Xbox Kinect Video Connects With Audiences

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Microsoft took on Microsoft on the viral chart this week as a video for its highly anticipated Xbox "Kinect" system took off and brought back the company's last hit, "Project Natal" along with it. The Redmond, Wash.-based company officially released Kinect -- a highly anticipated peripheral for its best-selling game console that turns the human body into a game controller -- after a year of teasing the web with a promo for the system's code name, Project Natal. The World Famous-produced* spot debuted at a strong No. 2 , just one notch above Microsoft's "Project Natal" video, Kinect's code name before it was made real. Kinect reads the body movements of the player and translates them into the game -- think one step beyond Nintendo's Wii. Save one line of dialogue, the Kinect video smartly shows players making their moves, emphasizing full body work over voice. Interestingly, enthusiasm over this spot re-animated Microsoft's Project Natal video, which sat on the chart for almost a year before dropping off. That clip was a preview of what was to come, but as we can readily see, it promised more than what was ultimately delivered. Basically, Project Natal beats Kinect, but to be sure, Kinect will handily sound the cash registers. Volkswagen's Fun Theory Two other new spots, one for Volkswagen called "Driven By Fun," and another called "T-Shirt War" for McDonald's and Coke, employ that raw, DIY aesthetic that seems to be the implicit style guide for the internet. In a past installment, "Fun Theory," the kids at DDB Stockholm converted subway stairs into working piano keys to see if that would convince people to choose stairs over escalator. It did convince a few, and it also won a big award. This time, anonymous craftsmen built a large slide down a stairwell of Alexanderplatz's U-bahn station (Berlin's subway), prompting straphangers with the sign, "Fast Lane." "Fun Theory" didn't have a single image of a Volkswagen; "Driven By Fun" includes a glimpse of one--delivering materials for construction. Fun experiments, but do they sell cars? Rhett & Link land McDonalds Meanwhile, "T-Shirt War," produced by comedy duo Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, also known as Rhett & Link, uses stop-motion photography and clever T-shirts to get its message across, and we love it all the more for what could only have been many tedious hours of stopping and moving, and stopping and moving, and ... we'll stop now. It also shows the comedic duo is getting some big brand work outside of Red House Furniture. Nike's "Write the Future" remains in the top spot despite dropping 41% in views this week. May we suggest lengthening Landon Donovan's micro-second presence, if only to bestow some much-needed acknowledgment to a side and a player that deserves more attention for their heroic efforts? At least until Saturday's match-up with Ghana, anyway. *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. **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. ~ ~ ~CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Atlas produced the Kinect video.

Xbox Kinect Video Connects With Audiences

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