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Microsoft's So-Bad-It's-Good Windows 7 Ad Goes Viral

But It Can't Beat MoveOn's 'Protect Insurance Companies' PSA

By Published on .

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Might be a little too late, considering the Senate Finance Committee actions earlier this week, but the MoveOn.org campaign that advocated for a public health option went viral last week, notching almost 1.9 million views, good enough for first place in the viral video chart. The film was created by FunnyorDie.com and stars a swath of celebrities, including the site's co-founder Will Ferrell and Jon Hamm of "Mad Men."

In the No. 4 spot is the Windows 7 Launch Party instructional video. Microsoft has been relatively savvy when it comes to viral video; this one, however, seems to be of the "so inadvertently bad it's good" ilk that makes it onto the chart from time to time. It's promoting in-house Tupperware-style parties to show off the new operating system, but the cheesy, forced dialogue and awkward phrasing has made it the subject of all sorts of ridicule -- enough that it drove a half-million views. (Who knows, maybe Microsoft knew what it was doing all along.)

Also notable? Evian's Rollerbabies, after three months on the chart, still managed to grow an impressive 38% this week.

Last Week Brand Campaign Agency Current Week Views* % Change in Views** Watch the Spot
1 New MoveOn Political Action Protect Insurance Agencies FunnyorDie 1,898,286 New MoveOn Political Action: Protect Insurance Agencies
2 1 Evian Live Young BETC Euro RSCG 1,409,229 +38% Evian: Live Young
3 2 DC Shoes Ken Block's Gymkhana Two Project Mad Media 599,332 -25% DC Shoes: Ken Block's Gymkhana Two Project
4 New Microsoft Windows 7 Launch Party N/A 545,303 New Microsoft: Windows 7 Launch Party
5 3 Microsoft Xbox Project Natal World Famous 495,773 +26% Microsoft Xbox: Project Natal
6 10 Cadbury Eyebrow Dance Fallon 290,891 +25% Cadbury: Eyebrow Dance
7 New Trend Micro Fearless Web Brief Attention Span, Alterseekers, Sharethrough 245,096 New Trend Micro: Fearless Web
8 8 T-Mobile T-Mobile Dance Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom 240,596 -1% T-Mobile Dance
9 6 Inspired Bicycles Danny MacAskill Trials N/A 236,282 -10% Danny MacAskill Trials
10 9 Bud Light Lime Canned Confessions DDB 217,257 -8% Bud Light Lime: Canned Confessions
Source: Visible Measures

*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‚Ñ¢ 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.

**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

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.

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