The Visible Measures Blog

Basketball Puppets Remain, Test Drive Bras Surge in This Week's Viral Video Chart

James O'Connor — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:35:00 GMT

The L.A. Lakers took home the NBA Championship over two weeks ago, yet Nike Basketball's Most Valuable Puppets remains at the top of the Chart for the second week in a row. This is in stark contrast to the NBA's Where Amazing Happens campaign, which barely made the Chart this week. This discrepancy could be due to Nike Basketball injecting new assets into its campaign last week, which would speak to the importance and subsequent results of continued marketing support for viral video campaigns. Or, perhaps, it could be due to the staying power of puppets. What do you think?

Interest in bras also showed some staying power this week. The Alton Towers / Ultimo Test Drive Bras campaign jumped five spots to claim third place with 460,000+ views. It fell just short of overtaking the Xbox Project Natal campaign, which saw 473,000+ views.

New This Week

Mountain Dew teamed up with the World of Warcraft to tear apart a supermarket and conquer seventh place. Sentiment analysis suggests that the spot is resonating with the World of Warcraft audience; the most-used comment terms include horde, alliance, elf, and orc. Carl's Jr. packed a one-two punch this week, delivering their new Teriyaki Burger campaign on the heels of How To Eat a Burger, and took both sixth and tenth place.

Congratulations to Saatchi & Saatchi and T-Mobile for winning the Bronze in the Titanium & Integrated category at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival for their work on T-Mobile Dance! The campaign also made its fifteenth straight appearance on the Chart this week. Wow!

Top Performing Campaigns for the Week of June 22

Rank	Last Week's Rank	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week's Views*	% Change in Views**
1	1	Nike Basketball	Most Valuable Puppets	Wieden & Kennedy	859,205	-63%
2	2	Microsoft Xbox	Project Natal	World Famous	473,623	-50%
3	8	Alton Towers / Ultimo	Test Drive Bras	In House	460,840	+23%
4	3	DC Shoes	Ken Block’s Gymkhana Two Project	Mad Media	387,763	-38%
5	10	T-Mobile	T-Mobile Dance	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	325,981	+41%
6	5	Carl's Jr.	How To Eat A Burger (Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger)	Initiative, Mendelsohn Zien	299,926	-52%
7	NEW	Mountain Dew	Choose Your Side	BBDO	296,191	NEW
8	6	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	287,516	-40%
9	7	NBA	Where Amazing Happens	Goodby, Silverstein & Partners	201,406	-37%
10	NEW	Carl's Jr.	Teriyaki Burger	Mendelsohn Zien	182,518	NEW

Source: Visible Measures

To watch the videos that made these campaigns the most watched this week, check out our Top Ad Campaigns page.

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The data used for The Ad Age Viral Video Chart was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

* See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact us directly.

Updated: Online Viewership of Michael Jackson's Thriller Continues to Soar

Matt Fiorentino — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:32:00 GMT

Yesterday, we reported that Michael Jackson's Thriller had been viewed over 8.5 million times online since his death last Thursday. These results appear to have resonated with the online video viewing audience and were later reported in the Associated Press. We've been continuing to track Thriller's online video trends and can now confirm that the initial surge in viewership has accelerated significantly.

Over the weekend, we recorded Thriller's sudden spike in views (8.5 million total). Monday and Tuesday's figures totaled over 19 million new views, bringing Thriller's total views to nearly 28 million since the King of Pop's untimely passing. This remarkable growth is occurring across the entire flight of Thriller's nearly 300 placements; no single asset appears to be driving these new levels of viewing activity.

What do you think this says about how people are remembering the King of Pop? Leave your comments below and be sure to check in for further updates.

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The data used in this post was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

Remembering Michael Jackson through Online Video

Matt Fiorentino — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:09:00 GMT

The death of entertainment icons sends us to what makes us love them: their music, their words, their films, and other memories we can cull from the past. The sudden passing of Michael Jackson is no different, which sent millions of fans to online videos related to the King of Pop.

Although his impact on the world of entertainment has been virtually incalculable, we've been heartened by the outpouring of interest in Michael Jackson's music videos since his death. And while the viewership of all of his videos has spiked in recent days, we focused our research on Thriller, arguably Jackson's most groundbreaking music video and, in 1999, named the #1 music video of all time by MTV.

Michael Jackson - Thriller

Since his death last Thursday, viral videos related to Thriller have generated over 8.5 million views. Prior to Thursday, Thriller averaged nearly 150,000 views daily. Since his death, view counts for Thriller have averaged over 2.8 million daily -- an increase of nearly 1,800%.

These videos consist of the original video above, an Indian version, a lego version, perhaps one of the few Filipino prison music videos ever produced, and many others, spanning nearly 300 unique video placements in all.

If we can perhaps find a silver lining in the sadness of an incredible life cut short, it's that it's allowed us to once again recognize and celebrate the genius of Michael Jackson. Online video has helped in this effort through making remembering The King of Pop easier and faster than ever before.

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The data used in this post was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

Post NBA Finals, Nike Basketball's MVPuppets Show Viral Virility

James O'Connor — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:25:00 GMT

This week's chart has really got it all. From auto drifting to a Norwegian web browser to personal hygiene products and women testing bras on roller coasters, shall we say last week's viewing interests were, um... colorful. Four new campaigns have etched their way into the top ten this week but more notably, Nike Basketball has grabbed the top spot again in its sixth week among the rankings with nearly 2.5 million views. Nike's MVPuppets campaign debuted the week of May 11 at second place and took the gold the following week. Nike's jump from third to first place was unexpected with the NBA season wrapped up and both basketball related campaigns on the chart experiencing a decline in views last week. Yet, delving behind the scenes a little bit, we can see Nike aimed to extend the campaign's life by releasing new assets last week contributing to the 55% increase in weekly views.

Taking a closer look at this week's new entries, we have the shoes and apparel brand DC following up with Ken Block's Gymkhana Two Project after the success of the first project. The seven minute infomercial features auto racer Ken Block ‘drifting' his go-kart like Subaru around LA's ship yard helping to market a new line of branded apparel. Next up is another infomercial for Comfort Wipe, the "sanitary paper extension arm and holder." Need we say more? In the eighth position this week is Ultimo, the UK based lingerie brand which teamed up with Alton Towers amusement park to test out the durability and "lift support" by putting models in lingerie on roller coasters. Again, need we say more? And lastly, Opera Software of Norway released an asset to market the new release of Unite 10, which is described as a web server on a web browser. A handful of copies associated with the campaign surfaced, but Opera's original video generated the lion's share of the campaign's views. The spot is also somewhat reminiscent of Apple's 1984 commercial.

