• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, September 5, 2013

Given that  cellphone and smartphone manufacturers are major advertisers on TV and in online video, it would make sense that the Apples of the world (namely, Apple) would want to do a damn good job of it so that the Apple’s competitors (namely, Samsung) wouldn’t entice consumers to switch brands.

Unruly Media, which measures video shares and builds its business on the idea that sharing is a very good way to get messages across and convert viewers into buyers, just tested some current Apple messages. It discovered that Samsung, (which is eating Apple’s lunch these days at least in the cafeteria of tech journalism), and even Nokia, (which is skipping lunch altogether and looks a little emaciated) are doing better jobs in the share arena.  

Nokia, now a blond-haired unit of Microsoft, is rapidly losing out in the cell phone biz. That would seem to suggest that sharing clever videos is not all that’s needed.

Yet , Unruly reports that Apple’s iPhone ads “are not only being left behind by rivals such as Nokia and Samsung, but their commercials for the iPhone 5 underperformed –even when compared to its own previous models. Ads for Samsung’s S4 attracted  eight times more shares than the iPhone 5, while the iPhone 4S attracted 2.5 times more shares than those for the iPhone 5.”

In separate, but related gizmology, “Grand Theft Auto V” videos grabbed an incredible 48% of the video shares in the gaming category. And Google Chrome ads—great ads, in my book—attracted 70% of the Web browser shares since 2006. But in the last year, Microsoft Internet Explorer ads have created 88.6% of the product category’s shares since just about this time in 2012.

I don’t know. These stats seem to point to the viral capacity of good advertising, but not so much (but not nothing) about the effectiveness of these shared ads to move the needle. Unruly suggests the share numbers presage what might sell in the upcoming holiday season. Christmas, after all, is merely three months away.  

Unruly’s mantra is that  the video that is shared and seen is often the viewing environment that leads to action, moreso than the person who stumbles upon the advertisement, likes it and passes it on. 

“Peer to peer recommendations are one of the most powerful marketing tactics available t move buyers down the purchase funnel,” Unruly points out (and while I was typing that I wondered, why I was putting quote marks around a pretty universally believed piece of consumer behavior. But Unruly’s study did report it, so there.)

The point  is, Unruly goes on to say its research done in conjunction with Decipher, determined that “social viewers” –that  is, people who watch videos someone has shared with them—are “far more likely to act after watching branded content than the people who just found the video on their own. Unruly says “social viewers are 103% more likely to purchase” tech brands whose advertising is with shared with them.

One final wrinkle it doesn’t seem Unruly gets into is that one can’t always act very quickly to pick up on a new  smartphone and get rid of the other. So sharing commercials that feature your new hip phone, it seems to me, can be a sadistic exercise, in which I, Mr. Richy Rich, have just sent you the cool ad for the phone you can’t have because either your provider, or your plan, doesn’t offer it.  In which case (and I’m sure this isn’t really happening much), you’re one sick puppy.

ONE UNRULY RELATED DEAL:Adweek.com is crediting Unruly for making note of an intriguing LG prank advertisement for a new very large screen HD television that it’s marketing.  It’s funny, I guess, but for some who lived through 9-11 in New York, maybe not. It’s an unsettling commercial to me. Unruly reports it’s been shared more than 2 million times. pj@mediapost.com