So, the Yamaha R15

Why hasn't anyone heard of this bike?
Where in the world is the advertising? [Here's one, but it's only on Yamaha's website, not on TV.]


The bike's out. It's out with India in mind. It's the perfect performance bike for this country and apart from the P220 and possibly the upcoming fuel injected version of the Apache 160 RTR, it's the only performance bike here. Looking at the bike and the ad, I know that Yamaha is finally treating India with the same respect as the rest of the world and not just ignoring us and chucking mopeds in our general direction. Knowing that feels good.

For the un-initiated, here are the features.. I know these so well now that I can't help but rattle em all off in a single breath.

A liquid cooled, fuel injected, four valve engine. [First in India (except for the fuel injection)]
A six-speed gearbox [Another first]
Fully faired [Looks like "those Dhoom bikes"]
A delta-box frame and forged pistons [Other firsts, whatever they mean]
Kerb weight of 125kg.

All these together are what ought to make you ignore the fact that the engine is a single-cylinder 150cc one that produces just 17PS of power. Coz, the technology that's gone into this takes it across a quarter mile .4 secs quicker than the nearest competitor and go upto 15kmph more on the top speed.* And what's more, it's handling is as sharp as its looks are. So, for those of you who still don't get it, I'll put it simply:

This bike can whoop the P220's ass... with ease.

But here's the problem. If Yamaha doesn't ramp up its marketing campaign - make that its awareness campaign - it's not gonna sell. Their marketing is good. They had a Launch Day/Race Day/Track Day, whatever you wanna call it, in Chennai on a track, where people who'd booked R15's would get a chance to have a go around the track. Wonder if they'll make that a regular thing. That'd be neat.
Anyway, the turnout wasn't bad, but I didn't hear about it till a day before it happened. Now I know I don't religiously follow news channels [more on that, later], but I keep track of car/bike news in the country. And no, that doesn't include the number of times that John Abraham had a bike crash [I've got enough to count between myself n aXay] or which bike Dhoni is buying..
Now, this event might've been promoted in Chennai, and I get that it didn't need promotion here in B'lore, but the launch at least should've had some hoopla around it. I mean there have to be people like me out there whose dream come true would look like the R15. So, if Yamaha decides to make it possible to realize those dreams, couldn't they let 'em know 'bout it as well?

Now onto how I had a hand in the design and conception of the bike. The story goes as such:

These 2 girls came to my college around a coupla years back. They claimed to be from IMRB - Market research Bureau or somethin in Delhi. They were looking for people who owned Pulsars or Karizmas [which can be interpreted as owners of high-end bikes], for their opinions on a few TVCs they'd show. And for it they's give each willing person a sum of one thousand rupees.

Me n a coupla my friends signed up, although we were skeptical about the whole deal. We expected it to be a prank or something. Who'd just give away 1K for some opinions, right? But we were proven wrong the next day.

But in our time of distrust, we did some snooping around. They'd called us using a landline to inform us of the time and place [Pizza Hut, hehe]. One of my friends called back later to find out more about them. It was a hotel at which they were staying. The person he talked to said that those people were from Yamaha.[besides tellin him that they weren't in their room at that time] So,.. convinced that we weren't heading towards a spot on MTV Bakra, we went to the meet.

There were those 2 girls and another PYT - their senior. We were made comfortable and eventually shown about 20 TV Commercials. 12 of 'em bike ads, 7 car ads and one Kwality cornetto ad. We were told to write our opinions on them on a set of sheets. Three Yamaha ads were thrown in at random.

When we probed as to who they worked for, all we got was that they were working mainly on 2-wheeler market research and were associated with one company in the market. The one we knew about, of course.

All throughout the session, i was subtly trying to give em the idea that I'd be the 1st one to ditch my current Bike for a new Yam 250 as soon as it came out.. When the Yam corporate ad was shown, i expressed my dislike of the fact that they show John Abraham talkin bout big bikes, they show the R1, but in the end all that we're offered to ride are 125cc mopeds. Then a talk started which eventually lead to Xbhp.com where th PYT had read someone say "Yamaha cheated India". I told her that i agreed. Then all subtlety was put aside when I told her that I was one of th people eagerly waitin for th Fazer250. They took that into account and we parted ways, me with a cool grand in hand.

A coupla months later, we got calls from those same girls again and this time, when we got there, there was Sanjay Tripathi [Dept. Head, Product Planning & Strategy - Yamaha India] [Of course I didn't know his position then], and with him were a bunch of Japanese businessmen who didn't talk much. We were shown designs of bikes and asked to pick the better ones, asked about our riding lives (how much we ride, whether we tour on our bikes, how long we intended to ride bikes, etc.) and told to assign priorities to aspects like power, styling, price and mileage (that was my order). And once again we left happily, being a thousand bucks richer.

Months passed by and I started cursing Yamaha 'coz I thought all they'd achieved with that activity involving us was try to make a raunchy ad like the Cornetto ad they showed us earlier [which we liked]. The Alba ad. Don't even get me started about anything to do with that bike.

But here are the actual results of that market research. I'm glad they tried just asking potential buyers what they want. And I'm proud that I helped them create this wonder of a bike. And I'm gonna go on record to say that though I'd much rather have the Fazer 250, this is my next bike, come what may.

There, now they've got celebrity endorsement too. What more do you need Yamaha?



* As per an official release by Yamaha.**
** As heard in the review on the Overdrive show on CNN IBN:



Did i mention i got free pizza too? on both occasions..


EDIT: So I finally did see the ad on TV, but it still lacks information like Yamaha having renovated most of its service centers, the availability of the bike in most cities.. Heck, they make it look like they're making some bullshit promises again. They need to use a simple clear message saying, "It's here."
But I guess that's just me.