After Xbox's record-breaking percent growth last week, the Project Natal campaign dropped 31% alongside Carl's Jr vlogger campaign which has declined for the second week in a row. We witness the departure of Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man In The World, Gillette's Shaving Tips From Gillette, Bud Light's Beer & Porn and Vodafone's Make The Most Of Now. Vodafone proved some staying power by maintaining a position in the top ten for six consecutive weeks, with two weeks in the prized first rank. Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance and T-Mobile's T-Mobile Dance remain resilient in their fourteenth week on the chart, both experiencing growth.

Top Performing Campaigns for the Week of June 15, 2009

Rank	Last Week's Rank	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week's Views*	% Change in Views**
1	3	Nike Basketball	Most Valuable Puppets	Wieden & Kennedy	2,481,055	+55%
2	1	Microsoft Xbox	Project Natal	World Famous Inc.	1,711,375	-31%
3	New	DC Shoes	Ken Block's Gymkhana Two Project	Mad Media	744,980	New
4	New	Comfort Wipe	Comfort Wipe	Adcomm Advertising	689,064	New
5	2	Carl's Jr	How To Eat A Burger (Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger)	Initiative	684,026	-59%
6	5	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	497,796	+47%
7	4	NBA	Where Amazing Happens	Goodby Silverstein & Partners	458,162	-9%
8	New	Ultimo	Test Drive Bras	fr@nk	385,818	New
9	New	Opera Software	Unite	In House	309,393	New
10	7	T-Mobile	T-Mobile Dance	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	275,152	+12%

Source: Visible Measures

To watch the ads, check out our Top Ad Campaigns page here.

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* See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact us directly.

Xbox's Project Natal Sees Meteoric Rise in the Viral Video Chart as Others Fall

James O'Connor — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:53:00 GMT

The Viral Video Chart this week is a gamer's paradise with Xbox's Project Natal skyrocketing over 1,000% from last week to claim the top spot with 2.4+ million views. The campaign was launched in the beginning of June, making its first appearance on the Chart last week with 200,000+ views. In week two, the campaign caught on like wildfire, and generated significant amounts of brand advocacy with more than 400 copies and derivatives (!!). In addition to this viral activity, we discovered a slew of new original assets uploaded by Xbox. Among the derivatives for the campaign, Jimmy Fallon jumped into the mix, unable to contain his inner gaming geek, and came out to play (literally) on his late night TV show. Endorsements from the likes of Steven Spieberg don't hurt either.

The top three campaigns from last week, Carl's Jr.'s How to Eat a Burger, Nike Basketball's Most Valuable Puppets, and the NBA's Where Amazing Happens, remain in the upper echelons of the chart, yet experienced significant declines in growth. Interestingly, the two basketball-related campaigns dropped in views the week of the NBA Finals. What do you think could have caused this decline? Could it be that, with only two teams left, there are simply less fans paying attention? Or, perhaps audiences have simply already seen the ads. Maybe they just grew tired of the spots after a few weeks. Drop us a note in the comments section and let us know what you think!

Carl’s Jr.’s vlogger campaign experienced a 50% drop in views despite a number of user response videos detailing how they eat a burger.

New This Week

Bud Light enters the chart this week in a, ehem, unique fashion. The risque creative (a must watch – use headphones if you're at work) seems to have circumvented television completely, being leaked quietly onto YouTube back in February without much initial interest. The spot, featuring a Bud Light drinker trying to buy porno, stirred up a bit of controversy that was recently highlighted in a Time Magazine article. It seems as though the, uh, exposure in Time drove interest in the campaign. It's sitting pretty at sixth place.

Top Performing Campaigns for the Week of June 8, 2009

Rank	Last Week's Rank	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week's Views*	% Change in Views**
1	9	Microsoft Xbox	Project Natal	World Famous	2,478,490	+1,090%
2	1	Carl's Jr	How To Eat A Burger (Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger)	Initiative, Mendelsohn Zien	1,663,988	-50%
3	2	Nike Basketball	Most Valuable Puppets	Wieden & Kennedy	1,598,328	-42%
4	3	NBA	Where Amazing Happens	Goodby Silverstein & Partners	504,335	-43%
5	5	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	338,037	+2%
6	New	Bud Light	Beer & Porn	DDB	312,997	NEW
7	8	T-Mobile	T-Mobile Dance	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	246,624	+11%
8	6	Vodafone	Make The Most Of Now	Ogilvy & Mather	243,528	-26%
9	10	Dos Equis	The Most Interesting Man in the Universe	Euro RSCG	228,118	+22%
10	4	Gillette	Shaving Tips From Gillette	BBDO, Proximity Canada	192,500	-63%

Source: Visible Measures

To watch the ads, check out our Top Ad Campaigns page here.

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* See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact us directly.

Susan Boyle Jumps, Harry Potter Slips on the 100 Million Viral Video Views Club

Matt Fiorentino — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:07:00 GMT

When we last updated the 100 Million Views Club -- which now includes over 33,000 unique video placements that have generated over 4.4 billion views (an increase in nearly 400 million views) -- we identified a number of new members in this elite viral video club. This month, our Viral Reach Database reveals that, while the names on the list have stayed the same, the rankings have changed.

The biggest shift is Susan Boyle's continued elevation in the chart. While she may not have taken home the big enchilada for Britain's Got Talent, clips related to her original performance have collected more than 40 million views since May 20. Her current 261+ million total is enough to propel her passed both Mariah Carey: Touch My Body and Beyonce: Single Ladies, and put her within striking distance of vampire film sensation Twilight. However, this still leaves Ms. Boyle over 100 million views behind reigning #1 Soulja Boy: Crank That -- which, for the record, picked up 15 million views since our last update.

Also, just five weeks from its premiere, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince surprisingly dropped a spot, giving up the #20 position to Dramatic Gopher. Movie trailers typically see a surge in activity during the lead up to their debut, so the next few weeks will reveal if this result is a temporary anomaly (likely), a leading indicator about flagging audience interest in the franchise (unlikely), or shows that wizards and wands just simply can't compete with gopher gravitas (even more unlikely).

Additional Findings:

Jeff Dunham: Achmed the Dead Terrorist, who was recently featured in Time with our numbers, has increased by more than 25 million views yet remains in sixth place.

Hannah Montana: The Movie, despite its release over two months ago, continues to ascend throughout the Chart, jumping from 15th place to 12th by gaining 20+ million views.

Banging on The Door:

There are a couple viral video phenomena inching towards the coveted threshold. Both Lady Gaga: Just Dance and Chocolate Rain are just millions away from crossing the 100 million view barrier.

The 100 Million Club as of June 12, 2009

Click on the thumbnails to watch the videos that helped amass over 100 million views.

