What KTM taught Bajaj about promoting its new Pulsar 220

Paint it orange, ride it lairy: it’s a tried and trusted sales technique for KTM, whose partnership with Indian giant Bajaj has yielded the new Duke 125 and access to a wonderfully cost-efficient supply chain for the Austrian firm.

Allowing the Pune-based firm to copy its marketing methods is the most obvious form of payback. It’s hard to see how this squares with KTM boss Stefan Pierer’s assertion as president of ACEM that “Aggressive riding styles and any depiction of unsafe behaviour on public roads will be banned from ACEM manufacturers’ PR campaigns”.

But doesn’t it work well!

That KTM ad template in full