Our weekly Viral Video Chart, covering brands' most viewed campaigns as compiled by Visible Measures, has long emphasized videos that get all or a majority of their views on YouTube. But that's less and less the paradigm, with marketers now releasing videos directly to Facebook -- and Facebook alone.
It's a new enough phenomenon that our template below doesn't yet accomodate Facebook-only video, which is why the Breyers campaign at No. 8 doesn't have a playable video embedded. So we're embedding the video right here, above the chart proper:
Spark temptation with the trio of luscious textures in Breyers Raspberry Cheesecake Gelato.
Posted by Breyers on Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Also in the week that ended Sunday, Burger King went viral with its video campaign offering a "cease-fire" with McDonald's for Peace Day this month. McDonald's was none too pleased, but other brands jumped in on the PR stunt.
And Adidas and Facebook prove that viral success need not be fleeting, taking the No. 1 and No. 2 spots with campaigns that have now been on the chart for four weeks or more.
A note on the methodology: These rankings reflect anything included in the publicly available view count for a video, according to Visible Measures, so plays reflect organic consumer activity, paid placements and autoplay video. On YouTube, for example, both organic views and a video in the form of skippable pre-roll that is watched to 30 seconds would register. For Facebook, autoplay video that is seen for 3 seconds or more makes the grade.