Rank	Title	Type	Label / Studio	True Reach	Months Available
1	Soulja Boy: Crank That	Music Video	Universal	375,500,000	22
2	Twilight	Movie Campaign	Summit	283,500,000	15
3	Susan Boyle (Britain’s Got Talent)	TV Show	Freemantle / iTV	261,500,000	2
4	Beyonce: Single Ladies	Music Video	Sony Music Entertainment / Columbia	258,700,000	8
5	Mariah Carey: Touch My Body	Music Video	Universal	252,900,000	15
6	Jeff Dunham: Achmed the Dead Terrorist	User Generated	-	225,100,000	20
7	Leona Lewis: Bleeding Love	Music Video	Syco / SonyBMG	206,800,000	20
8	Avril Lavigne: Girlfriend	Music Video	RCA	192,900,000	27
9	Chris Brown: With You	Music Video	Zoomba / Jive Records	184,400,000	18
10	The Dark Knight	Movie Campaign	Warner Brothers	177,900,000	22
11	Alicia Keys: No One	Music Video	J Records	168,400,000	20
12	Hannah Montana: The Movie	Movie Campaign	Disney	167,100,000	4
13	Miley Cyrus: 7 Things	Music Video	Hollywood Records	156,600,000	11
14	Charlie bit my finger - again !	User Generated	-	149,600,000	24
15	Evolution of Dance	User Generated	-	146,400,000	38
16	Beyonce: If I Were A Boy	Music Video	Sony Music Entertainment / Columbia	145,100,000	8
17	Numa Numa	User Generated	-	139,200,000	34
18	Rihanna: Please Don't Stop The Music	Music Video	Universal	133,300,000	22
19	Rick Astley/Rick Roll'd	User Generated	-	127,900,000	25
20	Dramatic Gopher/Chipmunk	User Generated	-	124,700,000	24
21	Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince	Movie Campaign	Warner Brothers	121,100,000	10
22	Paul Potts (Britain’s Got Talent)	TV Show	Freemantle / iTV	110,200,000	21
23	Chris Crocker: Leave Britney Alone	User Generated	-	108,300,000	21
24	Lezberado: Revenge Fantasies	User Generated	-	103,500,000	24
25	Miss Teen South Carolina	User Generated	-	101,900,000	31

Source: Visible Measures

For more about the world of viral video and updates for lists like the top viral video ad campaigns of the week and the most-watched videos in history, please follow @visiblemeasures and @mcutler on Twitter and subscribe to our blog.

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The data used for the 100 Million Views Club was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

"How To Eat a Burger" Campaign Munches Its Way to the Top Viral Video Spot of the Week

James O'Connor — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:39:00 GMT

The number one spot on the Top Ad Campaigns chart this week showcases vloggers from the Nigahiga comedy group chomping down for Carl's Jr.'s How To Eat A Burger campaign, which features the Portobello Mushroom Burger. The campaign grabbed a record-breaking 3.3+ million views, surpassing Samsung's LED Sheep's previous mark of 2.8+ million. Not only is the campaign the new record holder for the chart, but it swallowed those 3.3 million views in only four days. Wow! Speaking to the power and efficiency of viral video in an interview with MediaWeek, Brad Haley, EVP of marketing for CKE (Carl’s Jr.'s parent company), said of the campaign: “This whole program will be a fraction of the cost of producing a TV ad.”

Basketball campaigns are still living large this week, with Nike Basketball's Most Valuable Puppets surging 81% with several new spots, enough to maintain second place, and the NBA's Where Amazing Happens taking the bronze.

New This Week

Microsoft and Dos Equis broke into the chart this week with controller-free gaming and one fascinating man. Microsoft's Project Natal is generating some serious buzz with its latest sneak peak, enough to attract 208,000+ views (if you're a gamer, you have to watch this). Dos Equis conjured up 186,000+ views with The Most Interesting Man In The World campaign.

Departures

This week marks the end of an eleven-week streak for Samsung’s LED Sheep. Two other longstanding campaigns, Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance and T-Mobile’s Dance, have appeared 12 weeks in a row.

Top Performing Campaigns for the Week of June 1

Rank	Last Week's Rank	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week's Views*	% Change in Views**
1	New	Carl's Jr	How to Eat a Burger (Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger)	Initiative, Mendelsohn Zien	3,303,949	New
2	2	Nike Basketball	Most Valuable Puppets	Wieden & Kennedy	2,740,643	+81%
3	1	NBA	Where Amazing Happens	Goodby Silverstein & Partners	888,822	-46%
4	3	Gillette	Shaving Tips from Gillette	BBDO, Proximity Canada	514,116	-26%
5	8	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	329,989	+61%
6	4	Vodafone	Make the Most of Now	Ogilvy & Mather	329,209	-47%
7	7	E*TRADE	E*TRADE Baby	Grey	224,870	-11%
8	6	T-Mobile	T-Mobile Dance	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	222,192	-15%
9	New	Microsoft Xbox	Project Natal	World Famous Inc	208,283	New
10	New	Dos Equis	The Most Interesting Man in the Universe	Euro RSCG	186,400	New

Source: Visible Measures

To watch the ads, check out our Top Ad Campaigns page here.

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* See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact us directly.

Painted Pilots and Risque Shaving Techniques Score on The Viral Video Chart

James O'Connor — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:54:00 GMT

The NBA Finals continue to dominate the viral video competition this week. The top two campaigns, the NBA’s Where Amazing Happens and Nike Basketball’s Most Valuable Puppets, hold the top two positions respectively, accounting for more than 50% of the chart’s total views. It will be interesting to watch how these campaigns perform after the finals are over.

The E*TRADE Baby campaign, fueled by a paid placement on the YouTube homepage, returned to the chart this week after a seven week hiatus, landing the seventh spot. The paid placement promoted the show Un-Broke on ABC, and, though we don't include television ads in this chart, the promotion seems to have reactivated the original campaign.

New This Week

Both Gillette and Air New Zealand generated interest (and views!) with their racy spots this week. Gillette took third place on the chart with its series of how-to shaving videos. The spot detailing techniques for tackling the male southern hemisphere brought in the lion's share of the views. Incidentally, this is the second "grooming," ahem, campaign to hit the chart. Air New Zealand stripped down and picked up fifth place with the tag line ‘Nothing To Hide.’

