Viral Old Spice 'Responses' Crush Original Ads in Online Views

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The 186 responses that Old Spice pitchman Isaiah Mustafa recorded for fans of his beauty, intelligence and outstanding physique took just a week to eclipse the original TV ads themselves in total views, according to new numbers from Visible Measures.

Those video responses, recorded in seven-minute spurts over several days last week, have accumulated 42.3 million views so far and more than 35 million last week alone, a Viral Chart record. The TV spots have also done well on the web, but have accumulated only 34.7 million views since "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" was first posted online in February.

The responses, of course, wouldn't exist without the original TV ad, but they're extending the reach of the campaign a lot farther than the two TV ads, as well as the "Odor Blocker" ad ever could, even though those had a several-month head start.

For those keeping score, total views on the Old Spice campaign including all original spots and responses stands now at 113 million views. Here's how it breaks down:

• "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" (launched Feb 4): 22.3 million
• "Different Scents for Different Gents" (launched Feb 5): 4.2 million
• "Where Freshness Smells From" (launched March 15): 2.6 million
• "Odor Blocker" (launched March 31): 29.2 million million
• "The Return of the Man Your Man Could Smell Like" (launched June 29): 12.4 million
• "Old Spice Responses" (launched July 13): 42.3 million

Last week's top top 10 is below, including an amusing new spot from Rhett & Link for Dentyne and Blendtec's grisly test on the iPad. Also new from Blendtec -- what else? -- blending an iPhone 4.

	Last Week	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week Views*	% Change in Views**	Watch the Spot
1	New	Old Spice	Responses	Wieden & Kennedy	35,086,540	New
2	1	Old Spice	The Return of The Man Your Man Could Smell Like	Wieden & Kennedy	5,582,989	+95%
3	2	Old Spice	Odor Blocker	Wieden & Kennedy	3,425,946	+45%
4	3	Old Spice	The Man Your Man Could Smell Like	Wieden & Kennedy	3,033,297	+134%
5	New	Dentyne	Dentyne Pure	Platinum Rye, Sharethrough	1,249,764	New
6	New	Blendtec	Will it Blend?	In-house	1,248,314	New
7	New	EMC	EMC 20% Guarantee	Sharethrough	1,077,167	New
8	7	Gillette	Perfect Length	Jack Morton	966,098	+45%
9	4	Nike	Write the Future	Wieden & Kennedy	900,443	-12%
10	5	Evian	Live Young	BETC Euro RSCG	840,777	-5%
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 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.