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Microsoft Finds Viral-Video Success -- Twice

What People Watched the Week of Aug. 31

by Abbey Klaassen
Published: September 10, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Microsoft is proving its staying power on the viral-video chart with two spots again this week, including the No. 2 spot "Megawoosh" and the No. 5 spot, its Project Natal trailer. Visible Measures, which compiles the chart, notes this is the 14th week in a row that Project Natal has shown up on the chart and wonders whether it might be poised to surpass Cadbury's "Eyebrow Dance" as the chart's longest-running campaign. Time will tell -- only nine more weeks to go until it ties Cadbury.

Debuting in No. 4 is the clever Jay-Z spot from Droga5, in which the artist re-creates his past record covers to promote the release of his latest album on Rhapsody. Worth a watch, if you haven't seen it already.

Also new and in the No. 7 spot is a video from Pizza Hut, documenting comedian and Pizza Hut pitchman Jim Breuer's "freakout" on the set of a commercial, when a prop guy keeps snatching away his slice of stuffed-crust pizza in between takes. While it worked in this case, it's no surefire recipe for viral success. As Matt Cutler, VP-marketing and analytics at Visible Measures, notes: "It's becoming increasingly hard for this kind of spot to come off as authentic, as the format just seems so ripe for faux-viral exploitation."

	Last Week	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week Views*	% Change in Views**
1	1	Evian	Live Young	BETC Euro RSCG	1,105,640	-12%
2	3	Microsoft	Megawoosh (Make It Possible)	MRM Worldwide, Germany	709,795	-7%
3	8	DC	Ken Block's Gymkhana Two Project	Mad Media	487,560	37%
4	New	Rhapsody	Jay-Z Music Without Borders	Droga5	472,038	New
5	3	Microsoft Xbox	Project Natal	World Famous	452,039	-4%
6	Back On Chart	Frito-Lay	Woman's World	OMD, Juniper Park, Jam Media	406,785	Back On Chart
7	New	Pizza Hut	America's Favorite	BBDO	399,615	New
8	10	Inspired Bicycles	Danny MacAskill Trials	N/A	249,927	-23%
9	4	Nokia	All Day Mobility	Wieden+Kennedy, JWT	202,550	-68%
10	6	Apple	Get a Mac	TBWAMedia Arts Lab	193,062	-51%
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.

3 Comments

By dearadvertising | Toronto, ON September 10, 2009 01:23:44 pm:

I wonder if its moms that are just seeing the Evian video now. Like Facebook I wonder if they are the late adopters in Viral Video. Youtube really needs to develop some way of figuring out who is going on the site and who is watching what. Ohh the value.

http://dearadvertisin.blogspot.com/

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By Helmstetler | Greensboro September 14, 2009 03:24:08 pm:

I have seen this video on Facebook for a while: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8tGfMlkdFg

I think its great!

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By finkleburg13 | Milano, IT September 21, 2009 01:39:32 pm:

Good article, I also found some great examples earlier today at http://chaletstu.blogspot.com/

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