Top Performing Campaigns for the Week of May 25

Rank	Last Week's Rank	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week's Views*	% Change in Views**
1	3	NBA	Where Amazing Happens	Goodby, Silverstein & Partners	1,656,232	+88%
2	1	Nike Basketball	Most Valuable Puppets	Wieden & Kennedy	1,514,191	+34%
3	New	Gillette	Shaving Tips From Gillette	BBDO, Proximity Canada	694,391	New To Chart
4	2	Vodafone	Make The Most Of Now	Ogilvy & Mather	617,510	-38%
5	New	Air New Zealand	Nothing To Hide	.99	343,426	New To Chart
6	4	T-Mobile	T-Mobile Dance	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	262,286	-27%
7	Back On Chart	E*TRADE	E*TRADE Baby	Grey	253,802	Back On Chart
8	5	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	205,271	-28%
9	8	Durex	Get It On	Fitzgerald & CO., SuperFad	181,283	-12%
10	9	Samsung	Extreme Sheep LED Art	The Viral Factory	140,630	-25%

Source: Visible Measures

To watch the ads, check out our Top Ad Campaigns page here.

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* See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact us directly.

A New Brand Opportunity for The Print Industry Online

Matt Fiorentino — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:05:00 GMT

There has been much talk of late of how to monetize news online, which has proven elusive to date. Perhaps one of the most visible attempts was when The New York Times tried their own solution in 2005, implementing a subscription service called TimesSelect that gave readers access to their opinion columns. The Times closed the program two years later.

Similar stories permeate throughout the print industry as companies try to innovate and stay relevant in the Web 2.0 world. Despite continuous efforts attempting to implement different ad and business models to monetize content, the print industry has had difficultly finding a viable solution due to the lack of a model that enables major brand advertising.

Many brands and agencies agree that video as a medium provides the richest potential for branding and storytelling. Yet, the standard approach for print monetization has been to deploy display and banner ads, which has often left a medium close to our heart – video – out of the mix.

New ad models enable companies to deploy narrative-rich video advertising against any content. ShortTail Media, for instance, has developed an elegant solution to introduce video advertising into non-video environments. Their recently launched product, The Digital 30, which implements our patented measurement technology, enables companies like CNN and Reuters to provide brands with high-quality, full-video ads overlayed on their print content (with the option of clicking away after 10 seconds). This will allow members of the print industry to effectively offer brands and agencies the traditional 30-second spot against premium content.

Will this be the holy grail the print industry has been desperately searching for? Only time will tell, but through opening the potential for major brand spends via richer ad inventory to newspapers and print media, ShortTail's solution could be part of the overarching strategy to help revitalize print industry on the Web.

The NBA Playoffs Drive the Top Viral Video Campaigns Of The Week

James O'Connor — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:59:00 GMT

The NBA playoffs have expanded their game to the world of viral video this week. Nike Basketball's Most Valuable Puppets, featuring stuffed versions of LeBron and Kobe, landed the top position on the chart by scoring 1,133,327 million views. It was the only campaign on the chart to grow this week, swelling by an impressive 40%. Vodafone's Make the Most of Now campaign just missed the top mark by 130,000+ views.

The league of the NBA elbowed its way onto the chart with its Where Amazing Happens campaign, drilling 882,068 views from beyond the arc. The campaign features a number of the NBA's hottest players and a soundtrack from Kanye West.

Three lost campaigns found their way back into the Top 10 this week. Kia's Hamsters, Durexs' Get It On, and Head's Novak Djokovic Scores On and Off all showed their scrappiness, re-entering the chart at number six, eight and ten, respectively.

Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance and Samsung's Sheep, both in the danger zone of late, showed their staying power this week, living large at spots five and nine, respectively.

The Most Watched Campaigns for the Week of May 18

Rank	Last Week's Rank	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week's Views*	% Change in Views**
1	2	Nike Basketball	Most Valuable Puppets	Wieden & Kennedy	1,133,327	+40%
2	1	Vodafone	Make The Most Of Now	Ogilvy & Mather	1,001,737	-31%
3	New	NBA	Where Amazing Happens	Goodby, Silverstein & Partners	882,068	New To Chart
4	4	T-Mobile	T-Mobile Dance	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	361,659	-20%
5	9	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	284,014	0%
6	Back on Chart	Kia	Kia Soul: Hamsters	David & Goliath, KMA	256,223	Back on Chart
7	5	T-Mobile	Sing-a-long in Trafalgar Square	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	218,522	-44%
8	Back On Chart	Durex	Get It On	Fitzgerald & CO, SuperFad	205,787	Back on Chart
9	10	Samsung	Extreme Sheep LED Art	The Viral Factory	187,013	-21%
10	Back on Chart	Head	Novak Djokovic Scores On and Off	Aimaq Rapp Stolle, Feed Company, The 7th Chamber	175,930	Back on Chart

Source: Visible Measures

To watch the ads, check out our Top Ad Campaigns page here.

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* See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

**Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact us directly.

Susan Boyle Round 2: The Viral Video Hits Just Keep Rolling In

Matt Fiorentino — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:51:00 GMT

The wait is finally over. Viral video superstar Susan Boyle made her second performance on Britain's Got Talent in the semi-final round of the competition Sunday night. She performed "Memory" from the musical Cats in front of a background dripping with celestial and angelic imagery (those producers must have been reading all those comments!). If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a look, if just to see her makeover.

"Memory" by Susan Boyle

As regular readers of this blog already expect, we've been busy tracking this much-anticipated performance with our Viral Reach Database. So far, Susan Boyle's semi-final performance has inspired over 700 placements (!!) in aggregate since Sunday, which have generated more than 16.8 million views and 30,000+ comments. In any 'normal' context, these results would be literally off of the charts. But, as has already been well-established, anything relating to Susan Boyle isn't exactly 'normal.'

So how do the initial viral video performance figures for Susan Boyle's semi-final performance stack up to the numbers for her groundbreaking original?

Well, at this point in its viral life cycle, the original performance had produced over 200 placements, 19+ million views, and 65,000+ comments. This means that Susan Boyle's second performance achieved nearly 90% of the opening results of the original, which was the fastest growing online video in history. Wow! That's nothing short of remarkable.

We're now forced to wonder if this new performance will follow a similar growth pattern as the original, which at the moment stands at more than 235.5 million views total. Will viewership of her semi-final song take off from here? Or, has the "unbelievable" quality that marked her original performance naturally faded due to her new-found stardom? Ultimately, does Susan Boyle still mesmerize online audiences?

As we have said many times in the past, only time will tell. And, as always, we here at Visible Measures will continue monitoring how audiences respond to this performance and keep you updated as the results come in. Stay tuned!

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The data used in this post was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

Expanding The 100 Million Viral Views Club

Matt Cutler — Tue, 26 May 2009 08:44:00 GMT

Earlier this month, we unveiled The Visible Measures 100 Million Views Club, our list of videos with audiences large enough to break the herculean threshold of 100 million views. We were overwhelmed by the level of interest and discussion surrounding the list, including questions about popular campaigns throughout the years that didn't make the cut.

