Top 5 viral video ads of 2007

It’s that time of year when everyone starts rolling out their “best of 2007” offerings, and the Financial Times has already started by reporting on a GoViral “top 5 viral video ads” report.

Top of the list is Cadbury’s “Gorilla Drumming”, the most watched ad on YouTube. The video has also been posted extensively in blogs and on Facebook and even made it to a main slot in the Australian news where the ad wasn’t scheduled to be shown.

“What the Gorilla campaign has shown is that viral advertising can give you a pretty big ‘leverage’ effect on the investment you have already made in traditional media advertising,” said Martin Deboo, analyst at Investec. “On the sales figures Cadbury has disclosed, I would estimate it is already enjoying a positive return on its Dairy Milk marketing spend, which is unusual. You would expect the payback to be longer.”

The top 5 viral video ads for 2007, ranked by number of YouTube views, are:-

1. Cadbury - Gorilla Drumming - 5 million
2. Smirnoff – Green Tea Partay – 3.4 million
3. Ray-Ban – Catch Sunglasses – 3.2 million
4. Blendtec – Will it Blend? – 2.7 million
5. Lynx/Axe – Bom chicka wah wah – 2.6 million

Tags: viral marketing, viral video ads