Online motorcycle fans are in Hog Heaven. Harley Davidson has sent an 8-person production team down to South Dakota to shoot online streaming video of the 2007 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

Harley Davidson has created its own microsite to host the content.

In addition, Harley is driving viewers through live streaming video in banner ads and a Google Gadgets widget (above) that can be placed on blogs.

These ads have driven a clickthrough rate of 2.4% according to MediaPost. Stellar when considering that standard clickthrough rates on banner ads are generally below the 0.5% rate Harley achieved during the rally last year. Those ads also featured video but not live.

This is one of the major advantages of live Flash. It is lightweight enough to put in a banner, but high enough quality that it generates instant engagement. Another example of how live video in online advertising is beginning to pick up stream.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 10:51 am and is filed under Events, News, Streaming, Video Portals, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.