Starting in June, we will be updating this exclusive club about once a month. However, due to popular demand and interest, we've decided to issue an update today. Since the initial publication of the Club, we've gone back to our Viral Reach Database to both verify our initial findings as well as explore some new techniques for uncovering these major viral video phenomena. Along the way, we were reminded of just how dynamic the world of viral video can be. In accordance with this, we've tightened our definitions for the composition of each phenomenon. With that, our latest findings include:

The 100 Million Views Club now includes 25 members spanning over 4.1 billion views across nearly 29,000 unique video placements (!!).
Of the seven new members of the Club, all but one have entered toward the bottom of the chart. The one exception was Beyonce’s Single Ladies music video, which makes its debut at #3 on the list (!!) with more than 240 million views -- 36% of which was driven by socially-driven copies and derivatives. On the other end of the spectrum, two of the new entrants -- Chris Crocker’s Leave Britney Alone and Miss Teen South Carolina -- crossed the 100 million view threshold in just the past few days.
Susan Boyle’s debut on Britain’s Got Talent -- and the outpouring of social video activity surrounding her performance -- has grown by over 35 million views in less than a month (!!), though she maintained her position at #5 on our all-time list due to the entrance of Single Ladies.
As part of verifying our earlier results, a few members of the list wound up losing views -- including Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend and Paul Potts -- due to the implementation of tighter definitions for what's included in each entry. For example, our stricter definition compelled us to break out Evolution of Dance 2 from the original Evolution of Dance, resulting in a net loss of more than 6 million views (sorry Judson!).
The list is now 40% music videos, 36% user generated content (depending on how you choose to classify Jeff Dunham’s Achmed the Dead Terrorist), 16% movie campaigns, and 8% TV clips (entirely from Britain’s Got Talent). Of the seven new entrants in the Club, two are music videos (both from Beyonce) and five were user generated.
Many well-known viral videos did not make the cut, including Where the Hell is Matt?, Star Wars Kid, David After the Dentist, and more.

What does all this tell us? More than anything else, the 100 Million Views Club is a ‘living list’ that will continue to grow and change in interesting and perhaps unexpected ways.

With that, below is the updated 100 Million Views Club, with data current as of May 20, 2009.

Rank	Title	Type	Label / Studio	True Reach	Months Available
1	Soulja Boy: Crank That	Music Video	Universal	360,000,000	21
2	Twilight	Movie Campaign	Summit	274,600,000	14
3	Beyonce: Single Ladies	Music Video	Sony Music Entertainment / Columbia	244,600,000	7
4	Mariah Carey: Touch My Body	Music Video	Universal	237,400,000	14
5	Susan Boyle (Britain's Got Talent)	TV Show	Freemantle/iTV	221,100,000	1
6	Jeff Dunham: Achmed the Dead Terrorist	User Generated	-	199,900,000	19
7	Leona Lewis: Bleeding Love	Music Video	Syco / SonyBMG	188,300,000	19
8	Chris Brown: With You	Music Video	Zoomba/Jive Records	176,600,000	17
9	The Dark Knight	Movie Campaign	Warner Brothers	175,500,000	21
10	Avril Lavigne: Girlfriend	Music Video	RCA	174,100,000	26
11	Alicia Keys: No One	Music Video	J Records	162,800,000	19
12	Miley Cyrus: 7 Things	Music Video	Hollywood Records	147,900,000	10
13	Evolution of Dance	User Generated	-	142,700,000	37
14	Charlie bit my finger - again !	User Generated	-	142,400,000	23
15	Hannah Montana: The Movie	Movie Campaign	Disney	134,400,000	3
16	Beyonce: If I Were A Boy	Music Video	Sony Music Entertainment / Columbia	129,900,000	7
17	Numa Numa	User Generated	-	125,900,000	33
18	Rihanna: Please Don't Stop The Music	Music Video	Universal	123,800,000	21
19	Rick Astley/Rick Roll'd	User Generated	-	118,400,000	24
20	Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince	Movie Campaign	Warner Brothers	113,600,000	9
21	Dramatic Gopher/Chipmunk	User Generated	-	110,900,000	23
22	Paul Potts (Britain’s Got Talent)	TV Show	Freemantle / iTV	104,500,000	20
23	Lezberado: Revenge Fantasies	User Generated	-	103,300,000	23
24	Chris Crocker: Leave Britney Alone	User Generated	-	100,400,000	20
25	Miss Teen South Carolina	User Generated	-	100,200,000	30

Source: Visible Measures

Check out our latest numbers to watch the clips that helped create these behemoths of viral video. For more, please follow @visiblemeasures and @mcutler on Twitter, or subscribe to our RSS feed for monthly updates on this list and as well as regular updates on our ongoing research into today's most compelling and influential online video campaigns.

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Dancing Dominates Top Viral Video Ad Campaigns This Week

Matt Fiorentino — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Dancing seems to be in the air this week, with the top three spots of The Viral Video Chart going to T-Mobile Dance, Trident's Beyoncé 100 Single Ladies Flash-Dance, and Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance. This also marks the sixth week in a row that T-Mobile Dance, Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance, and Samsung's Sheep have made strong showings on the chart, adding up to lofty totals. T-Mobile Dance has scored a total of over 18 million views, while Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance has taken in close to 12 million. Samsung's Sheep has generated 10 million views.

New Campaigns This Week

Trident lands the number two spot on the chart this week by flooding Piccadilly Circus in London with dozens of single ladies dancing to Beyoncé's hit of the same name. The Boston Bruins come in ninth with their ad promoting an important message – don't date within the division. Marshall's Kelly: The Prequel rounds out the Top 10 by taking the tenth spot.

The Top Viral Video Ads 10 of The Week

Rank	Last Week's Rank	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week's Views*	% Change in Views**
1	1	T-Mobile	T-Mobile Dance	Saatchi & Saatchi, MediaCom	598,827	-2%
2	New	Trident	Beyonce 100 Single Ladies Flash-Dance	Pretty Green, Initials Marketing	373,706	New To Chart
3	3	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	363,467	-11%
4	2	Samsung	Extreme Sheep LED Art	The Viral Factory	352,699	-23%
5	5	Philips	Carousel	Tribal DDB	338,672	4%
6	6	Durex	Get It On	Fitzgerald & Co., SuperFad	263,629	10%
7	7	Burger King	SpongeBob	Crispin Porter & Bogusky	252,952	10%
8	8	Geico	It's The Gecko / Numa Numa	The Martin Agency, Horizon Media	201,152	-8%
9	New	Boston Bruins	Never Date Within Your Division	Mullen	187,675	New To Chart
10	New	Marshall’s	Kelly: The Prequel	Mr Youth	177,746	New To Chart

Source: Visible Measures

To watch the ads that catapulted these campaigns to the Top 10 list, check out our Top Ad Campaigns page.

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* See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

** Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact us directly.

The 100 Million Views Club: The Most Watched Viral Videos of All-Time?

