• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 29, 2007

You don’t have to go on YouTube to find the latest viral video anymore. Ad monitoring firm Competitrack has started a service that catalogs over 3,000 viral ads from 700 advertisers. Subscribers can get daily alerts on breaking viral campaigns, access the archive, and get a monthly newsletter on viral trends.

The service is aimed at advertisers and digital agencies. “A good number of those people will be interested in tracking video and keeping tabs on the competition,” says Competitrack president Bob Moss.

A recent Competitrack study concluded that viral video is going mainstream. It cited recent efforts like Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty and Unilever’s series of Webisodes” for I Can't Believe It’s Not Butter. “We were a bit surprised as we began digging deeper into the medium, to discover just how widespread viral advertising has become,” says Moss.