Visible Measures Blog

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Proving there's no one recipe for viral success the most-watched chart bows six new spots this week, including at No. 1 a new PSA from Heineken called "Know the Signs." It depicts a wedding gone wrong thanks to a very drunk guest, some raucous dancing and a tentpole. The ad uses the embarrassment factor to deter viewers from drinking too much; an accompanying website lets you spot more drunks.

Meanwhile, in the No. 4 spot, everyone's favorite skateboarding pooch, Tillman, is back. He's already shilled for Amrstrong Flooring and this time he's on the board again, albeit a virtual one, promoting Activision's Tony Hawk videogame. In the No. 6 spot Samsung nabs its fifth appearance on the viral chart since we launched it in April, with a classic "how'd they do that?" mobile phone ad that also ties into the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. And in the No. 7 spot is a push from Toshiba for its Regza flat-panel TV; Visible Measures, which compiles the data for the chart, notes it got heavy promotion on the YouTube homepage, MSNBC, Gizmodo and Engadget. Finally, in the No. 8 spot is an ad for Cisco's anti-virus spam solution.

The most controversial spot of the week was the Microsoft one in the No. 5 spot. There's debate over whether or not this is a brand-produced video or simply one shot by a customer at one of Microsoft's new retail stores uploaded completely independently. Either way, it's gotten passed around the web -- and not because of the quality of the moves. As Visible Measures' Matt Cutler noted: "It clearly harkens back to T-Mobile Dance -- minus the spontaneity, talented dancing, pacing and overall viewer engagement." 

 The Top-Performing Viral Video Ads of the Week 

Rank	Last Week's Rank	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week's Views*	% Change in Views**	Watch
1	New	Heineken	Know The Signs	Ruby Agency	1,172,878	NEW
2	2	Evian	Live Young	BETC Euro RSCG	1,114,727	18%
3	1	Volkswagen	The Fun Theory	DDB	838,928	-23%
4	New	Activision	Tony Hawk Ride	Droga; Sharethrough	781,922	NEW
5	New	Microsoft	Microsoft Store Flash Dance	NA	560,041	NEW
6	New	Samsung	Expect the Unexpected	The Viral Factory	549,064	NEW
7	New	Toshiba	Armchair Viewing Refined	Grey	546,092	NEW
8	New	Cisco	Spam And Virus Blocker	Sharethrough	511,233	NEW
9	4	DC Shoes	Gymkhana Two	Mad Media	504,608	-10%
10	5	Microsoft	Xbox Project Natal	World Famous	440,386	-10%

Source: Visible Measures

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The data used for The Ad Age Viral Video Chart was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 200+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations. 

*See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

**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 us directly.

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Abbey Klaassen is the Digital Editor at Advertising Age. You can find the original article here.