4. Marketing
4.1 Marketing structure within Raleigh
For many years, the design department was all-powerful and a very large in-house resource. By about 1980, however, marketing had become pre-eminent, a direction that had been foreshadowed when design director Alan Oakley moved to marketing a decade earlier. This reflected the view in Raleigh that designs involving significant technological change, and hence investment, such as Alex Moulton’s spaceframes, Mike Burrows’ monocoques, and even diamond frames built of aluminium could not be made profitably. Therefore, it was considered better to concentrate on concepts involving technologies already mastered, or easily bought in. Technology push was not on the agenda, but on the other hand, Raleigh would try not to be merely reactive to market pull.
Although the pattern changed a little from time to time, the typical marketing department was as follows. The marketing director was a member of the main Raleigh board. Reporting to the marketing director were the product managers, concept design team and marketing services team. The concept design developed the product image, whereas marketing services dealt with advertising, point of sale support, promotional events and public relations. The total number of staff involved fluctuated between about a dozen and twenty.
4.2 Brand strengths and weaknesses
Market research indicated that the Raleigh brand is widely seen in the UK as trustworthy, family-oriented, comfortable, friendly, strong, sturdy and reliable. This is fine for selling family and children’s cycles. With these brand values in their heads, parents are likely to buy Raleigh.
When it comes to selling racing bikes, however, such brand values are not a good match. Here Peugeot did much better, being seen as flash, French and lightweight. In contrast, the Raleigh brand strengths were the antithesis of what was needed. Thus, when the Carlton brand was phased out and lightweight production moved to Nottingham, Raleigh sponsored a racing team, supported by TV advertising. With its emphasis on speed and lightness, this modified the popular view of Raleigh, whilst leaving intact the existing strengths. Sadly, interest in racing bikes then fell away, as MTBs took over.
BMX fitted better with traditional Raleigh brand strengths. Perceptions of sturdiness, reliability, dependability and strength also served the marketing of low and mid-range MTBs well. However, they were not a good fit for upmarket MTBs. These needed to be American and sexy, the perception being that all the best mountain bikes came from the USA (even if in reality they were nearly all made in Taiwan). Therefore, the slogan ‘Designed in Raleigh America, built in Nottingham, England’ was adopted for the Max range.
So it can be seen that Raleigh capitalised on its brand strengths and sought to modify them where the fit was less than optimal. Reliability was further emphasised by the introduction of a 15-year guarantee on frame and forks.
4.3 Sub-brands
In the 1970s and early 1980s, formerly independent sub-brands acquired by Raleigh, such as Phillips, Hercules and BSA, were used for mail order sales and certain other outlets. The idea was that for a ‘real’ Raleigh, you had to go to a Raleigh dealer. However, Yvonne Rix formed the view that the Kellogs and Nescafe approach – ‘we don’t make for anyone else’ – was better. Rix and her colleagues feared that if dealers were telling customers ‘this BSA is made by Raleigh’, then some unscrupulous dealers might infer that Raleigh also made competitors’ products. This fear was reinforced by the fact that Raleigh sometimes received returned machines sold by their competitor Universal, whose location – Rayleigh – was prominently displayed on packaging.
Another problem with the old Raleigh sub-brands was that, when selling to their biggest customer (and biggest competitor) Halfords, Raleigh could not get the same profit margin as they would for the same bike sold as a Raleigh. Halfords would typically pitch their imported own-brand machine at the lowest price, then a Phillips with similar specification at mid price, and the identical machine badged as a Raleigh at premium price.
The policy of using a non-Raleigh brand for Raleigh products not made at Nottingham was a different matter. It continued until 2000, when frame production at Nottingham ceased.
All sub-brands developed in-house and built at Nottingham, were prefixed Raleigh, for example, Raleigh Max.
In 1999, Derby acquired Diamondback, the US-based company built on BMX and which had diversified into MTBs and fitness equipment. Diamondback already had a presence in the UK, with brand strengths suggestive of youth, aggression and zaniness. These were seen as complimentary to Raleigh’s more traditional family-oriented image. Hence, in the UK from early 2000, Raleigh trades as Raleigh-Diamondback.
