Shakira's ad for Activia is 2014's most shared ad: Unruly

Asia's top shared ad, Thai Life Insurance’s 'Unsung Hero', made it into the top 10 list with 1.3 million shares, closely followed by another Thai ad, DTAC's 'The Power of Love', with 1.1 million shares.

The marketing tech firm found that a fifth of the world's Top 20 most shared ads were either World Cup-themed or created by its sponsors. Activia's effort even exceeded VW’s 2011 Super Bowl ad, 'The Force' (5.3 million shares), to become the most shared ad of all time. (See the full list below.)

'La La La' also received more than double the shares of its next closest contender this year, 20th Century Fox’s 'Devil Baby Attack' (2.2 million shares). 

Fellow World Cup ads by Nike, 'The Last Game' (3rd) and 'Winner Stays' (8th) also make it into the top 10, while sponsor Castrol’s 'Footkhana: Neymar Jr. v Ken Block' is 11th. Meanwhile, only one Super Bowl ad—Budweiser’s 'Puppy Love' (4th)—and one commercial from this year’s Winter Olympics—P&G’s 'Pick Them Back Up' (19th)—feature in the top 20.

Others to make the cut include Cardstore’s 'World’s Toughest Job', Volkswagen’s 'Eyes On The Road' and newcomer John Lewis’s Christmas Ad 'MontyThePenguin'.

“With 300 hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute and more than a billion video views on Facebook every day, consumers are inundated with content in their social feeds, so when a brand can create such a highly shareable video you know they’ve hit something special," said Phil Townend, Unruly’s APAC MD. "Many of the most successful ads this year tied their social videos to a social cause, and we saw a range of online video genres utilised by brands, from music videos and prankverts through epic love stories and playful sing-alongs."

‘La La La’ rose to the top, he added, by capitalising on World Cup fervour and the current trend for ‘trackvertising,’ where a brand and musical artist co-release a video which is both a musical track and an ad. This, combined with Shakira tying the campaign to a social cause by partnering with the World Food Programme, contributed to the success of the video, concluded Townend.