Matt Cutler — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:26:00 GMT

Since Susan Boyle's recent viral video triumph (has it only been three weeks?), we've been inundated with requests for a listing of the most watched viral videos of all time. The questions come in part because people are eager to understand Susan's position in the pantheon of viral video history, but also because the numbers involved have exceeded many people's expectations regarding the potential cultural impact of online video.

Over the past few days, our platform has been busily compiling and categorizing the data relating to the Web's largest video campaigns. See below for the result: the 100 Million Views Club is a first-of-its-kind listing (as far as we know!) of the online video campaigns that have accumulated a 9 figure (!!) total viewership. These 18 campaigns are measured on True Reach basis and collectively span more than 21,000 unique video placements (!!) and over 3.0 billion total views (!!).

Please see the list as of May 20, 2009 here.

As you can see, the list is a diverse collection of older and newer campaigns, and includes music videos, movie trailers, user-generated spots, and clips from TV shows. What they all have in common is a massive total audience.

You'll also notice that Susan Boyle currently ranks #5 all-time, though continues to add millions of new views per day and, as such, will likely be #4, and perhaps even #3, in short order. The most impressive aspect of her viral video success is the fact that she burst onto the scene just three weeks ago.

Click on the thumbnails in the chart to watch the videos that created these behemoths of viral video. Will Susan Boyle ever overtake Soulja Boy to become #1? Only time will tell, but, if she does, you can be sure we'll be there to measure it! For more on this, please follow @visiblemeasures and @mcutler on Twitter, or subscribe to our RSS feed, for updates on this list and as well as regular updates on our ongoing research into today's most compelling and influential online video campaigns.

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Susan Boyle, a Viral Video Star that Keeps Soaring, Surpasses 170 Million Views

Matt Fiorentino — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:58:00 GMT

In the two weeks that Susan Boyle's stunning performance on Britain's Got Talent has taken over the world of viral video, we've been overwhelmed by the interest in her story from all corners of the globe and tubes in the Web. Our numbers have been requested by both a diverse range of media outlets — including Reuters, The Washington Post, CNET, Mashable, paidContent, BBC Radio, Sky News, The Sun, The Daily Star, The Mirror and more — and, much to our delight, many members of the online video viewing audience who have been inspired by Ms. Boyle.

So, by popular request, we're happy to report that Susan Boyle's viral video viewing numbers continue to grow:

Earlier today, the aggregate viewership of of Susan Boyle's performance surpassed 170 million views. Her phenomenon is driven by over 1,000 videos in all, inspiring over 470,000 comments in total. The growth has slowed a bit, to roughly eight million new views per day!

As for her place in the viral video history books, we are currently conducting some research into the most popular viral videos of all time. This has proven to be a little time consuming, but please stay tuned for the results.

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The data used in this post was collected from the Visible Measures Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

T-Mobile Dancers Drop Samsung's Sheep Back a Spot; Microsoft Hunts its Way into Sixth Place

Matt Fiorentino — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:05:00 GMT

T-Mobile Dance knocked Samsung's Sheep from the top viral video ad campaign spot this week. Samsung's Sheep had held the gold for three weeks in a row. It dropped close to 40% in views this week, whereas T-Mobile's Dancers held their view counts steady, growing a minimal, but large-enough, 1%. All other campaigns on the Top 10 list this week grew in views, with Wilkinson Sword's innuendo-laden Mow The Lawn gaining traction, growing 45% this week, nearing 380,000 views, yet falling to eighth place.

New to The Chart This Week

Microsoft seems to have found a hit in hunting for affordable laptops, taking in close to 480,000 views this week, and making its debut on the chart at number 6. Sports equipment manufacturer Head took to the stands to show off its new line of tennis racquets, bringing in close to 490,000 views and 5th place. Rounding out the Top 10 is Mountain Dew Baja Blast's Fast Food Folk Song, a must-watch simply for the last minute of action (those Taco Bell Drive-Thru employees are on the ball!).

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* See our Top Ad Campaigns page for our methodology.

** Indicates percent change in views compared with the same period the week before.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming video ad campaign, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign's overall performance, please contact us directly.

Susan Boyle Surpasses 100 Million Views in Viral Video

Matt Fiorentino — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:59:00 GMT

Susan Boyle isn't the only one who's been surprised by her overnight success in viral video. We measure the performance of viral videos day in and day out, our Viral Reach Database has over 100 million videos, and our office here in Boston is still buzzing about the historic numbers her videos are producing.

As of this morning, Susan Boyle has officially crossed the 100 million views mark in viral video. She's done this with over 850 clips related to her performance on Britain's Got Talent, interviews with numerous news organizations, and her rendition of "Cry Me A River" from 1999. These videos have produced 290,000 comments.

On Friday, we reported that the talented Ms. Boyle had received 47.7 million views. Those views jumped to 63.3 million on Saturday, and then vaulted again on Sunday to 85.2 million. As of noon today, she sits at 103 million views. She's averaged over 18 million views a day since Friday.

While these are staggering numbers, is Susan Boyle the biggest viral video star of all time? Though her trajectory over the weekend certainly suggests she has the potential to overtake some of the biggest names in the business, it's too early to tell if she'll become the most popular ever. We are closely monitoring her performance as well as the performance of the other heavy hitters in viral video and will provide updates as they become available.

For more information about the Susan Boyle phenomenon, check out these articles featuring our numbers since Friday:

The Washington Post: The video of Boyle's performance in the reality show "Britain's Got Talent" has set the record for the number of views in a week -- and shows no sign of slowing down. According to Visible Measures, which tracks videos from YouTube, MySpace and other video-sharing sites, all Boyle-oriented videos -- including clips of her television interviews and her recently released rendition of "Cry Me a River," recorded 10 years ago for a charity CD -- have generated a total of 85.2 million views. Nearly 20 million of those views came overnight.

CNET: Visible Measures, a company that clutches the pulse of the online audience and refuses to let go, has identified more than 200 unique videos of Boyle's performance. According to Visible Measures, the combined figures seem to have exceeded the performances of George Bush's shoe thrower, Tina Fey's Sarah Palin, and President Obama's victory speech.

Mashable: While the official YouTube video of the performance reports over 32 million views, tracking company Visible Measures is monitoring the statistics for all versions of the clip, plus fan responses and interviews. Their Viral Reach Database tracks views across 150+ video sharing destinations, including YouTube. On Friday, we published metrics from the company that totalled 47 million views across 200 unique Susan Boyle-related videos. As of 10pm ET Sunday, the company has upped that number to 93.2 million views across 650 unique clips. Given the current viewing rates, the total count will almost certainly exceed 100 million views on Monday.

paidContent: “Unlikely” singing sensation Susan Boyle is now a bona fide Translatlantic internet celebrity. Online analytics firm Visible Measures, which on Friday told Mashable it had recorded 47 million views for videos of the Britain’s Got Talent contestant, now tells the blog it revised the measure to 93.2 million by Sunday night, likely busting through the 100 million mark today. On Saturday alone, Boyle got 15.6 million views, and another 30 million on Sunday, with video comments also doubling to 250,000.