4.4 Merchandising
After her retirement as marketing director in 1998, Yvonne Rix continued working for Raleigh part-time until mid 2000 as manager responsible for licensing. Raleigh started licensing its name in 1996, after being approached by a specialist company who negotiated licensing rights. Having used this company’s services for some time, licensing was brought in-house.
The principal product ranges using the Raleigh name under licence are a selection of toy scooters, go-karts and plastic trundle toys, and an upmarket range of fitness equipment, including exercise cycles, a rower, motorised treadmill and stepper/climber. There is also a successful range of watches and a selection of clothing.
Yvonne Rix sees two ways of using licensing. The first is to sign up companies that predominantly feed off the Raleigh brand values and identity, such as the children’s toys. Alternatively, go for firms such as watchmakers or clothing companies, who will feed something of their own brand qualities and image into the Raleigh brand. Ideally, there should be a symbiotic relationship, where the licensee takes from the Raleigh brand but also gives it something back.
4.5 Advertising
4.5.1 TV and print
In the 1970s, Raleigh used TV advertising featuring the disc jockey and TV personality Noel Edmunds. For a long time thereafter Raleigh’s advertising tended to be print-oriented. Point of sale posters, such as the Toyah poster for the Bomber (1981), were used, and there was considerable deployment of posters in public places, such as outside school playgrounds, swimming pools and shopping precincts. Magazine advertising was used as appropriate to the target market: the Raleigh Collection (1983) was featured in women’s publications, and the Extremes range in children’s magazines. Sunday supplements were also sometimes used.
Yvonne Rix was particularly aware of the possibilities of taking an existing tired product, giving it a cost-neutral makeover, then advertising it in a focused way. For example, she changed the colour of the Caprice shopping bike to white, advertised it appropriately and tripled sales in a year.
Following the Activator launch (1992), Rix initiated a campaign to raise awareness of the Raleigh brand, rather than focusing on a particular model or range. Via TV advertising, it featured an animated version of the Raleigh heron’s head motif, which became known as Little Bird. Aimed at children, Little Bird put across messages such as, ‘Don’t buy a bike without me on it,’ and ‘Do you know, our dealers give a better service?’ Criticised initially as being childish, it crossed over to adults watching TV with their children, and proved a very effective campaign.
TV advertising is very expensive in the UK and typically costs about £1m per campaign. Raleigh therefore carefully targeted their adverts, using cheaper times of year, such as the summer holidays. The advertising tariffs are cheap because many people are on holiday. However, a high proportion of those who are nonetheless watching TV, are doing so with children – a well-targeted captive audience. Hence, the Activator and Max ranges were launched in June and advertised on TV in August. This got the ‘word on the street’ early, built dealer confidence and made factory scheduling easier for the sales that resulted in the build-up to Christmas. Raleigh used TV advertising for about five years from the Activator launch until 1997, but has used the medium very little since then.
4.5.2 Product placement
Raleigh rarely used product placement. Because of his extraordinarily good network of contacts, Alex Moulton was seen as being particularly good at this art: everybody from the chancellor of the exchequer to Batman was seen with a Moulton. Raleigh used to try, for example by providing a titanium Raleigh for Richard Branson, but concluded that product placement did not produce quick enough or measurable results.
4.5.3 Sports sponsorship
There was a long tradition of sports sponsorship in Raleigh, traceable to the days of its founder, Frank Bowden. Raleigh backed a European-based road-racing team through the late 1970s and early 1980s. It enjoyed great success, including team wins in the Tour de France in 1977 and 1983. Raleigh also built the bike ridden to victory in the Tour by Joop Zoetemelk who rode for TI-Raleigh Creda in 1980 – the only British-built Tour winner in the race’s history.
However, there was a feeling in Raleigh’s marketing department that, because of the lack of TV coverage, road racing had failed to capture the public imagination. It was seen as very technical and political, with a perception that the teams decided how fast they were going to ride each day and even who was going to win. The public was becoming apathetic as general interest in racing bikes declined. Moreover, Raleigh considered that the racing organisation in the UK was indifferent and even antipathetic towards commercialism. These perceptions all contributed to Raleigh dropping its road team. Another major factor was that road bike sales had become very small relative to sales of mountain bikes.
