All Hail The Leaders Of The Pack: The New YouTube Ads Leaderboard Contenders

What has a whole bunch of thumbs and made the YouTube Ads Leaderboard twice already this year? These folks!

In recent years, the viral ad has become the Holy Grail of video marketing … but how do you determine whether an ad has truly gone viral? YouTube and AdWeek offer an answer with the YouTube Ads Leaderboard, which ranks each month’s top 10 most-viewed video ads that also have a strong earned-to-paid-views ratio (so no, you can’t just buy your way in). The algorithm factors in paid and organic views as well as audience retention (how much of a video people watched)

YouTube Ads Leaderboard Recipient #1

Earlier this year, Eyestorm Productions burst onto the April 2017 Leaderboard at Number 4 with our “Don’t Back Down! Settle It With A DUEL!” spot for the Clash Royale video game:

• 14.2 million views (all-time views now stand at 54.6 million — wow!)
• 36,000 likes
• 1,792 shares

So, what could be better than making the YouTube Ads Leaderboard? How about making it twice in only three months?

YouTube Ads Leaderboard Recipient #2

Yes, we made a triumphant return on the June 2017 Leaderboard, where our spot “Welcome to the Builder Base (New Update!)” for Clash of Clans came in at Number 10:

• 8.7 million views (all-time views now stand at 9.5 million views)
• 163,000 likes
• 29,000 shares

For true marketing rock stars (and those who aspire to be), the conventional TV spot is so 2004. They know that YouTube ads give them the added value of instant, up-to-the-second analytics for the truest sense of an ad’s performance, not to mention the added value of leveraging the power of the social media platform dynamic. The audience transforms from mere spectators into evangelists to spread the brand’s message (a.k.a. sharing). This exponential knowledge and exposure means better quality content with a tremendously bigger reach, more eyes, more attention, which leads to better results — like we’ve seen with the Supercell ads.

Do audiences respond to YouTube ads? Heck yeah, they do … but you’d better bring your A-game. As Tim Nuud of AdWeek says, “In a given year, only a handful of spots break through to become megahits—blowing past the 10 million views mark on YouTube (a useful guidepost for gauging supervirals) and engaging with blockbuster TV-sized audiences.”

So yeah, we’re pretty proud of our two YouTube Ads Leaderboard appearances so far this year … and yeah, we’re ready for more. Stay tuned!