The increase in innovative and creative video advertising, combined with an explosion in the use of social media means that the sharing of video sharing of ads has risen by almost 50 times over the last 8 years. So say Unruly, who have launched an exclusive interactive infographic that visualizes the staggering surge of social video sharing since 2006. ‘The Unruly Viral Spiral’ documents three of the most shared ads across the social web from every year since 2006. It also confirms the number of all-time shares for each video since launch and some of those numbers are staggering. For instance, the top 3 ads of this year – Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches”, GEICO’s “Hump Day” and Evian’s “Baby&Me” – have already attracted 11.6 million shares. That’s 47.5x more than the top 3 ads managed in 2006!

Social Video Sharing Stats: 2006 to 2013 For Branded Video Ads

• In 2006, the 3rd biggest ad of the year was Dove “Evolution”, which attracted 60,954 shares during the year of its launch, compared to 4.24 million shares for “Real Beauty Sketches”

• 40%, or 8 out of 20, of the top 20 ads of all-time were released in 2013!

• Social sharing of the top 3 branded videos has grown seven-fold from 2010 (the year of the game-changing Old Spice ad) to 2013. That’s 11.6 million shares compared to 1.6 million, an increase of  a staggering 613.8%

• The most shared ad of all time is still Volkswagen’s 2011 Super Bowl ad, “The Force” (5,578,106 shares) followed by TNT Benelux’s 2012 hit “Dramatic Surprise” (4,710,180 shares) with Dove’s 2013 ad “Real Beauty Sketches” in third place (4,303,047 shares).

• The Unruly Viral Video Chart is now tracking 500,000 shares of branded content every 24 hours.

• The top 10 video ads in 2013 generated 28.8 million shares between them, That’s a year-on-year increase of 52.1% from 2012.

• Successful viral video ads are getting longer with the average length of the top 3 videos increasing from 35 seconds in 2006 to 1 minute 36 seconds in 2013.

• The most successful brand in terms of shares since 2006 is DC Shoes, thanks to its hugely successful Gymkhana series, which has attracted 10.73 million shares for its series of four videos. Volkswagen comes in second with 7.76 million shares, with Evian in third place with 6.45 million 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 social shares.

The interactive infographic is launched today and you can try it for yourself here, or embed it on your own site!

Social Video Shares Are A Global Currency

Marketing technology company Unruly has tracked 365 billion video views since 2006. 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.

Methodology

Using data from Unruly Analytics and the Unruly Viral Video Chart, The Viral Spiral infographic has been compiled using third party Facebook and Twitter APIs alongside Unruly’s proprietary blog-scanning technology. The most popular branded videos each year, from 2006-2013, are tracked in real time and years 2006-2012 are ranked at the end of the year of their release. For 2013, the data will stop tracking shares at midnight GMT on December 31, 2013. The data does not include Invisible Children’s “Kony2012” because that video is classed as a documentary and not a video ad.