Katy Perry's 'Harleys in Hawaii' could reportedly be worth over $40 million for Harley-Davidson

• Katy Perry's latest hit single could be worth more than $40 million to Harley-Davidson, the New York Times reported this week.
• The pop star's "Harleys in Hawaii" mentions the motorcycle brand six times, and she rides a hog in the music video.
• The publicity's value could be "upwards of $40 million" to Harley-Davidson before taking Spotify streams and social media posts tagged #HarleysinHawaii into account, an influencer marketing executive told the newspaper.
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Katy Perry's latest hit single could be worth more than $40 million to Harley-Davidson, the New York Times reported this week.

The pop star's "Harleys in Hawaii" mentions the motorcycle brand six times, and she rides a hog in the music video. The song has been streamed more than 850,000 times on Spotify and the music video has racked up over 13 million views on YouTube.

The product placement is a coup for Harley-Davidson, given Perry has over 100 million Twitter followers and 80 million Instagram followers, and it cost the company next to nothing, the Times reported.

"We worked with our local dealer on Kauai to get bikes for the music video, and that's really all we provided," a Harley-Davidson executive told the Times. The company also paid a nominal fee to share photos and clips from the music video across its social media channels, the newspaper said.

The publicity could be worth "upwards of $40 million" to Harley-Davidson before taking Spotify streams and social media posts tagged #HarleysinHawaii into account, Mae Karkowski - the founder and chief executive of Obviously, an influencer marketing agency - told the Times. Another marketing executive told the newspaper its value was "in the low seven figures," while a third pegged it at "a million plus."

Harley-Davidson will appreciate the helping hand as it works to attract a younger, more female customer base. Its global motorcycle sales fell 4.9% to below 180,000 in the nine months to September 30, according to its latest earnings. The upshot was an 8% drop in its sales of motorcycles and related products to around $3.7 billion, driving the segment's operating income down 30% to $336 million.