When it came
to "choice-based" video ad campaigns, T-Mobile and Dirt Devil were the big brand winners during the second quarter of the year, according to new data from Web analysis firm Visible
Measures.
With over 26.2 million views, the most-watched campaign during the quarter was T-Mobile's Royal Wedding. Paying homage to viral hit JK Wedding Dance, the campaign launched
at the height of royal wedding fever and gained traction quickly.
In its first two days, the campaign generated 3 million views and produced another 2.1 million views on the day of the wedding.
The campaign was most popular in the UK, with 35% of its views coming from England, while 20% of campaign views came from the United States.
Visible Measures based its finding on its "Share of
Choice" analysis, which attempts to shed light on those brands that consumers actually choose to watch.
All video ad campaigns were measured on a True Reach basis, which combines the
performance of brand-driven and audience-driven video clips across the Web, while all views were user-initiated: "a real person" needs to press the "play" button to watch an ad.
Coming in
fourth with nearly 12 million views, Dirt Devil's "You Know When It's the Devil" was the newest campaign of the group. A parody of "The Exorcist," the campaign looks like a trailer for a horror film
until the big reveal in the last 15 seconds. The demographics for the campaign showed that over 70% of the audience was male, with over 50% in the 19-44 age range.
Evian's Live Young,
Volkswagen's "The Force" and Blendtec's "Will It Blend?" round out the top five. Blendtec continued its strategy of pulverizing popular products, blending a Justin Bieber doll in early June.
Overall, online audiences chose to watch video ads nearly 600 million times during the second quarter of the year, which represented an increase of over 15% year-over-year.
Also of note,
Google ranked as the second-most-watched brand in the second quarter with 24.2 million views. The search giant picked up more than 7.2 million views from its April Fools campaign, "GMail Motion."
"The Web is What You Make of It," with creative featuring Lady Gaga and journalist Dan Savage, was Google's second-most-watched campaign of the second quarter with 5.7 million views. Overall, Google
presently has over 40 active choice-based video campaigns online.
Campaigns from Evian, Sun Drop, Diet Pepsi, Red Bull, and Perrier helped the beverage category take the top industry spot in
Q2 of the year with 63.6 million views.
The apparel and accessories category was just 700,000 views behind beverages, with campaigns from Izod and Adidas leading the way. The automotive
industry dropped to 57.8 million views in the second quarter, with a number of its Super Bowl campaigns cooling off.
Campaigns from VW, Fiat, Chrysler, and BMW contributed significant
viewership, while the telecommunications category -- led by T-Mobile -- and the health and beauty category -- led by Old Spice -- also made the top five. Those verticals drove 54.6 million and 52.2
million views, respectively.