Truth in Advertising.

The story behind this 300k bike starts with a cardboard cookbook.

My dear friend Peter Boggia had been collecting the Italy In Bocca cookbook series most of his life. Being made of cardboard and from the late 70’s they weren’t easy to find in mint condition, but when he completed the collection of 20 volumes, we decided to make an impromptu documentary about us cooking 4 recipes out of them. The film caught fire online, probably because we made it with no intention and people found these unusual books as interesting as we did. Something strange happened however; where each book you could buy for 20-30 dollars, they were now going for 300-400 online. We had unknowingly created one of the world’s most effective ad campaigns that no one asked for.

Realizing the power of the branded documentary we decided to take this approach consciously to a new product: vintage bikes. Peter, besides being a collector of rare cookbooks, also is a broker for rare, vintage motorcycles. He had found one up in the Bay Area that was truly unique: a 1974 Ducati 750ss. These bikes in pristine condition can sell for upwards of 200k USD. The one he found however had nearly 100k miles on it, which is unheard of for any race bike anywhere. This however was the unique selling point of the bike.

What was unique about this bike was that the single owner, Keith Hale, kept it in outstanding condition. The ridiculous amount of mileage he put on it was only a testament to the perfect engineering of the bike. Letting him tell his personal story of the bike, how he loved it like a child for his entire life, and now, how selling it will allow this humble teacher to retire, created a special narrative around the machine. Bringing in specialists like Tim Parker, specialist for Bonhams auction house, Ian Falloon, motorcycle historian and author, Peter Boggia, master Ducati mechanic, and Ruben Archilla, mechanical engineer for Honda, they added credibility to the bike’s perfect pedigree.

The result was a touching documentary that tells the rare story of how an item enriches a life. Without having to sell anything or manufacture a narrative, just letting the bike be painted in this glorious light, created the value behind it. What’s more, as there was no precedent for a previous sale of the bike, there was literally no limit to what it’s worth is since no other bike is remotely like it. Taking what would normally be a negative and turning it into a positive just by the power of story is what makes this branded documentary so unique and special, and make this the highest sold Ducati 750ss now in history.

As an bonus for you making it down to the end of the page, I happened to put together a little BTS, or Behind The Scenes video of the making of “Earned” … It’s actually a really good, raw, authentic look at what it’s like to work with me on any project, that is to say, it’s 90% eating and laughing. Just a little window into the life of a self produced filmmaker. Enjoy.