Unruly brings virality prediction algorithm to Australia

Unruly first launched Unruly ShareRank in January 2013 to help marketers in the US and UK predict the ‘shareability’ of their video content. Versions tailored for other markets, including Brazil, Southeast Asia, France and Germany, have since been released.

Now, having run “hundreds of campaigns across Asia-Pacific”, the company claims that it has trained its proprietary algorithm specifically for Australia's video ad market. Citing an IAB Australia and PwC online advertising expenditure report, Unruly said the video ad market is the fastest-growing online advertising medium in Australia.

The company asserts that it can predict consumers’ emotional responses to branded video content throughout the country. The Unruly ShareRank algorithm has been trained by combining 2 trillion video views with more than 395,000 consumer data points. The algorithm was built using proprietary technology in addition to academic research and consumer data from thousands of consumer panel responses. 

Here are some video insights Unruly discovered while adapting the algorithm for the Australian market:

Share faster: Australians share branded video content faster than any other country worldwide. On average a branded video campaign in Australia attracts 21 per cent of its total shares in the first 24 hours, much higher than the global average of 13 per cent. South Korea is second, attracting on average 20 per cent of its total shares on day one.

Growth in social video: Australia has seen a huge explosion in social video over the last 12 months, with the number of videos launched by brands nearly doubling (92 per cent). The average share rate also increased from 0.8 per cent in April 2014 to 2.9 per cent in April 2015.

Behaviour triggers: Happiness is the most common emotional sharing trigger for Aussie video campaigns, followed by inspiration and warmth. In the UK and US, the most common emotional triggers are happiness and hilarity. However, getting a strong emotional reaction to a video in Australia is harder than the rest of the world, with ads 7 per cent less likely to evoke intense emotional responses than the global average.

User motivation: The most common social motivation to share a video online in Australia is to seek other people’s opinions. In the UK it’s to recommend a product or service, while in Germany it’s to start a conversation.

Super-sharers:  Australia is a land of super-sharers, with 18 per cent of the Aussie population accounting for 80 per cent of total video shares.

Engagement: Australians are more likely to engage with video campaigns than a lot of other countries around the world, with clickthrough (37 per cent), interaction (15 per cent) and complete rates (1 per cent) all higher than the global averages. Average mobile CTR (86 per cent), interaction (40 per cent) and complete rates (31 per cent) also exceed the global average.

Uplift: Australian social video campaigns drove an average uplift in brand favorability of 80 per cent versus the global average of 47 per cent.

Sharing: Australians share less on Facebook and Twitter than the global average, but more on Google+, Tumblr, email and StumbleUpon.