A few years later, with the need to maintain interest in and support sales of mountain bikes, Raleigh again saw justification for a sponsored team. Mountain biking was seen as more of a spectator sport than road racing, and therefore a better promotional opportunity. Consequently, the Raleigh MTB team was launched in 1989 and continues today. It has been involved in junior, women’s, cross-country and downhill racing. Raleigh considers it important that its team truck and mechanics are seen at major events. There is a further benefit, in that technical developments for the team occasionally lead to refinements for the mass-produced Raleigh MTBs.
Raleigh also has a BMX team and, at the time of writing, employs a stunt rider.
4.5.4 Internet
In 1997, at Yvonne Rix’s instigation, Raleigh launched its website. She believed then, and still does, that in time Raleigh will be selling top end cycles and specialist frames internationally via the Internet.
4.6 Dealers
Raleigh’s relationship with its 5 Star dealers is intended to be mutually supportive. The company tries to give its dealers some local protection and something akin to a monopoly in their immediate catchment area. In return, Raleigh tends to be paid by dealers before other suppliers and claims the best payment record in the industry. Some 5 Star dealers, however, think Raleigh is too powerful. There is therefore sometimes a love-hate relationship, akin to that between the UK’s major supermarket chains and British farmers.
Independent dealers can sometimes be very hostile towards Raleigh, particularly if Raleigh will not supply them. Raleigh conversely fears that independent dealers sometimes sell inferior imported machines with a higher profit margin against the nearest equivalent Raleigh model. Raleigh argues that most dealers who criticise it have either been refused supply or are selling cheaper machines at higher margins. Such dealers, Raleigh suggest, will tend to devise imaginary but face-saving reasons why they do not deal with the company.
The strand of antipathy towards Raleigh among independent bicycle dealers seems to be nothing new. A long-established and respected independent dealer in the West Midlands told the author that he had had no contact with Raleigh for 20 years. He added, ‘I had a conversation with my father back in the 60s discussing the bludgeoning by Raleigh of the IBDs. His only comment was that he had the same talk in the 30s with his father.’ Most of the machines sold by this dealership now are US brands, manufactured in Taiwan. As noted previously, long-established specialist dealers such as this were needed to sell Raleigh Special Products but the strong ties between Raleigh and its 5-star dealer network made this very difficult.
5. Production facilities
5.1 Rationalisation of production facilities
In 1975, Raleigh occupied some 75 acres (30 hectares) at Nottingham. By the end of 1999, this was down to 22 (9 hectares) which was then sold to the University of Nottingham to be used as a centre of excellence for retraining head teachers.
Contraction had begun under TI. For example, in 1984 Sturmey-Archer, which had once occupied 20 acres (8 hectares) in its own right, moved to smaller premises at Triumph Road. Raleigh had by then abandoned all direct involvement in magnetics, plastics and alloy forging. Manufacture of alloy rims, announced in 1982, was also swiftly abandoned, much of the expertise ultimately going to Sun Metal in the USA. Over the following years Raleigh ceased to make virtually all other components, other than Sturmey-Archer’s range of hub gears, hub brakes, spokes and Brooks saddles.
By the mid-1990s, Raleigh was a much smaller operation. Nottingham had become an old-fashioned collection of factories, optimised around efficient production of large volumes of all-steel roadsters, and manufacturing nearly all the necessary components in house. Now Raleigh was a much smaller, very compact and efficient operation, using computer numeric controlled laser-cutting and automatic welding to produce cycle frames, then finishing them and fitting them with bought-in components. Effectively, it was a now single factory operation, with the offices over theproduction facilities. The workforce had shrunk from a peak of 7,000 in the 1950s to about 700.
5.2 Volume production of frames ceases at Nottingham
In May 1999, Raleigh announced that its intention to cease volume production of frames in the UK. Managing director Mark Todd said:

‘It really is a very small department in the company and has been the only one making parts here for around 25 years. We have noticed a market preference for aluminium frames and as there isn’t the facility to make those at the factory we will have to gradually wind down the section. I suppose some people will view it as the end of an era, but this has been known about for some time and is a very small part of the work we do here.’

