Rajiv Bajaj calls the 100-cc Discover his biggest blunder: it made Bajaj a 'me too'

Speaking at an event in November 2018, Bajaj Auto managing director Rajiv Bajaj publicly branded the launch of the 100-cc variant of the Discover commuter bike the 'biggest blunder' of his career. The Discover had been a differentiating product in its 125-cc format — 'offering mileage with a little fun' — which rising volumes made obvious.

Then, in his telling, 'greed came in': marketing argued that if the 125-cc Discover sold that well, a 100-cc Discover would sell more, and the company built it. The stretch put the Discover into the heart of the commodity commuter segment. 'We started off as a point of difference, with a different perception and a USP, but we ended up being a me-too product,' Bajaj said. 'Me too is bad in life and marketing.' The company remained the No. 2 player in bike volumes, and he argued things would have been different without the lower variant.

Bajaj contrasted the Discover story with the KTM bet he did defend: Bajaj invested in the Austrian racing brand in 2007 when it made only 65,000 motorcycles — still the second-largest European motorcycle brand against Harley-Davidson's 350,000. By 2018 KTM was set to finish at 270,000 units while Harley declined to 240,000.

The 100-cc version put a differentiated product into the most crowded, price-led segment of the market.

Volume logic ('how many more would a 100-cc sell?') overrode the positioning logic that made Discover work.

The blunder was self-diagnosed: the MD named it, quantified the stall at No. 2, and linked it to later performance loss.

The KTM contrast shows the same company choosing differentiation over 'me too' when it worked.

Downward brand extensions cash in a differentiation strategy for volume: the moment your USP product competes on the crowd's terms, it stops being a USP product.

Bajaj kept pushing differentiation: in the same 2018 remarks he criticised the industry's step-motherly treatment of electric vehicles via cheap variants, saying 'we could have made a Tesla on two-wheels' and announcing plans to enter the e-vehicle space in 2019.