• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 15, 2010

2010 was the year social video advertising officially arrived, according to new research from Web video analytics firm Visible Measures.

Indeed, categories that produced millions of views in 2009 generated hundreds of millions in 2010, while the number of active brands in social video advertising more than doubled.

In particular, campaigns like Old Spice's The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Nike's Write the Future, and Pepsi's Oh Africa captured the attention of audiences across the world.

Overall, the number of brands participating in social video advertising exploded. In 2009, fewer than 450 brands launched social video ad campaigns, while that number more than doubled this year to reach nearly 1,000 brands.

In 2009, the industry saw less than 700 social video campaigns, including Evian's Roller Babies, T-Mobile's Dance, Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance, and Volkswagen's Fun Theory.

In 2010, however, social video advertising was home to 1,800+ campaigns -- a 180% increase year-over-year.

What's more, social video campaigns generated 820+ million views and 1.5 million comments in 2009, while in 2010, these numbers increased to 2.7 billion views -- a jump of over 3.3X -- and 4.4 million comments.

In 2010, other participating brands included McDonald's, Burger King, Coke, Nike, Adidas, Walmart, Target, Verizon, AT&T, Ford and Volkswagen, to name a few.

The most-watched category of the year was health and beauty, which collected over 390 million views -- 14% of all social video advertising in 2010.

This is in large part thanks to Old Spice, which inspired over 180 million views for the year. Nearly 70 million of these views come from their revolutionary Responses campaign. By comparison, the entire health and beauty category attracted just 44 million views in 2009.

Yet, as more brands incorporate social video advertising into their marketing mix, the competition only continues to escalate, making it more difficult for brands to separate themselves from the pack and stand out to their target audiences, according to Visible Measures.

These trends are likely to continue into 2011, according to the firm. As more audiences come online and watch social video, we'll see more brands, more campaigns, and more competition, all in efforts to influence consumer choice.