Hundreds of millions of views. Millions of shares. On Tuesday Advertising Age honored the world's best brand storytelling at the fifth annual Viral Video Awards in New York City.
For the second year in a row, Samsung took the crown as most viral brand, while Los Angeles-based 72andSunny made agency of the year by grabbing the most views over the past year and the most videos on the Viral Video Chart. The most-watched single campaign was Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" which finished the year with 138 million views, according to Visible Measures.
The VVAs, hosted this year by Saturday Night Live alumn Rachel Dratch, also honored your choice for the best in branded video: Poo Pourri's "Girls Don't Poop" took best comedic spot; WestJet's "Christmas Miracle" was judged best viral stunt; and TrueMove H's "Giving," a video that came from the Phillippines, and named "most important message" of the year.
As in all other Viral Charts, these campaigns are measured across all platforms with different versions, responses and iterations included. Excluded are game and movie trailers not because they aren't ads but because they'd overwhelm the chart each week. With that, here are the winners: