A forensic artist drawing a picture of a baby Clydesdale shipping its pants? Now that would be a viral commercial supernova.
Dove, Budweiser and Kmart all rank near the top of Unruly Media's just-released list of the most viral commercials of 2013 so far. Those brands are joined by Pepsi MAX, Evian, Ram Trucks and more, as Unruly celebrates the commercials with the most pass-along value through the first five months of the year. And as the numbers show, it's been a very strong year for online video, as compared to 2012.
See the full list at this link:
The 10 Most-Viral Ads of 2013 (So Far)
Unruly counts shares of videos across social media—a metric that is often at odds with sheer view counts. For example, Microsoft's "Child of the '90s" video for Internet Explorer would place fourth on this list in terms of YouTube views (with more than 34 million), but its approximately 630,000 shares are good for only ninth place.
Conversely, Kmart's "Ship My Pants" and Budweiser's "Brotherhood" spots both have fewer YouTube views than Evian's "Baby & Me" or Pepsi MAX's "Test Drive"—but they rank higher on this list because of better share rates. (The top video on the list, however, leads in both views and shares.)
We left a couple of videos from Unruly's list off this one—including the Biting Elbows music video and the Miami Heat's Harlem Shake clip—to focus on brand advertising rather than more entertainment-based content.