Viral goes pop

As it’s the list-making season, The Guardian has ranked the top ten viral ads of 2008: http://tinyurl.com/5wg2bd

But who won the race to be Christmas number one?

I’ll spare you the Jimmy Saville-esque run-down and jump straight to the top of the pack. There proudly stands the Obama campaign’s exceptional update of Budweiser’s most famous spot. And rightly so; it’s a brilliant remake and surprisingly poignant. The original campaign was so popular that the cry ‘Wassssssssup?’ could be heard from space – it was old-school viral.
 
The new school, though, shows the remarkable benefits of online viral marketing: its affordability; it’s humanity; the freedom it offers; and the debate it provokes. Good viral campaigns show the creativity and innovation that all adverts should aspire to achieve. And it’s good to see that TV adverts are rising to the challenge. Last year, Cadbury’s Gorilla was a YouTube smash and this year it’s Nike (number 5 in The Guardian’s list).