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It's Getting Harder to Crack the Viral Video Chart

What People Watched the Week of April 13, 2009

by Abbey Klaassen
Published: April 23, 2009

NEW YORK (Ad Age.com) -- Last week, the Ad Age Viral Video Chart illustrated T-Mobile's staying power -- its "Dance" spot that debuted in January was still no 2. This week's views, at 748,855, were 1% higher than last week's -- good enough to disrupt the three-week chart-topping streak Samsung and its LED-draped sheep enjoyed.

Samsung dropped to no. 2 while Burger King's ode to SpongeBob and Cadbury's "Eyebrow Dance" hung onto the three and four spots, respectively. But new to the chart is a video promoting Head tennis rackets and starring Novak Djokovic (and his chest), Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" campaign and the "Fast Food Folk Song," created as part of a Mountain Dew Baja Blast promotion.

The data, as always, is compiled by Visible Measures and includes the most recent week's views -- not total views over the entire life of a campaign. One change over the first three charts? The threshold to break into the top 10 is higher this week, at 271,985 views. Perhaps it's a one-week anomaly, perhaps it's due to increased usage of online video or social-sharing tools. Regardless, we'll be watching to see if that trend continues in the weeks to come.

	Last Week	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week Views*	% Change in Views**
1	2	T-Mobile	T-Mobile Dance	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	748,855	+1%
2	1	Samsung	Extreme Sheep LED Art	The Viral Factory	707,345	-37%
3	3	Burger King	SpongeBob	Crispin Porter & Bogusky	625,852	+14%
4	4	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	503,372	+15%
5	New	Head	Novak Djokovic Scores On and Off	Aimaq Rapp Stolle, Feed Company, 7th Chamber	488,806	New to chart
6	New	Microsoft	Laptop Hunters	Crispin Porter & Bogusky	478,831	New to chart
7	5	Geico	It's the Gecko/ Numa Numa	The Martin Agency, Horizon Media	403,062	+4%
8	7	Wilkinson Sword	Mow the Lawn	JWT, New York	378,474	+45%
9	Back on Chart	Ray-Ban	Never Hide	Cutwater	358,617	Back on chart
10	New	Mountain Dew Baja Blast	Fast Food Folk Song (at the Taco Bell Drive-Thru)	Feed Company	271,985	New to chart
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 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.

2 Comments

By thelostagency | Brisbane April 24, 2009 10:12:51 pm:

interesting, so could you could "susan boyle" as a viral video?

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By mattcutler | Boston, MA April 27, 2009 10:39:39 am:

Hi thelostagency!

While we are tracking the Susan Boyle viral video phenomenon closely -- out latest blog post on her #'s is here (http://bit.ly/DXCf3) and we expect to publish an update later today -- this chart is focused on 'brand-driven viral video campaigns' and explicitly excludes entertainment-related campaigns like movie trailers and music videos... given this, we determined that the Susan Boyle clip should not be included on the chart.

With that said, it's question like these that make measuring online video an interesting and challenging undertaking. :)

I hope this helps!
Matt
----
Matt Cutler
vice president, marketing & analytics - Visible Measures Corp.
http://www.twitter.com/mcutler

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