On 10th December 1999, at the very end of the period under review, Raleigh announced that it had auctioned off its frame-making equipment. This included three multi-robot welding machines, installed in 1996, and laser tube cutting equipment less than nine years old. The auctioneers, DDM Asset Management, stated that the sale had attracted ‘phenomenal’ interest, some buyers coming from the Far East and North America. Author Alan Sillitoe, an ex-Raleigh worker whose best-seller ‘Saturday Night, Sunday Morning’ was set in the Nottingham factory, said ‘Raleigh is a kind of soul of Nottingham. I’m very sad about it.’ About 50 job losses were expected.
A statement issued by Raleigh said:

‘Contrary to press reports, Raleigh is not ceasing production of bicycles in Nottingham. We are completing a process which was announced in May which involves cessation of frame manufacture. We will continue to control the design, specification and quality of the frames we use and of our final product. We will continue to produce half a million bicycles in Nottingham, using our world class painting and assembly facilities.’

In early January 2000, new MD Phillip Darnton took over and it was announced that Raleigh was selling the remains of its historic site to Nottingham University. The company did not intend to move out of the Nottingham area and was looking for a ‘brown site’ near the city to rehouse Raleigh.
5.3 Derby and its rationale
To understand the recent changes at Nottingham, it is necessary to widen our focus from Raleigh UK to the whole Derby operation. Originally formed in 1986 to acquire various Raleigh companies from TI, it subsequently acquired Raleigh America, Kalkhoff, Nishiki, Univega, Haro, Cycle Pro and late in 1999, Diamondback. The latter company, founded on BMX but which had expanded into MTBs and fitness equipment, was seen as a complimentary brand to Raleigh in the UK. Hence, from early 2000, Raleigh trades from Nottingham as Raleigh-Diamondback.
By 1992, Derby was the largest cycle group in the world, with a sales turnover of $500m. In 1998, this was $465m. The company is now known as The Derby Cycle Corporation and is based at Kent in the state of Washington, USA. It remains a private company, 65% owned by Thayer Capital Partners and 13% owned by Perseus Capital. It manufactures in five countries and plans to expand through acquisitions in the US and Europe, and by diversifying into accessories and clothing. It holds the leading market share in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands and Canada, and is a major player in the USA.
The view within Derby, and by extension Raleigh-Diamondback, is that there is no longer any point in being a country-oriented company. You must be a global company or die: a global company that makes what the market needs, that obtains materials and components from the most viable world-wide sources, and markets on a world-wide basis. But more than this, Derby aspires to being ‘glocal’ – a global company for economies of scale but with local manufacturing tailored to regional markets. Raleigh has assembly plants in the UK, USA, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany and elsewhere, and other Derby companies also have plant. If via an international procurement team, all Derby plant buy frames from the same range, together with components that will fit these frames, the cost savings and economies of scale are enormous.
The brand can then be promoted world-wide in the manner of McDonald’s and Guinness, with the advertising and products tailored for local taste. For example, McDonalds accepts credit cards and serves beer in France but does neither in the UK; and Guinness varies its alcoholic content considerably to suit local tastes. After all, German-style trekking bikes are not wanted in any significant volume in the USA, and the highest tech American MTBs are not much in demand in Germany. But between these extremes there is much common ground.
Raleigh sees it as very important that it does not merely assemble bikes but paints the frames too. This facilitates branding and model tweaking at the local level. As Derby has a greater presence across the globe than its competitors, it is better positioned to monitor customer trends and tastes. Viewed holistically, it is cheaper to paint and assemble locally. Buying in complete bikes involves a six week manufacturing cycle and six weeks in transit from the far east. It is easy to miss a season or end up with a warehouse full of unsaleable bikes with last year’s colour. Local painting and assembly makes the whole operation more responsive. Hence, it is easy to accommodate, for example, the uniquely Dutch development of the MTB, incorporating dress-guards, carriers and mudguards – practical features traditionally found on the roadsters of the Netherlands.
