Campaign's top 10 virals of 2008

1 Pot Noodle ‘Tipping Pot'



AKQA's spoof of the £10 million Guinness TV ad, "Tipping Point", has racked up over 2 million views online, with 50,000 YouTube views on day one alone.  Turning the original domino sequence on its head, blow-up dolls, shopping trolleys, fag packets and fridges topple over each other as they weave through a south London housing estate.  And it only cost Pot Noodle £10,000.


2 SFW XXX Party Invitation



To celebrate Diesel's 30th anniversary, The Viral Factory decided porn was the only way to party with a bang.  After collating clips of 80s porn, it animated the rude bits and added toned down sound effects to avoid any potentially inappropriate scenes and make it SFW XXX (an acronym for "safe for work").  So far, 6,497,507 have clicked, with an average of 116,387 hits per day.


3 Nike ‘The Next Level'



72andSunny took a Gold Film Lion at Cannes for Nike's "The Next Level" ad.  The Guy Ritchie-directed spot, shot from the first-person perspective of a footballer who is signed up by Arsenal and ends up playing for Holland, aims to inspire amateur footballers.  It stars Cesc Fabregas, Wayne Rooney, and Cristiano Ronaldo and garnered nearly 5,937,406 million views online.


4 Wassup anno 2008



To get Barack Obama into the White House, during the U.S. election, Charles Stone III put together a viral to show the lives of the characters in the 1999 viral "Budweiser Wassup" at the end of the Bush administration.  The viral ends with a call for political change and urges people to vote.   It generated 4 million views on YouTube within the first two weeks, and the current total number of online views stands at 6,189,125.


5 DoTheTest: ‘TfL's Moonwalking Bear'



This cycling safety spot, created by WCRS, shows a group of basketball players throwing a ball around while a man in a bear suit moonwalks through, initially unnoticed by the viewer.  Despite causing a debate about plagiarism, it highlighted the point that if you're not looking for something, you can easily miss it.


6 Budweiser ‘Swear Jar'



It was banned on TV because of the implied bad language, but Budweiser's ‘Swear Jar' has been a hit online with over 3.3 million views on YouTube.  Part of Budweiser's online viral effort at Bud.TV, it shows characters in an office, swearing their way to make enough money for a case of Bud in boardroom meetings, announcements, and by the photocopier.


7 Carlsberg ‘Football wives'



Reaching out to the football crowd, Saatchi & Saatchi created a viral, filmed on a camera phone from the crowd of an AFC Wimbledon match against Torquay and extending its ‘Probably the best lager in the world' strategy for Carlsberg.  Before the game starts, an announcement is made for a fan with a detailed message from a "Carlsberg" wife, who has just given birth to a boy.


8 BBC iPlayer ‘Flying Penguins'



Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R played a April Fools joke this year to launch the BBC's catch-up iPlayer service.  The 90-second viral followed a colony of Adelie Penguins flying thousands of miles across Antarctica to the Amazon Rainforest.  It later released a viral video showing how it faked the footage.  Within a day, it had received more than 100,000 views on viral video sharing websites and the BBC's iPlayer's homepage.


9 Tiger Woods 09 - Walk on Water



Wieden + Kennedy's game trailer for Electronic Arts' golf game PGA Tour '09 responded to a YouTube video, posted by a fan, which names a scene in a Woods tournament where he appeared to be walking on water, as "The Jesus Shot".  2,550,394 viewers clicked on to watch the viral.


10 New Directors Showcase 2008 ‘Chris Palmer'



Saatchi & Saatchi created a viral about the director Chris Palmer to attract entries to its New Directors Showcase.  The film follows Palmer on a shoot, where he debates the size and colour of the oranges, for not being "orangey" enough, before he is shot down by an up-and-coming director who takes over his job on set.