• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, January 26, 2012

Apple’s video for its latest iPhone was the most-watched online video from a brand in the fourth quarter, a time period during which the consumer appetite for social video campaigns flourished. All told, Web users viewed online video content from brands more than 745 million times in the fourth quarter of 2011, up 25% from the quarter before, and up 35% from the year-ago period, according to the latest analysis of brand performance in social video advertising from social video analytics and ad platform Visible Measures.

The most popular brand videos for specific campaigns in the fourth quarter were Apple’s “Introducing iPhone 4S” video at more than 35.8 million views; YouTube and Lenovo’s spot “Spacelab: What Will You Do?” with 18.8 million views; Rick Perry’s “Strong” with 15.8 million views; Megaupload’s “Megaupload Song” with 14.3 million views; and Dermablend’s “Go Beyond the Cover” video with 12.7 million views. Those figures are a combination of brand-driven and audience-driven clips across the Web, Visible Measures said. The ads measured were ads as content and not pre-rolls or overlays, Visible Measures added.

Apple’s iPhone 4S spot was the most popular, driven in large part by the product, which broke sales records, Visible Measures said. Interestingly, consumers fueled the reach of the online video. “The campaign was heavily driven by audiences, with more than 450 copies and derivatives that generated over 50% of the views for the entire campaign,” Visible Measures said in its report.

On a brand rather than campaign basis, Apple also nabbed the top spot as the most watched brand overall in social video, with more than 45 million views for the quarter. Next up was Google, with more than 33.4 million views, powered by 10 new campaigns, including one for Chrome. They were followed by Lenovo with 21.4 million, T-Mobile with 21.4 million, and Youtube itself with 21.2 million.