The arrival of YouTube in 2005 not only dramatically changed the way people viewed video content online, it had a significant impact on the world of advertising. YouTube allowed people to search for their favourite ads and share them with their friends. The most entertaining and creative ads could be passed around in huge numbers gaining significantly more exposure than before, thus the viral ad was born.

The viral ad is the Holy Grail for ad agencies. If you can successful make a video ‘viral’ you can bypass the traditional (and very expensive) medium of television advertising while also giving your ad a potentially unlimited reach. Also, as these ads are actively searched for and recommended between friends, they are likely to have a lot more of an impact than if they were just viewed on TV.

Here is a list, complied by Visible Measures, of the the top viral ad campaigns of all time based on total views. You can view the videos themselves by Clicking Here

1. Blendtec, “Will It Blend?” 134,256,499 Views
2. Evian, “Live Young” 103,867,704 Views
3. Old Spice, “Responses” 57,132,669 Views
4. Pepsi, “Gladiator” 46,742,892 Views
5. Microsoft, “Xbox Project Natal” 42,698,599 Views
6. Dove, “Evolution” 41,100,418 Views
7. T-Mobile, “T-Mobile Dance” 35,487,575 Views
8. Doritos, “Crash The Super Bowl” 34,168,845 Views
9. Old Spice, “Odor Blocker” 33,986,750 Views
10. DC Shoes, “Gymkhana Two” 32,872,531 Views

Shopkick is a new iPhone app just released in the States that sends users special offers and information tailored to their interests as soon as they walk into their favourite stores. This is a great example of how mobile technology can be used on the shop floor in retail outlets to target customers directly.

Shopkick not only allows retailers to offer users targeted information and promotions but also lets them track customer shopping habits. Shopkick users can also collect bonus points for regular visits to their favourite stores and there is also scope for offering individual customers promotions that are exclusive to them.

Macy’s, Best Buy and American Eagle Outfitters are the first brands to take up Shopkick and it will be heading to restaurants and coffee shops in the US soon. It’s good to see big retailers embracing mobile technology in this way and it demonstrates the potential for getting customers to engage with brands in a very real way using using their smart phones.

At a recent Coca-Cola sponsored theme park event in Israel, visitors were given a bracelet that contained their Facebook details. The 650 visitors could swipe their bracelets at certain places in the park to give a ‘Like’ to that particular product or activity and were also automatically tagged in any pictures that were taken there.

Over 35,000 ‘Likes’ were made during the weekend which works out at over 50 ‘Likes’ on average per attendee. When you consider how many friends each individual would have reached with their ‘Likes’ that proves quite an exposure. This example provides yet more proof that there is some serious scope for companies in coming up with ever inventive ways of using Facebook to interact with their customers, both online and in a real world context.

So it’s great having lots of Facebook Fans and it’s great having a platform to communicate with your customers online and build brand loyalty and awareness but when it comes down to it, there are precious few good examples out there of companies actually using Facebook for generating sales. While Dominos Pizza provide a good example of a company using Social Media to boost online orders, users can’t actually order a pizza on Dominos’ Facebook page.

Delta Airlines have begun trying to turn their Facebook presence into sales having recently launched the Delta Ticket Window, a Facebook application that lets Facebook users find, book and share flights onthe airline’s Facebook page. By doing this they have become the first brand to isolate the entire booking process inside Facebook. The ‘Ticket Window’ was introduced to keep the user on Delta’s Facebook Page for the duration of the booking process, as well as encourage them to share the flights they book with their friends. This could be a great way of spreading the brand through Facebook as, if you’ve just booked a flight, you’re probably going to want to let your friends know about it.

The use of Facebook as an e-commerce tool may be something that will appeal to many businesses in the future. After all, if you can sell your wares and communicate with your customers through Facebook, why would you need a website at all?

Okay so it’s been a few weeks since the Old Spice campaign took the internet by storm and there are now a few stats out there to gauge just how much of a success the campaign has been. Some of these figures are truly remarkable and show just how successful the campaign actually was, not only in making Old Spice a social media phenomenon through Twitter and Facebook, but by more than doubling sales within a month of the campaign being launched.

The videos themselves were viewed an unbelievable 5.9 million times in the first day alone and over 40 million times by the end of the first week, making Old Spice the number one, all-time most viewed branded channel on YouTube. During the first week of the campaign, Old Spices Twitter followers increased by 2700%, Facebook interaction went up 800% and traffic to OldSpice.com increased by 300%.

When it comes down to it, all the Facebook fans and Twitter followers in the world won’t mean much unless there is an effect on the bottom line and one of the most impressive results of the campaign has been the 107% increase in Sales of Old Spice in the month following the launch of the social media campaign.