of its products". Dealers stock and sell the motorcycles, parts, accessories, apparel and licensed products, and they service the bikes.

So the advertising a buyer actually sees in their own town is placed by an independent business with its own budget, its own priorities and its own idea of what the brand sounds like. That split, a manufacturer setting the brand and a dealer buying the local media, is the single most common source of argument in any franchised or dealer-led category, and it is a contract question before it is a creative one. The money mechanics, the co-op rules and the data ownership question are set out in car dealer advertising agencies, the tiers, co-op money and data ownership, and they read across almost unchanged to motorcycles.

The media calendar is a weather calendar

The filing is explicit about seasonality: the timing of wholesale motorcycle shipments generally correlates with the timing of dealers' retail sales, and retail sales "generally track closely with regional riding seasons". A motorcycle is bought when it can be ridden.

For anyone planning spend on a seasonal product, that produces three concrete rules. Weight the budget to the weeks before the season opens in each region separately, because a national flat monthly plan funds the wrong months in half the country. Build the creative in the off season when production is cheaper and nobody is competing for the same slots. And measure the year against the same weeks last year rather than against last month.

Why any statement about the current strategy needs a date on it

The Hardwire was the company's strategic plan for 2021 to 2025, aimed at profitable growth and at holding the position of the most desirable motorcycle brand in the world, and the filing states plainly that it "concluded at the end of 2025". The company also says it has appointed a new chief executive, is developing a new strategic plan, and "plans to announce its new strategic plan in conjunction with its first quarter 2026 earnings release".

That means every article describing Harley-Davidson's marketing strategy in the present tense is describing a plan that has finished. Anything written about the next one before that earnings release is a forecast. The figures on this page are the audited ones from the 10-K for 2025, 2024 and 2023, and the date they were read is above.

What a smaller business can take from this

• Put a definition next to your advertising number. If research, hosting and events are inside it, say so, or next year's comparison is meaningless.
• Find the licensing equivalent in your own business. Something carrying your name that somebody else sells and somebody else pays for: a co-branded product, a book, merchandise a customer actually wants.
• Charge for the community. A paid club, a paid training course or a paid event turns the advocacy budget into a line that funds itself and filters for people who care.
• Settle the local advertising contract before the creative. Who buys, who approves, who owns the data and the account.
• Spend against the season, not the month.

Questions about Harley-Davidson's advertising

How much does Harley-Davidson spend on advertising?

184.7 million dollars in 2025, 136.7 million in 2024 and 131.0 million in 2023, as stated in the company's Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025.

Which agency makes Harley-Davidson's advertising?

The annual report names the channels and the cost categories and does not name an agency, so this page does not either. The filing is the source that can be checked; an agency roster is a claim that belongs to whoever published it, with a date.

Is the advertising aimed at riders or at people who do not ride?

Both, through different mechanisms. The filing describes licensing as the route to reach and awareness "among its customers and the non-riding public", while the owners group, membership and the riding academy are described as connecting existing riders and training new ones.

Why did advertising spend rise while revenue fell?

The filing gives the two sets of figures and the strategic context and does not attribute one to the other, so the honest answer is the arithmetic: the spend rose 41 percent across two years while revenue fell 23 percent, which moved advertising from roughly 2.2 percent of revenue to roughly 4.1 percent. The company has said the plan covering those years ended in 2025 and that a new one is coming with first quarter 2026 results.

Does the local dealer pay for its own advertising?

Dealers are independent businesses, so local retail advertising is theirs to buy. If you are a dealer in any manufacturer-led category, the three things to get in writing are what share of a local campaign the manufacturer funds, which creative you are permitted to change, and who owns the advertising account and the customer data it generates.

What are the brand assets the recognition sits on?

The filing lists the trademarks, and the list is the asset inventory: the Harley-Davidson and H-D names, the Bar and Shield logo, MotorClothes, the number one logo, the Willie G Skull logo and Harley Owners Group. A business that can list its own recognised assets that precisely is unusual, and the listing is what makes them defensible.

The research a first-time buyer does before any of this reaches them

Somebody choosing a first cruiser now opens the question with an assistant: which bikes suit a new rider, what the running costs are, which dealers are worth visiting. The answer is assembled from owner forums, dealer pages, spec tables and press coverage, and no part of it was bought. A manufacturer with 184.7 million dollars of advertising and a dealer with a few thousand are read by the same machine out of the same public material. AI Knows Us puts those buying questions to the main assistants and records which companies and which dealers get named, and which pages each answer was built from.