What's Going Viral? Thrilling Stunts and Hidden-Camera Pranks

What People Watched the Week of Aug. 17

by Abbey Klaassen Published: August 27, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- As they have for the past several weeks, Evian with its roller-skating babies and Microsoft with its gigantic waterslide continue to battle it out for the No. 1 spot on the Viral Video Chart. Both campaigns have started to lose momentum, but they both racked up enough views in the past week to give them more than double the next-closest video, which happens to also be a Microsoft one (the Project Natal trailer, which has lingered on the chart since its debut at E3 in early June).

A terrifying -- and thrilling -- five-minute video of stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill jumping fences and off of roofs in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the week's fourth-most-watched piece. The video, which actually launched in April and has since racked up almost 10 million views, has received a bit of attention of late, including in Ad Age, helping to boost it onto the chart. It's lightly branded by Inspired Bicycles -- so lightly, in fact, that Visible Measures, which collects and analyzes the data we show here, just recently classified it as "branded" -- a prerequisite for making this chart.

Meanwhile, Office Max reprised its "Penny Pranks" campaign, in which it records, via hidden cameras, the reactions of sellers when its actors try to pay for high-ticket items in pennies. The company launched the campaign last year with comedian Matt McCarthy doing the buying; this year he's joined by a 10-year-old "billionaire sidekick." The push, which also includes TV and radio, is meant to promote the office-supply chain's 1-cent deals on supplies such as rulers, crayons and notebooks.

	Last Week	Brand	Campaign	Agency	Current Week Views*	% Change in Views**	Watch the Spot
1	2	Evian	Live Young	BETC Euro RSCG	1,401,890	-25%
2	1	Microsoft	Megawoosh (Make It Possible)	MRM Worldwide, Germany	1,162,745	-49%
3	5	Microsoft Xbox	Project Natal	World Famous	467,645	+6%
4	New	Inspired Bicycles	Danny MacAskill Trials	N/A	450,065	New
5	3	MSI	Acrobuttocks	N/A	448,331	-64%
6	Back on Chart	Frito-Lay	Woman's World	OMD, Juniper Park, Jam Media	424,747	Back on Chart
7	New	Office Max	Back to School for Pennies	The Escape Pod	381,131	New
8	6	DC	Ken Block's Gymkhana Two Project	Mad Media	366,189	-7%
9	7	Nike SB	Today Was a Good Day	Wieden & Kennedy	274,227	-28%
10	9	Cadbury	Eyebrow Dance	Fallon	190,285	-5%
Source: Visible Measures *The Visible Measures Top 10 Viral Video Ad Campaigns Chart focuses on brand-driven viral video ads that appear on online-video-sharing destinations. Each campaign is measured on a True Reach™ basis, which includes viewership of both brand-syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements. The data are compiled using the Visible Measures Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on more than 100 million internet videos across more than 150 video-sharing destinations. Note: This analysis does not include Visible Measures' paid-placement (i.e., overlays, pre-/mid-/post-roll) performance data or video views on private sites. This chart does not include movie trailers, video-game campaigns, TV show or media network promotions, or public service announcements. View-count results are incremental by week. **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 Visible Measures directly.