The most-viewed brand video of 2017 was about, well, video in 2017.
The latest of YouTube's annual "Rewind" videos plays on popular uploads of the year, often with a musical theme, including megahits "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi with Daddy Yankee and Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You." That's a lot to overcome for even tech brands like Samsung, regular staples of online video campaigns.
As our Creativity report noted when YouTube released the video, encompassing the year's good and bad proved tricky:
While the film takes a moment mid-way through to briefly and quietly acknowledge big news such as the hurricanes and mass shootings, it shies away from Trump, Russia and movements like #metoo. While the point may be to look more positively to the future, all the happy-making feels a bit tone-deaf considering the dramatic events that affected the world all year long.
As always, the ranking here by Visible Measures reflects both organic views, the kind of voluntary viewing you think of when you hear "viral video," and paid video ads.
Ad Age's Viral Video Chart, powered by Visible Measures, focuses on brand-driven social video ad campaigns. Each campaign is measured by True Reach, an MRC accredited metric that includes views from brand-driven and audience-driven social video clips. The data are compiled using the patented Visible Measures 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.
To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming social video ad campaign, please contact Visible Measures directly.
