Dove's 'Real Beauty Sketches' the most shared ad of 2013 - so far

The video advertising experts at Unruly have revealed the Top 20 Global Social Video Ads Chart of 2013, which ranks branded ads according to how many times they’ve been shared online. Featuring among the socially-adored vids are Evian’s ‘Baby & Me’ ad, the ‘prankvertising‘ success by MGM that promoted the Carrie remake, and Dove’s ‘Real Beauty Sketches’, which is currently in the top spot.

Below we check out the top 3 adverts, and explore the many reasons for their incredible internet success:

1. ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ – Dove
Viewed 60 million times already and generating 4.25 million shares across the internet so far, Dove’s ad garnered the attention of hundreds of thousands of Twitter, Facebook and blog users since its launch in April. Hoping to instill confidence into female consumers by showing them how their insecurity makes them feel less traditionally attractive than they actually are, the ad attracted generally positive attention around the world from those who identified with the body hangups expressed by the women filmed.

http://youtu.be/XpaOjMXyJGk

Other reasons for ad’s high share rate can also be explained by accounting for the significant amount of criticism that many women’s groups expressed for the ad, due to its focus on mainly white women, and its promotion of beauty being defined as being thin and young.

2. ‘Baby and Me’ – Evian
Holding strong in second place, this video has already amounted near 3.5 million shares and over 35 million views thus far due to the fact that, well, babies are dancing in it. What more could the internet want?

http://youtu.be/pfxB5ut-KTs

3. ‘Ship My Pants’ – Kmart
In third place is a Kmart.com ad promoting the retailer’s online shipping service. It’s popularity is down to the fact that it basically sounds like people are swearing a lot throughout it. #ShipMyPants, won’t you please?

http://youtu.be/I03UmJbK0lA

All great ads in their own right, but we have a funny feeling a certain retail giant’s latest Christmas ad may sneak into the top rankings by the end of the December. Thoughts?

Richard Kosinski, US president, Unruly, commented: “Shares are the currency of social success and for leading brand marketers discovering how to create and distribute highly shareable content repeatedly and at scale is now at the top of their wish list.

“Marketers are challenging the value of a view and instead are focusing on creating content and distribution strategies which drive deeper levels of engagement, such as sharing, data capture, brand uplift or online purchases. Dove Real Beauty Sketches is a great example, as the ad that not only elicits strong emotions from consumers, but also gives its viewers a strong reason to share it within their social networks.”