On this week’s Ad Age Viral Video Chart, DC Shoes’ Gymkhana Five makes a massive debut at number one, pulling in 20.8 million views. The campaign was shot on the actual streets of San Francisco featuring Ken Block's fast, raw and precise driving style, known as Gymkhana. The spot also features cameos by DC Shoes athletes Travis Pastrana and Jake Phelps.
To give some perspective, 20.8 million is the fifth-biggest debut week for any brand since Visible Measures teamed up with Ad Age to publish the chart back in 2009.
- - Kony 2012: 96.4 million
- - Old Spice's "Responses": 35.1 million
- - M&M's "Just My Shell": 27.6 million
- - VW's "The Force": 22.8 million
- - DC Shoes' "Gymkhana 5": 20.8 million
While paid placements are part of any branded campaign, great content allows a small brand like DC Shoes to mix it up with the big boys.
Also new to the chart this week is Banco Sabadell’s Flashmob campaign, debuting at number three with 1.9 million views. The Spanish banking giant created to the spot to celebrate Sabadell's 130th anniversary. Opening with what appears to be a single street performer playing the opening notes of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the performance rapidly expands to include more and more people. By the conclusion of the ad there's a sea of people participating, including musicians from the Orchestra Simfònica del Vallès and singers from the Amics de l’Òpera de Sabadell, Coral Belles Arts and Cor Lieder Camera.
Another chart newcomer is Barack Obama’s Firms, sneaking into tenth spot this week with 640,000 views. In Firms, the president jabs at Mitt Romney's record during his tenure at Bain Capital. The attack ad charges that Bain shipped American jobs overseas, that Romney has a multitude of off-shore bank accounts, and that as Massachusetts governor, he sent state jobs to India. "Mitt Romney's not the solution. He's the problem," the ads says as Romney is heard singing "America the Beautiful."
The Most-Watched Ads of the Week
| Rank | Last Week's Rank | Brand | Campaign | Agency | Current Week's Views* | % Change in Views** |
Watch
|
|---|
|
1
|
NEW
|
DC Shoes
|
Gymkhana Five
|
NA
|
20,018,794
|
NEW
|
|
|
2
|
1
|
Rovio
|
Angry Birds Space
|
NA
|
2,047,954
|
+5%
|
|
|
3
|
NEW
|
Banco Sabadell
|
Flashmob
|
NA
|
1,907,619
|
NEW
|
|
|
4
|
Back on Chart
|
McDonald's
|
Our Food. Your Questions.
|
NA
|
1,565,283
|
Back on Chart
|
|
|
5
|
4
|
Google
|
The Web Is What You Make Of It
|
BBH (New York);BBH (London);BBH (Mumbai);BBH (Singapore);Google Creative Lab
|
1,137,747
|
+8%
|
|
|
6
|
NEW
|
Gatorade
|
Inside the Edge
|
OMD (Chicago)
|
924,360
|
NEW
|
|
|
7
|
6
|
Visa
|
ViGo World 2012
|
TBWA\Chiat\Day (Los Angeles)
|
763,935
|
-13%
|
|
|
8
|
9
|
Invisible Children
|
Kony 2012
|
NA
|
724,660
|
+5%
|
|
|
9
|
NEW
|
Nike
|
The New Nike+ Running App
|
Wieden + Kennedy (Portland)
|
647,468
|
NEW
|
|
|
10
|
NEW
|
Barack Obama
|
Firms
|
NA
|
643,559
|
NEW
|
|
Source: Visible Measures
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 does not include Visible Measures' paid-placement (e.g., overlays; pre-, mid-, and post-roll) performance data or video views on private sites. This chart does not include movie trailers, video game campaigns, TV show, or media network promotions. View counts are incremental by week.
**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.