6. Conclusion
Technophiles such as the author would love Raleigh to make many technically interesting, innovative and refined bicycles – the more super-lightweights, spaceframes and monocoques the better. However, Raleigh exists not to delight technophiles but to make money. Its philosophy during the period under review has become very clear and focused: go for the mass market, using niche high-end products only to support volume production. Just as Ford does not compete with Morgan, Raleigh has chosen to leave niches to the likes of Brompton, Moulton, Pashley, Mercian and Advanced Vehicle Design.
This being so, it can be argued that Raleigh made a quite good job of the last 25 years. It maintained its level of production reasonably consistently. It remained the biggest UK manufacture. It retained the largest share of the UK market. Moreover, Raleigh remained the first cycle brand that sprang to the mind of most British people. Many UK manufacturers would be envious of such a record. Contrast Raleigh’s performance with what happened in the British automotive, domestic appliance, TV and audio industries.
Furthermore, Raleigh was the first major UK cycle maker to market mountain bikes, to mass-produce suspension mountain bikes, and to market an electrically assisted bicycle. Raleigh invented the hybrid and brought it to market well ahead of the competition. The Raleigh team twice won the Tour de France and Raleigh built the only British bike ever ridden to victory in the Tour.
Raleigh was fortunate throughout to have the services of Yvonne Rix in senior roles in marketing and product planning. Nobody gets to stay 30 years in marketing with the same company without being good. MDs came and MDs went, but Rix was always there. She brought a combination of originality based on observation of people and their tastes, shrewdness borne out of experience in the corporate environment, pragmatism based on deep knowledge of Raleigh’s production resources, and pertinacity arising from her passion for her work and her feelings of loyalty to the Raleigh brand. She worked hard at changing the things she could, while accepting those that she could not.
In the latter category, undoubtedly the biggest problem was Raleigh’s old-fashioned roadster-oriented production facilities. When they were eventually modernised, it was too late and the underlying assumptions were flawed. Hence, the new facilities began efficiently turning out good, cheap diamond-frame steel bicycles just when aluminium and more exotic frame configurations were becoming de rigeur.
Much of the blame rests with TI, who did little to modernise facilities during their ownership of Raleigh and whose interest in the company faded over time. TI started badly when its Raleigh management overturned an agreement to build the Moulton (initially licence-free) just two months before production was due to start. Subsequently under TI, Raleigh was too late into the high-rise boom in the USA, failed to capitalise on the Moulton once it had bought the original company, and delayed BMX and MTBs inexcusably. It also prevented Sturmey-Archer launching its 7-speed hub and modernising the Dynohub, and did little to encourage the company to develop a range of derailleurs. Compared with that record of blunders, Raleigh under Derby looks good.
Raleigh’s performance appears worst when viewed in the context of the huge growth in the UK cycle market during the last 25 years. Total UK sales grew by about 21¼2 times, most of the additional sales being of imported machines. Against this, Raleigh showed no long-term growth and hence an increasing shrinkage of market share, despite retaining the largest portion.
It is sometimes argued that Raleigh is in terminal decline and ought to emulate the newer high profile American and Taiwanese companies that are perceived to be thrashing the company. However, most of the imported machines flooding into the UK have not come from the high profile US and Taiwanese companies, such as Trek and Giant, but are relatively cheap and mundane products from lesser manufacturers. For example, in the UK in 1996, Raleigh sold five times as many bikes as Giant, GT, Marin, Specialized, Trek, Scott, Orange, Kona and VooDo combined. So, who has been thrashing whom? And while Raleigh is criticised for ceasing volume production of its own frames in the UK, how many leading mass market US cycle makers volume produce at home?
Finally, it is important to bear in mind that Raleigh, once the biggest cycle maker in the world, was now merely a part of Derby. It is equally important to remember that Derby only existed because of Raleigh. Formed to buy Raleigh UK and its subsidiaries, Derby had subsequently grown to become one of the very biggest cycle companies in the world. Derby was the ‘genetic’ descendant of the original Raleigh and thus, as Wordsworth put it, ‘Child is father of the Man’.

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