The Top 10 Viral Ads of All Time

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- A little over five years ago, YouTube ushered in a new genre of video advertising, one that succeeded on its ability to rise above a world of pet tricks and backyard stunts, to entertain and to be passed around. Call them "viral" videos, super-sized TV ads, branded videos or just plain commercials, a few of them have crossed a significant psychic milestone: 100 million views and counting. Last week, the roller-skating babies of Evian's "Live Young" campaign reached the mark after a little more than a year on the web. This, without any significant TV exposure in the U.S. and very little overseas. It's advertising that entertains. And it got us thinking: What are the most-watched viral ads of all time? We put the question to our friends at Visible Measures, and the answer surprised us. It turned out the No. 1 viral campaign of all time is a consistent sleeper hit, not often among the weekly top 10 on Ad Age's Viral Chart, and not connected to a big, well-heeled brand or fancy creative agency. Rather, it's a cool gimmick that consistently delivers laughs along with cringe-inducing voyeuristic destruction. The No. 1 video advertiser of all time is Blendtec, whose "Will It Blend" series has been around in the same form for four years, accumulating 134.2 million views. The key? The brand found what works and stuck with it. Each of the more than 120 original clips has the same kitschy music, the same tagline, variations on the same stunt and the same host, Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson. While brilliant, Mr. Dickson has to thank Steve Jobs for Blendtec's biggest hits, including laying waste to an iPhone in 2007 and an iPad in April. What's remarkable about the top 10 is that viewers would voluntarily watch an ad 100 million times, let alone 23 million times. Not surprisingly, given the recent growth of web video, most of the entrants are recent campaigns, launched within the last year or two. All but one, Pepsi's "Gladiator," came after the launch of YouTube in 2005. (The ad, starring Britney, Beyonce and Pink, appeared on TV in 2004.) In addition to Blendtec, Evian and Pepsi, the list includes two Old Spice campaigns (including the newly famous "Your Man" Isaiah Mustafa), Microsoft's Xbox Project Natal, Dove's "Evolution," DC Shoes' "Gymhana Two," and "T-Mobile Dance." While the chart stops at No. 10, special honorable mention goes to Nike, which holds the No. 11 spot for its "Write the Future" campaign, as well as the Nos. 12 and 13 spots for early viral efforts starring Kobe Bryant and Ronaldinho. While great creative is the key to keeping interest and generating pass-along, time also helps. It took Evian and Blendtec more than a year to get to 100 million views. The next campaign to do it will probably feature Old Spice's Isaiah Mustafa, not for the original "Man Your Man Could Smell Like" TV ad, but the "Responses" campaign, where Mustafa recorded customized replies to folks like Kevin Rose, George Stephanopolous, Gizmodo and Biz Stone. *The Visible Measures Top 10 Viral Video Ad Campaigns Chart focuses on brand-driven viral video ads that appear on online-video-sharing destinations. Each campaign is measured on a True Reach basis, which includes viewership of both brand-syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements. The data are compiled using the Visible Measures Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on more than 100 million internet videos across more than 150 video-sharing destinations. Note: This analysis does not include Visible Measures' paid-placement (i.e., overlays, pre-/mid-/post-roll) performance data or video views on private sites. This chart does not include movie trailers, video-game campaigns, TV show or media network promotions, or public service announcements. View-count results are incremental by week. To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact Visible Measures directly.

The Top 10 Viral Ads of All Time

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