This week there are eight new campaigns on the chart, which means the season to over-shop has arrived. It makes sense, then, that holiday perennial John Lewis, the U.K. department store chain, is at No. 1. Its "The Boy and the Piano" spot stars Elton John and takes us back through the stages of his career. It's worth watching if only to see the now slow-moving performer leap around the stage in his younger years, but the spot delivers more than that by bringing us back to his (reenacted) childhood and the day he receives his first piano. The ad shows how the right gift can inspire and help chart the course of someone's life. We're not crying, you're crying.
SodaStream makes the list too, at No. 2, with its super clever Coke hilltop parody. Watch corporate chieftans cackle over bottled water sales as a group of diverse youths sing on a hill that turns out to be a floating island of empty plastic bottles.
As always, the view counts reflect both organic views initiated by consumers and paid views generated through ad placements.
Ad Age's Viral Video Chart, powered by AcuityAds, focuses on brand-driven social video ad campaigns. Each campaign is measured by True Reach, a proprietary metric that includes views from brand-driven and audience-driven social video clips. The data are compiled using the patented AcuityAds platform, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on hundreds of millions of videos tracked across hundreds of online video destinations.
Note: This analysis includes all publicly available video views on branded video content. This chart does not include movie trailers, video game campaigns, TV show, or television network promotions. View counts are incremental by week.
**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.
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