Year after year, Apple releases some of the the most-watched online video campaigns. The company benefits from having a loyal fan base that anticipate its newest product offering by watching its online video ads over and over again. This year, Apple released 13 video ad campaigns that averaged 4.4 million views each – most of them highlighting a newly released product.
To show which Apple ads resonated most with online audiences, we ranked their performance by True Reach, the combined performance of clips related to a campaign, from the original spot uploaded by Apple, to the copies and derivative content such as spoofs, mashups, video responses, and more uploaded by audiences across the web. This list is different than many of our other lists in that we've focused on specific creative performance instead of the entire campaign.
Topping the list is "Introducing iPhone 5," which has grabbed 13.3 million views since its launch in September. There are over 100 copies, spoofs, and responses to the spot. Amazingly, "Introducing iPhone 5" laps the next most-watched Apple creative, which shows the amount of online enthusiasm for the newest iPhone.
Other creatives from the iPhone 5 campaign to make the list include "Thumb" and "Physics," which claim fourth and tenth place, respectively.
There are two creatives from the campaign The New iPad, which introduced the fourth generation of the Apple's tablet. "Introducing the New iPad" grabs the the runner-up spot on the list with 5.6 million views over 32 related clips, while a :30 TV spot for the new iPad grabs eighth place with 1.8 million views.
iPad Mini, which introduced the highly anticipated little brother to the iPad, also has two creatives on the list. Interestingly, the main creative for the video campaign, "Introducing iPad Mini" received fewer views than the shorter "Piano" spot. "Piano," which plays off the famous giant piano scene in Big, collected over 4 million views, while "Introducing iPad Mini" grabbed 2.3 million views for 2012.
Also on the list are two creatives starring celebrities Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel for Apple's Siri campaign (beating out the John Malkovich and Martin Scorsese creatives – 890,000 views and 1.2 million views, respectively). The main creative for Introducing MacBook Pro with Retina Display grabs seventh place with 1.9 million views.
A surprise on this list is the absence of the Apple Genius spots, which featured Apple Geniuses helping customers complete projects in iMovie and other programs. The controversial spots were deemed condescending to Apple's audiences and subsequently pulled. In online video, controversy typically drives interest, but it wasn't enough to break into the top ten here. The most-watched Genius spot was Mayday, which had 1.3+ million views.
As many views as these creatives and their larger campaigns have driven in 2012, they were only enough to land one Apple campaign – Introducing iPhone 5 – on our Top 10 Tech Campaigns of the Year list. Samsung dominated that list with four campaigns, with Galaxy S III, the most-viewed of the year, coming in at over 71 million views, more than all Apple campaigns combined in 2012.
What do you think? What was your favorite Apple ad of the year? Let us know in the comments section below!
The Most Viral Apple Ads of 2012
| Rank | Creative | Campaign | 2012 True Reach Views |
Watch
|
|---|
|
1
|
Introducing iPhone 5
|
Introducing iPhone 5
|
13,325,996
|
|
|
2
|
Introducing the New iPad
|
The New iPad
|
5,617,961
|
|
|
3
|
Piano
|
iPad Mini
|
4,086,306
|
|
|
4
|
Thumb
|
Introducing iPhone 5
|
2,623,875
|
|
|
5
|
Introducing iPad Mini
|
iPad Mini
|
2,397,371
|
|
|
6
|
Rainy Day
|
Siri
|
2,197,401
|
|
|
7
|
Introducing MacBook Pro With Retina Display
|
Introducing MacBook Pro With Retina Display
|
1,938,637
|
|
|
8
|
The new iPad TV Spot
|
The New iPad
|
1,823,592
|
|
|
9
|
Date Night
|
Siri
|
1,797,709
|
|
|
10
|
Physics
|
Introducing iPhone 5
|
1,429,549
|
|
