Most Shared Ads of March 2014: Wren Video Takes Top Spot But It’s Far From A Perfect Kiss

Kissing – it’s just plain gross, right? Well, that’s what I thought until I saw “First Kiss”, which tops this month’s Global Ads Chart round-up.

Splitting a group of (photogenic) strangers off into pairs, the teams were asked to kiss for the first time on camera. At first bemused, then hesitant, the pairs finally accept their fate, eventually succumbing. If this sounds like a more couple-friendly version of Saw, then you’re not far off the money.

The one thing that did not cross my mind, however, while watching Tatia Pilieva’s short film was ‘what a great ad’.

Not because it’s not ‘great’ – the numbers do not lie, after all. Since it was uploaded on March 11, the video has had its own love affair with the internet, the experiment in human tenderness grossing more than 1.44 million shares across Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere during March alone. The perfect kiss, if you will.

It’s the ‘ad’ part I struggled with – and I’m not the only one. Having watched the video when it first came out I had no idea it was an advert for fashion brand, Wren.

After all, there were no logos, no mentions of Wren itself, apart from a blink-and-you-will-miss-it mention in the credit under ‘styling’ – just three-and-a-half minutes of awkward kissing.

However, after some research into the background of the film the fuzzy polka dots were soon connected.  It was revealed the video was actually created using paid models to showcase clothing company Wren’s fall 2014 collection, prompting collective gasps, sighs and total indifference across the web.

Which begs the question: why not just brand it in the first place? Why not just stick your logo on it? As Dr Karen Nelson-Field revealed in her recent book ‘Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing’, using poorly branded advertising is like throwing away your marketing budget as there is no correlation between how much sharing a video attracts and the level of branding.

As for the video itself, while I appreciate the soft lighting and twinkly music of ‘First Kiss’, I can’t help but feel that if you want to see people who don’t know each other’s names snog each other’s faces off, literally any club on a Friday night will do.

New ads for various charities and non-profits dominate the rest of the chart. Leading the way in second spot with a highly-respectable 866,365 shares last month is a video from Save The Children UK called “Most Shocking Second A Day Video”.

Now, we’ve all seen plenty of ‘Second A Day’ videos online and have grown used to their tropes: sometimes they’re mundane, sometimes they’re life-affirming, most often, beards grow and recede like the turning of the tide.

Save The Children’s spot smartly takes the Second A Day video (our foremost celebration of Everydayness) and turns it to a completely unfamiliar and unsettling scene: the plight of dislocated children in Syria. The results are, as you might expect, rather shocking. The video’s success is a little bit more predictable, however.

One place below it with 718,900 shares is a spot from Italian non-profit Coordown, created to raise awareness of World Down’s Syndrome Day (March 21st).

While charity adverts can verge on the condescending, “Dear Future Mom” is a sweetly empowering video about living a full and happy life, whatever the circumstances. Having people with Down’s Syndrome confidently reassuring an expectant mother about their condition nicely inverts the usual PSA fare.

Released with the hashtag #DearFutureMom, this is a spot with an inspiringly simple message. Empathy and support, Coordown says, needn’t always be sensationalist; sometimes it’s enough to affirm what we all have in common.

A few places down in 19th place is a campaign which encourages young girls to pursue leadership roles without fear of discrimination.

The campaign, titled “Ban Bossy”, features interviews with successful women discussing their history of being belittled for their ambitions. Words like ‘pushy’, ‘stubborn’ and, of course, ‘bossy’ abound.

There’s a fairly all-star cast on hand to support the cause: names like Condoleeza Rice, Jennifer Garner and ‘Lean In’ writer Sheryl Sandberg. For the purposes of Celeb Bingo, Beyoncé is of course the main attraction, giving a fiery reading of the titular quote.

A video from UK animal charity The Mayhew Animal Home also makes it on to the top 20.

Rather than the usual heart-breaking animal charity film showing a dog with sad eyes trembling in a cage, “Unloved” instead shows why animals should be celebrated rather than pitied.