• by Mallory Russell , January 8, 2015

As 2015 begins, the industry is looking back at the biggest trends of 2014 and predicting those that will dominate 2015.

Looking backward -- even if it’s only to the events that happened a year ago or two weeks ago -- plays on our love of nostalgia, one of the most powerful and unifying emotions.

Looking forward -- be it two weeks or 20 years -- stirs up feelings of hope, again an emotion that inspires and excited. Content that delivers on a message of hope is the kind that viewers or readers like to share.

Here’s a look at how brands are using these two kinds of messages in videos.

Looking Back: The Power of Nostalgia

Google and Google-owned companies are the masters of the year-end recap. Among the first week of January’s most viewed campaigns were Google’s  “Year in Search 2014” and YouTube’s “Turn Down for 2014,” which garnered 7.7 million views and 6.9 million views respectfully.

The former is a campaign that looks at the biggest events in entertainment, sports, politics, and world events in 2014. While the events depicted, in some cases, are tragic, the message is one of optimism. It’s generated a total of 21.2 million views since its release in mid-December.

The YouTube campaign, which was released in early December, has generated an astonishing 88 million views total. “Turn Down for 2014” brings together the platform’s most popular celebrities (along with other folks like Stephen Colbert) to pay homage to the memes and trending videos of 2014.

Looking Forward: The Power of Hope

One of the first campaigns produced in 2015 comes from Fisher-Price. “Wishes for Baby” is a short film starring real parents from around the world who had just witnessed the birth of their babies.

Directed by award-winning documentarian Patrick Creadon, “Wishes” was filmed in the U.S., Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Kenya, Bangladesh, and Poland before being edited and produced in the early hours of New Year’s Day. This real-time creation is likely a trend we’ll continue to see this year.

“Wishes for Baby” received more than 2 million views in the first week of the year -- and was written about in a plethora of publications. It now has been viewed a total of 3.3 million times since its release on Jan. 2. This makes it Fisher-Price’s most-viewed campaign of all time. 

The popularity of the campaign is a result of its universal message of hope: the hope that these parents, and all parents, share for their children. But it is also the hope all of us share during the first days of a new year.