NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- After 10 months, a grand total of 102 million views, 130,000 comments and 500,000 Facebook fans, Evian is finally putting its babies to work on TV. The ads started running in the Los Angeles market this week and New York this summer, a change in strategy for what had been an entirely online campaign, at least in the U.S.
Heloise Hooton, a spokeswoman for Euro RSCG in Paris, said the video has appeared on TV in France and Belgium, and also began airing in the U.K. earlier this year. That means Danone is finally putting a significant budget behind Evian's campaign. It may also mean that the company is seeing the limits of its online video strategy on actual sales. "While we are expanding into traditional media in order to broaden even further the reach of the 'Live Young' campaign, online remains a major pillar of our strategy," said Jerome Goure, VP-marketing at Danone.
Of course, paid placement on YouTube was an important part of getting and maintaining views, but a YouTube exec says Evian paid less to promote the video than you'd think. Euro RSCG said it has used "minimal" paid promotion to place the video on YouTube's home page in a given market, and then it has let fans of the roller-skating babies take over.
Babies aside, Wieden & Kennedy had another huge week on the Viral Chart, with more than 13 million views between Old Spice's "Odor Blocker" and Nike's "Earl and Tiger." That doesn't include Wieden's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like," which had nearly 1.5 million views last week.
Those two videos made it a big week for the Viral Chart, according to the folks at Visible Measures. Collectively, the top 10 ads brought in 21 million views, a weekly total outdone only by the week after the Super Bowl, which had 43 million views.
It's possible we had something to do with that. Six of the top 10 most-watched ads last week -- including two videos returning to the chart -- were "featured videos" on YouTube when Ad Age curated the home page during the same time period.
The Most-Watched Ads of the Week
| Rank | Last Week's Rank | Brand | Campaign | Agency | Current Week's Views*
| % Change in Views** | Watch |
1 | 4 | Old Spice | Odor Blocker | Wieden + Kennedy | 7,166,770 | 680% | |
2 | NEW | Nike | Earl and Tiger | Wieden + Kennedy | 6,334,337 | NEW | |
3 | 3 | Evian | Live Young | BETC Euro RSCG | 1,629,573 | 55% | |
4 | 5 | Old Spice | The Man Your Man Could Smell Like | Wieden + Kennedy | 1,449,857 | 122% | |
5 | Back On Chart | E*TRADE | E*TRADE Super Bowl 2010 | Grey | 1,276,942 | Back On Chart | |
6 | Back On Chart | T-Mobile | T-Mobile Dance | Saatchi & Saatchi; Mediacom | 915,383 | Back On Chart | |
7 | NEW | Samsung | Business Card Throwing | The Viral Factory | 880,880 | NEW | |
8 | 7 | Microsoft | Xbox Project Natal | World Famous | 712,835 | 57% | |
9 | 10 | Pepsi | Oh Africa | NA | 507,659 | 40% | |
10 | Back On Chart | DC Shoes | Gymkhana Two | Mad Media | 458,414 | Back On Chart | |
Source: Visible Measures
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Michael Learmonth is the digital editor at Advertising Age. You can find the original article here.
The data used for The Top 10 Viral Video Ads Chart was sourced from Visible Measures.
*See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.
**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.
For an end-to-end assessment of your online video campaign's performance or to notify us of an upcoming or in-market campaign, please contact us.
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