NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Nike isn't an official World Cup sponsor, but its three-minute "Write the Future" video broke the record for the biggest audience in the first week of a campaign with 7.8 million views. That record, incidentally, was by another Nike ad: the somber and strange "Earl and Tiger" ad, which debuted earlier this year with 6.3 million views in its first week.
Nike's World Cup ad started a cast of international soccer stars including Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Franck Ribery and Christiano Ronald. (Mr. Rooney is shown a future living in a trailer if he fails to catch Mr. Ribery steaming toward England's goal.) As the chart from Visible Measures shows, the video truly has international appeal.
Interestingly, Pepsi also is not an official World Cup sponsor, but its "Oh Africa" has spent seven weeks on the Viral Video Chart.
YouTube is the platform that makes video powerful for viral video ads like Nike's, so fitting on the week of its 5th birthday, YouTube landed its own ad on the chart, "YouTube Turns Five." Seven of the entrants this week are chart veterans, including Toyota, Old Spice, Evian, Gillette and Microsoft.
No. 10 is another newcomer, Canada's Fortnight Lingerie, with an example of an ad you probably wouldn't see on TV. It's almost not-safe-for-work content is excused somewhat by a public service in the form of a refresher course on CPR.
The Most-Watched Viral Video Ads of the Week
| Rank | Last Week's Rank | Brand | Campaign | Agency | Current Week's Views*
| % Change in Views** | Watch |
1 | NEW | Nike | Write the Future | Wieden + Kennedy | 7,823,459 | NEW | |
2 | 1 | Toyota | The Sienna Family | Saatchi & Saatchi | 1,633,628 | 14% | |
3 | 3 | Evian | Live Young | BETC Euro RSCG | 1,040,002 | -5% | |
4 | 7 | Pepsi | Oh Africa | NA | 1,017,039 | 31% | |
5 | 2 | Gillette | Uncut | Greenlight Media & Marketing | 903,844 | -35% | |
6 | NEW | YouTube | YouTube Turns 5 | NA | 599,434 | NEW | |
7 | 5 | Old Spice | Odor Blocker | Wieden + Kennedy | 579,858 | -34% | |
8 | Back On Chart | Old Spice | The Man Your Man Could Smell Like | Wieden + Kennedy | 471,835 | Back On Chart | |
9 | 10 | Microsoft | Xbox Project Natal | World Famous | 471,311 | -10% | |
10 | NEW | Fortnight Lingerie | Super Sexy CPR | Red Urban | 441,593 | NEW | |
Source: Visible Measures ---
Michael Learmonth is a reporter 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.
Follow Visible Measures on Twitter!