Sky News: Web stats firm Visible Measures calculated 200 videos of Miss Boyle's song had been viewed nearly 50m times by Friday. This figure then doubled over the weekend.

Slate: I think it’s more fun to be surprised, so I’m not going to describe what happens – other than to say that it has made a lot of people happy. According to Visible Measures, Boyle’s performance has been viewed more than 47 million times.

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The data used in this post was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

Susan Boyle's Got Viral Video Talent

Matt Fiorentino — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:25:00 GMT

There have been moments in the history of viral video when it seems as if the whole world unites around one phenomenon. Evolution of Dance is one. Bush's infamous battle with an Iraqi journalist's shoes is another. For the past week, we've been marveling at the popularity of the latest star of viral video – the unassuming, unexpectedly talented Susan Boyle of Britain's Got Talent.

Susan Boyle's Got Talent

As you can see, Susan enchanted the audience and judges of Britain's Got Talent with her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream from the musical Les Miserables. Since then, the video of her performance has spread throughout the viral video world. People have been asking us about how popular this performance has become over the past couple days. Today, using our Viral Reach Database, we have the answer.

We have identified well over 200 unique videos (!!) related to Susan's performance. These clips have generated more than 47.7 million views (!!) and 125,000+ comments (!!). Did we mention that she did this in less than one (!!) week?

With interviews of the 47-year-old Scottish singer coming out by the bunches, the story, and its correlating viral video views, appear only to be getting larger by the day. The videos attracted 7.5 million views on Wednesday alone. Yesterday, that figure jumped to nearly 14 million (!!).

To put this into perspective, we need to look at some of the other viral video heavy hitters:

As of today, Bush vs. Shoes has kicked up 33.2 million views. Tina Fey's spot-on impression of Sarah Palin, supported by Amy Poehler's unnerved Hillary Clinton, has raked in 34.2 million. President Obama's historic victory speech on election night has picked up 18.5 million. The humble -- and previously unknown -- Susan Boyle, in less than one week, has trumped them all with more than 47.7 million views.

We'll leave it to other, more-qualified pundits to comment on what this means for the state of entertainment. From our perspective, the runaway viral video success of Susan Boyle's performance is yet another indicator that the online video industry is incredibly dynamic, rich with opportunity, chock-full of data, and a veritable gold mine of undiscovered insights.

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The data used in this post was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

The Viral Video Chart: Sponges, Razors, and Hamsters Ride Their Way Into the Top 10; Sheep Maintain Top Spot

Matt Fiorentino — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:31:00 GMT

Samsung's Extreme Sheep LED Art campaign continues to ride the wave of viral video views this week, claiming the top spot on The Ad Age Viral Video Chart for the third week in a row, with 1.1 million views. While this number dominates what contending campaigns are putting up by at least 300,000 views, it's a 30% drop from the campaign's performance last week.

Three new campaigns made it onto the chart this week.

Burger King's SpongeBob squeezed its way into the Top 10 by kicking it old school, combining the Sir Mix-a-lot classic "Baby Got Back" with everyone's favorite sponge from the deep, SpongeBob SquarePants. The spot collected 500+ thousand views this week, grabbing third place on the chart.
Wilkinson's clever Mow The Lawn campaign chalked up 260,000+ views and edged past three others to snag the 7th slot this week. Similar to the Phillips Bodygroom campaign, Mow The Lawn cuts through the innuendo to speak about the importance of grooming habits.
Kia filled the world with hamsters in its Kia Soul: Hamsters campaign and scored 200,000+ views this week, taking the 9th spot on the chart.

For more information about these campaigns and to watch the ads themselves, check out The Ad Age Viral Video Chart, powered by Visible Measures, on Ad Age Digital.

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MySpace Announcement Coverage Roundup

Matt Fiorentino — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:12:00 GMT

This morning we announced that MySpace has adopted Visible Measures as its official digital video measurement platform of record. As always, we're thankful to have received the coverage below and are grateful to be participating in an industry that is as relevant, vibrant, and innovative as online video.

TechCrunch: With Visible Measures, MySpace will be able to track consumer engagement at a more granular level. And, more importantly, it can give all of its video partners a self-serve dashboard to track their own videos. For instance, they will be able to see how many times a particular video is watched 10 percent through, 60 percent through, or all the way through. Visible Measures also tracks views as they spread across the Web and can show spikes based on what other sites pick up a particular video.

MediaPost: As a result of deploying Visible Measures, "Our ad sales teams can quantitatively demonstrate the effectiveness of video campaigns," said Jason Kirk, vice president of video and entertainment at MySpace. "It is critical to know how our audience is consuming our video content."

Contentinople: "What we're doing for MySpace is directly measuring every view of every video by every user, and every action inside of that," said Visible Measures vice president of marketing and analytics Matt Cutler. "We do so as an independent third party."

The Inquisitor: As MySpace’s “official provider of digital video measurement and metrics,” Visible Measures will keep tabs on “audience behavior data” for all of MySpace’s hosted videos. Basically, that means it’ll let advertisers and other content providers monitor how people are using their materials: if they’re watching entire videos, for example, or only seeing the first half of them. It’ll also allow providers to track where their videos are being embedded elsewhere on the Web.

MySpace Selects Visible Measures as Official Provider of Digital Video Metrics

Matt Cutler — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:46:00 GMT

A few moments ago, we announced that MySpace has adopted Visible Measures as its official provider of digital video metrics and measurement. We are excited and humbled to have our offerings embraced by one of the Web's premiere video content distributors. Our focus is to help MySpace continue to monetize its video assets by providing unmatched video metrics accountability and transparency to the MySpace internal staff, their content providers, and their brand advertiser clients and their agencies.

While working closely with MySpace represents an important milestone for any growing company like Visible Measures, our relationship demonstrates that premium content providers are serious about understanding and improving the ROI of digital video content and its associated advertising. Today's performance-oriented advertisers are increasingly demanding clarity, insight, and accountability from their publishing partners.

By moving quickly to select and implement -- and the implementation process is already well-underway! -- an independent third-party online video metrics provider of record, MySpace can see what works, what doesn't, and identify opportunities for growth, optimization, and further investment. We're looking forward to working with the team at MySpace and helping their content partners and advertising clients better understand the performance of their online video investments and potential ROI.

