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Branded Video Sharing Almost 50 Times Higher In 2013 Than In 2006

Interactive infographic ‘The Unruly Viral Spiral’ shows the explosion in shares and changing social video advertising trends

December 4, 2013 — The sharing of video ads has increased almost 50x over the last eight years. That’s according to marketing technology platform Unruly, which today launches an interactive infographic that visualizes the explosive growth of video sharing since 2006, charting the extent to which many advertisers are using social video to amplify their brand.

‘The Unruly Viral Spiral’ charts the 3 most shared ads across the social web from every year since 2006 and also tracks their number of all-time shares since launch. Ads from brands such as Pepsi, Volkswagen and Nike all feature.

 

According to the data, the top 3 ads in 2013 – Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches”, GEICO’s “Hump Day” and Evian’s “Baby&Me” – have so far attracted 11.6 million shares – 47.5 times more than the top 3 ads managed in 2006 (244,395 shares combined).

Other key video sharing stats* include:

  • During 2006, the 3rd biggest ad of the year was Dove “Evolution”, which achieved 60,954 shares during the year of its launch, compared to 4.24m for “Real Beauty Sketches”;
  • Sharing of the top 3 branded videos has grown seven-fold from 2010 – the year of the game-changing Old Spice ad – to 2013 (11.6m vs. 1.6m, +613.8%);
  • 40% (8/20) of the top 20 ads of all-time were released in 2013;
  • The top 10 ads in 2013 generated 28.8 million shares between  them – a year-on-year increase of 52.1% from 2012* (19 million) – a signal that consumers’ video consumption habits are continuing to evolve rapidly;
  • The Unruly Viral Video Chart is now tracking 500,000 shares of branded content every 24 hours;
  • The most shared ad of all time is still Volkswagen’s 2011 Super Bowl ad, “The Force”; in second place second is TNT Benelux’s 2012 hit “Dramatic Surprise”, while Dove’s 2013 ad “Real Beauty Sketches” is third;
  • The brand that has racked up the most shares since 2006 is DC Shoes, thanks to its hugely successful Gymkhana series, with 10.73million shares** across four videos. Volkswagen is second with 7.76million shares, while Evian is third with 6.45million shares;
  • FMCG/CPG is the most shared product category, making up 23% of the most shared ads of all time**. In second place is Entertainment, with 18% of shares;
  • The average length of the top 3 videos has increased from 35 seconds in 2006 to one minute 36 seconds in 2013 – an increase of 177.88%.

Unruly COO and co-founder Sarah Wood said: “We’ve been tracking the most shared videos at Unruly – UGC and branded – since we launched the Unruly Viral Video Chart back in 2006. Over that time, we’ve seen an explosion in both the number of videos brands are making and the volume of videos people are sharing.

“From a marketing perspective, why are shares more meaningful than views? Because shares are a global currency and a gold standard in the social economy; a share is a genuine measure of deep engagement, an act of advocacy and a driver of significant earned media.

“Over the last few years we are increasingly seeing a number of marketers challenging the value of a view and instead focusing on creating content and distribution strategies which drive deeper levels of engagement. What we choose to share is a barometer of how we’re feeling, a barometer of what’s moving us to talk around the global water-cooler.”

Wood added: “As well as demonstrating the exponential growth of the medium, The Unruly Viral Spiral aims to provide a micro history of the medium and a ‘greatest hits’ for people to enjoy and share.”

In the spirit of 2013 – the year of so-called ‘prankvertising’ – The Viral Spiral also stakes its claim as the Internet’s first ‘infoprank’ – an infographic with surprises along the way.

To view The Unruly Viral Spiral or to embed the infographic on your website, click here.

 

Methodology

The Unruly Viral Spiral has been compiled using third party Facebook and Twitter APIs and Unruly’s proprietary blog-scanning technology to track real-time sharing of the most popular branded videos each year, from 2006-2013.

The most shared branded videos were ranked at the end of the year of their release, with the exception of 2013, when the data will stop tracking shares at midnight GMT on December 31, 2013. Shares continue to be counted in subsequent years across all the videos included in The Unruly Viral Spiral, and can be seen in the ‘All-Time Shares’ filter.

Some videos have a longer lifespan than others; this means that videos from previous years may no longer be the most shared videos from the year of their release.

Data sources: Unruly Analytics™ and the Unruly Viral Video Chart™.

* Data as of November 18, 2013. Does not include Invisible Children’s “Kony2012” because the video is a documentary

** Based on the top 100 most shared ads of all time on November 18, 2013 – source: Unruly Viral Video Chart.

 

Unruly Viral Sharing Awards

Join Unruly for the inaugural Unruly Video Sharing Awards – the #VSAs – a live Twitter event taking place on 10 December at 11am EST/8 am PST. Powered by the Unruly
Viral Video Chart, these data-driven awards will honor the most shared videos and brands of 2013.

To view the finalists, click here.

UNRULY, UNRULY VIRAL VIDEO CHART, UNRULY ANALYTICS and logos and associated marks are trademarks of Unruly Group. Other marks are owned by their respective owners.

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About Unruly

Marketing technology company Unruly is the leading global platform for social video marketing and 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.

Our end-to-end solution cracks the code on social video sharing. Brands can predict shareability with Unruly Labs, engage their audience across the Open Web with Unruly Activate and prove social ROI with Unruly Analytics, a cloud-based dashboard providing real-time competitive benchmarks across 2.7 million customizable data points.

The Unruly Viral Video Chart has tracked 365 billion video views since 2006. With an engaged audience of over a billion consumers, across the full range of mobile, tablet and second screen devices, Unruly has delivered, tracked and audited 3.5 billion video views across 3,000+ social video campaigns for over 400 brands including Volkswagen, Dove, Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, Microsoft, Warner Bros 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 12 offices and employs over 130 people globally. In 2012, Unruly secured a $25 million Series A investment led by Amadeus, Van den Ende & Deitmers and Business Growth Fund – 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; ‘International Management Team of the Year’ at the BVCA Awards 2013 and #14 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA.

To find out more visit www.unrulymedia.com.