• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 10, 2010

To better align themselves with the world's most popular sporting event, advertisers have spared no expense on their 2010 World Cup campaigns.

As the games get underway, which campaigns have already captured the hearts and minds of consumers? Judging by online video views, Nike's "Write The Future" campaign is creaming the competition, according to new research from Web video analytics firm Visible Measures.

Indeed, Nike's three-minute, elaborately produced video has been viewed over 22.8 million times in just three weeks. The ad follows soccer stars like Italy's Cannevaro, England's Wayne Rooney, Brazil's Ronaldinho, and Spain's Ronaldo in action as alternate versions of their futures flash before their eyes.

"While grand in scope, this spot shows just how influential a given player's on-field World Cup performance can mean to the rest of his life," said Matt Cutler, chief marketing officer at Visible Measures.

"Surprisingly, Coca-Cola is the only official World Cup sponsor that made the list, and, ironically, had nothing to do with uploading it online," added Cutler.

Coca-Cola's History of Celebration campaign, which traces the inception and history of World Cup goal celebrations, was actually uploaded by South African magazine Marketing Mix in early March, and has since racked up over 570,000 views online.

Still, Pepsi -- again, not an official sponsor of the World Cup -- and its Oh Africa campaign, has been view more than 11.8 million times since being uploaded to the Web in early March. Continuing to gain steam, the campaign -- featuring international stars like Lionel Messi and Thierry Henry playing African kids on an animated soccer field -- is now attracting over a million views a week.

Meanwhile, beer maker Carlsberg and its Team Talk. Campaign has so far attracted about 1.2 million video views. The campaign's official and most-watched creative implores the British side: "It's time to prove how good you are. Make no mistake. It's you. Eleven men. Eleven English men. Against the rest of the world. A world that can't wait to dump you out and rub your noses in it..."

"Intense stuff, but authentic," said Cutler. "Cleverly, the campaign also includes over 1,200 other clips of English fans giving the pep talk of their lives to their national team ... The videos are integrated into game and locker room footage, so it looks as if the fan is England's manager at halftime."

Rounding out the top five most successful campaign, by Visible Measures' estimate, is Puma's Love Equals Football effort, which has so far racked up about 535,000 views online.

Visible Measures calls its Viral Reach Database "a hybrid semantic search engine," which collects video performance data from hundreds of video-sharing sites online.