Geckos and Body Wash Soar in the Top Viral Ad Campaigns of the Week

Matt Fiorentino — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:53:00 GMT

This week's Top Viral Video Ad Campaigns Chart brings us many of the same faces as last week, with an added dash of inner friction among campaigns vying to climb the viral video views ladder.

The Extreme Sheep LED campaign for Samsung barely hung on to the top spot, dropping over 40% in views. Six other campaigns had negative view growth this week as well, suggesting they've entered the 'transition' phase of their life cycle, meaning that their view counts will most likely begin to plateau. Geiko's It's the Gecko / Numa Numa had the largest view growth increase, jumping over 200% to claim the silver medal. The Durex Get It On campaign continues to show, ahem, steady growth. The sustained close-to-linear growth of this campaign is fairly unusual. It will be interesting to see if this campaign continues to surge.

This week's newcomer is The Fixers campaign, brought to us by AXE via Mekanism. The campaign has generated 220,000+ views this week, which can be attributed, in part, to recent seeding and promotions.

For more information about these campaigns and to watch the ads themselves, check out the Ad Age Viral Video Chart, powered by Visible Measures, on Ad Age Digital.

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Introducing the Ad Age Viral Video Chart

Matt Cutler — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:11:00 GMT

We're happy to announce the premiere of The Ad Age Viral Video Chart, a joint project between Visible Measures and Ad Age Digital intended to highlight our industry's top performing campaigns each week. Look for it weekly on Wednesday afternoons.

As you can see, the chart features the top 10 viral video ad campaigns of the week as measured by Visible Measures' unique True Reach methodology, which includes viewership of both brand-syndicated video clips and community-driven social video placements. So far this year we've tracked several hundred new viral video ad campaigns, which collectively span more than 10,000 unique video placements and an astonishing 240+ million views in aggregate. This data is compiled using our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos across 150+ video-sharing destinations.

Our goal in publishing this chart is, in part, to help provide some insights into the seemingly mysterious world of viral video advertising campaign performance measurement. We hope that, by publishing the performance metrics of the top campaigns every week, the chart will help brands and their creative, media, and viral agencies better understand -- and embrace! -- the landscape of viral video.

As part of this effort, we diligently monitoring for the arrival of new campaigns on the viral video scene. In order to ensure the broadest coverage possible for discovering the top campaigns every week, we are inviting brands and agencies to tell us about their viral video ad campaigns. And, as always, if you're interesting in learning more about the performance metrics of your viral video campaign, please contact our client team.

The Anatomy of a Viral Video Ad Campaign in Today's Advertising Age

Matt Cutler — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:07:00 GMT

Earlier today, Advertising Age published our editorial on covering the anatomy of viral video ad campaign as part of their annual Digital Issue. While the article has generated a little Twitter buzz (thanks all!), the piece is intended to act as a primer to our soon-to-be-unveiled weekly Top 10 Viral Video Ads chart that we're publishing in conjunction with Ad Age Digital.

We're publishing this data to help shed some light on the sometimes dark and confusing world of measuring the performance of viral video advertising campaigns. Everyday, we field inquiries from our clients and partners regarding campaign performance:

"Are we doing enough to get the word out?"
"How many placements should we expect?"
"What's a successful view count in the first few days of the campaign?"
"How should we interpret the level of commenting activity?"

And so on. So after measuring hundreds viral video campaigns, we’re hoping to use our repository of viral video data to help today's brand advertisers better understand the ins and outs of viral video success. Stay tuned for more!

As far as today's article, the central theme is the "interest gap," the difference between embraced and stalled viral video advertising campaigns.

[Embraced] campaigns have been 'embraced' by their online video audience, which spreads the campaign far and wide, leading to a virtuous cycle where the audience continues to grow, increasing placements, views and brand messaging... Stalled campaigns, on the other hand, fail to activate the community. Without the support of a viewing audience, campaigns tend to languish.

The article also includes a chart comparing the performance of 10 recent viral video campaigns:

Source: Advertising Age

To read more about our findings, check out the article on Advertising Age. To learn more about the performance of your viral video advertising campaign, please contact our client team. And to learn more about the week's best performing viral video campaigns, please keep an eye out the imminent release of our viral video chart on adage.com/digital.

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The data used for the Advertising Age article was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.

Series C Funding Coverage Wrap-up

Matt Fiorentino — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:34:00 GMT

We were surprised and humbled by yesterday's coverage of our Series C round of funding. We tend to be a quiet company by nature but were happy to share our corner of good news in the midst of this challenging economic climate. Read on for some of yesterday's highlights.

TechCrunch: Viral video tracking and measurement firm Visible Measures has closed a $10 million series C round of funding, led by Northgate Capital. Existing investors Mohr Davidow and General Catalyst also participated, bringing the total capital the company has raised since launch to $29 million.
VideoNuze: [...the] key to their financing was having both solid short-term traction in the form of customer acquisitions and a long-term story built around increasing transparency and accountability for the burgeoning broadband video medium.
NewTeeVee: Boston-based Visible Measures helps broadcasters and advertisers follow their videos, and especially their videos’ impact, across the web. We partnered with the company for an screening of viral video ads last fall and often refer to their excellent research on viral phenomena.
Contentinople: ...the company has seen good revenue traction while signing up large media publishers to help them understand how to best monetize their video assets. The company also helps large advertisers and agencies to monitor and increase their return on investment.
MediaPost: ...the company intends to use this new financing to accelerate its product development efforts, expand its customer relationships, and sustain expansion of its online video data coverage.
Mass High Tech: ...the company’s next push, technologically, will be to make its video tracking product available to new customers. Customers to date include cable channel MTV, a Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA) subsidiary.
VatorNews: A great example of Visible Measures’ services can be seen in the case study of the viral Nike video in which Kobe Bryant jumps over a speeding car. Visible Measures identified that the video was placed in over 250 unique locations across the Web.
VentureBeat: ...for content publishers and advertisers it’s a virtual goldmine. And, whereas analytics services abound for the web’s text content, comprehensive tracking tools for video content have been much more scarce.
Xconomy: “This new financing will help solidify Visible Measures’ market position as the third-party measurement provider of choice for the Internet video industry’s leading advertisers, publishers, and aggregators,” the company said...
CNET: Visible Measures, a company that provides video tracking and measurement services, announced Tuesday that it has raised $10 million in a Series C funding round that was led by Northgate Capital. According to the company, it plans to use the funding to expand its operation.
Boston Globe:Visible Measures Corp. said it has secured a Series C round of financing of $10 million, bringing the total amount of financing it has raised to date to $29 million.
paidContent: Visible Measures has raised $10 million in a third round, bringing the total funds raised to date to $29 million. The round was led by Northgate Capital and included previous investors General Catalyst Partners and MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures.