Good news for brand marketers—a new “Viral Spiral” interactive infographic from Unruly Media reports that sharing of video ads via social media has grown nearly 50 times in the past eight years. This is a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the top 10 ads in 2013 were shared 28.8 million times, which is an increase of over 52% since 2012, and Unruly Media is currently tracking 500,000 shares of brand video content each day.
Unruly Media recognizes the 2010 Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Be” ad as “the game-changer.” Since that ad debuted, shares of the top three branded videos have grown seven-fold. However, that Old Spice ad is not the most shared branded video of all time. That honor goes to Volkswagen’s “The Force” ad with 5.58 million shares, which debuted during the 2011 Super Bowl.
The growth in brand video sharing has changed the way advertisers do their jobs. In 2006, the “Evolution” ad from Dove was the third most shared ad of the year with 60,954 shares during that year. In 2013, the Dove “Real Beauty Sketches” ad was the most shared brand video of the year with 4.24 million shares (it’s also the third most shared video of all time). Combine those shares with the second and third most shared video ads in 2013 (“Hump Day” from GEICO and “Baby & Me” from Evian), and those three ads have been shared nearly 50 times more than the top three ads shared in 2006 (from 244,035 shares in 2006 to 11.6 million shares in 2013). In total, eight out of the top 20 most shared video ads of all time debuted in 2013 (40%).
Advertisers have learned a lot about creating videos that people want to share via social media in the past eight years. For example, Unruly Media reports that the average length for the top three most shared brand videos has increased by 178% since 2006 (from 35 seconds to 96 seconds).
Unruly Media has tracked 365 billion brand videos since 2006 using a combination of its own proprietary technology and social media APIs and used that data as the basis for its infographic. You can view the Viral Spiral below. Not only can you filter the results by year, number of shares, sector, and more, but you can also watch all of the video ads without leaving the interactive infographic.
Are you creating brand videos that people want to share with family and friends across the social web?
Image: Malgorzata Gluchowska
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
