Record-Breaking April Fuels Post-Super Bowl Growth In Online Video Ad Shares
Three Ads Launched In Same Month Make History; GEICO Has Special Reason To Celebrate Wednesdays, Says New Report From Unruly.
Online video ad shares have risen by 7% since Q1. That’s according to a new report published today by video technology company Unruly, which found that, despite a stellar performance by branded ad campaigns at the Super Bowl, sharing activity increased in the second quarter of 2013.
A record-breaking April was the main reason for the surprising increase. For the first time ever, three ads launched within the same month made it on to the top 20 most shared ads chart of all time – Dove ‘Real Beauty Sketches’, Evian ‘Baby & Me’, and Kmart’s Ship My Pants.
Compiled using Unruly Analytics™, the report shows that sharing of branded content grew 7% in the second quarter of 2013, increasing to 33,287,836 shares from the first quarter. Although Entertainment once again took top spot as the most shared sector, CPG/FMCG also performed well, growing shares by +10.3%, from a very strong base that was boosted by Super Bowl sharing in Q1 2013 (+78.2% from Q4 2012).
CPG/FMCG’s performance in Q2 was fuelled by two ads, Dove ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ and Evian ‘Baby & Me’, which together made up 21.4% of total shares for the quarter and placed them 3rd and 11th in the all-time global ads chart, respectively.
“Even without the assistance of the Super Bowl, we saw ads in almost every sector share grow in terms of sharing,” said Ian Forrester, Unruly’s Insight Director. “It shows brands can make it big outside of the Super Bowl.”
Here’s how the rest of the sectors stacked up:
Entertainment Continues to Engage in Q2:
- Once again, Entertainment was the best performing vertical of Q2 2013, with 11,006,892 shares (33.1% of all content);
- Warner Bros’s ‘Man of Steel’ trailer was the stand out hit, with an impressive 1,137,393 shares.
CPG/FMCG Comes A Close Second:
- CPG/FMCG was the second strongest vertical in Q2 2013, with 9,556,831 shares;
- In addition to the runaway hits from Dove and Evian, Nivea Germany’s Mother’s Day ad campaign, ‘Mama’ (288,238 shares), also performed strongly.
Tech Holds Steady in Third:
- Tech performed the third strongest, attracting 17.8% of the total number of shares from Q2 (5,912,246), up 1.6% from the previous quarter;
- The strongest Tech video was Sony’s Microsoft-mocking ‘Used Game Instructional Video’.
Retail Beats Out Autos for Fourth:
- Retail showed huge growth in Q2 2013 (+218.6%), catapulting it ahead of Autos for the first time this year, thanks to two ads from Kmart – ‘Ship My Pants’ and ‘Big Gas Savings’.
Auto Stalls in Q2:
- Autos performance dropped significantly (-67.3%) from Q1 2013;
- With only one truly strong video (Audi ‘The Challenge’) emerging, shares in Q2 2013 totalled 1,048,078.
Outside of the strongest social video sectors, but nonetheless worthy of mention, was GEICO’s ‘Hump Day’.
“GEICO displayed a stroke of social video genius by making an ad that speaks to that feeling we all have on Wednesday, when we have got through half of the working week,” continued Forrester. “The ad is unusual in that it has enjoyed a peak in shares every Wednesday since launch, continuing to spread GEICO’s message long after a normal ad’s social interactions would have largely diffused [2 weeks following launch, according to Unruly’s Social Diffusion Curve].”
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Methodology
All data in this report is supplied by Unruly Analytics, a cloud-based dashboard that measures content from 1,300 brands across all verticals. The data collected is from 1st April 2013 until 30th June 2013. Some of the data used in Unruly Analytics also powers the Unruly Viral Video Chart™, which has been trusted since 2006 by advertisers worldwide to track their video content. Many platforms don’t begin tracking content until users have identified the content and asked for it to be tracked by entering it into the database themselves. Unruly Analytics already tracks 1,300 global brands and counting.
To see find out more about Unruly Analytics, click here.
About Unruly
Unruly is a video technology company that works with top brands and their agencies to predict the emotional impact of their videos and get them watched, tracked and shared across paid, owned and earned media. We use our proprietary technology to turn target audiences into engaged viewers and engaged viewers into customers and advocates. Brands use our social analytics dashboard to benchmark their content, outsmart the competition and demonstrate superior ROI.
In a nutshell, brands use Unruly to join the dots on Facebook, YouTube and the social web. The Unruly Viral Video Chart has tracked 329 billion video streams since 2006. With an engaged audience of 978 million consumers, across the full range of mobile, tablet and second screen devices, Unruly has delivered, tracked and audited 2.8 billion video views across 2,500+ social video campaigns for over 400 brands including Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, Volkswagen, Microsoft, Warner Brothers and adidas. We’ve worked with 60% of Interbrand’s Top 100 Best Global Brands and our mission is to deliver the most awesome social video advertising campaigns on the planet.
Founded in 2006, Unruly has 11 offices and employs over 125 people globally. In 2012, Unruly secured a $25 million Series A investment – the largest ever for a private company in the social video space. The company has won over 15 awards including “Best Content Distribution Service” at the Braves Awards; “Digital Innovator of the Year” at the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 and #14 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2012. To find out more visit www.unrulymedia.com
Press Contact
David Waterhouse, Head of Content, Unruly
Tel: 020 7199 5871
Email: david.waterhouse@unrulymedia.com
