Much fuss is made each year over that other game called football, but as it turns out, the Super Bowl of advertising may not actually be the Super Bowl.
When it comes to viewers' willingness to devour flashy ad campaigns online, the Super Bowl has got nothing on the World Cup. Google Inc. crunched the numbers and found that people have already watched roughly 1.2 billion minutes of ads related to the World Cup on YouTube. That's four times higher than this year's Super Bowl ad viewership.
It's easy to understand why. The Super Bowl is a phenomenon mostly targeted to North American audiences, whereas soccer has a massive worldwide fan base. That means a huge opportunity for brands – especially those tied to sportswear such as Nike and Adidas.
And there's a trend at play here: advertisers are taking advantage of the unlimited space on the Web to produce longer, more cinematic ads. The 10 most-viewed ads run about three minutes on average (Samsung's, for example, is significantly longer), compared to a one-minute average for the top Super Bowl ads this year, Google says.
So who has grabbed the most attention? Here's the top 10, according to Google:
1) Activia
La La La (Brazil 2014)
Star power: Shakira, Carlinhos Brown
Views on YouTube (as of Wednesday evening): 133.9-million
2) Nike
Winner Stays
Star power: Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Andrés Iniesta, and more
Views: 79.7-million
3) Samsung
The Training
Star power: Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi, Radamel Falcao, and more
Views: 54.3-million
4) Nike
The Last Game
Star power: Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Andrés Iniesta, and more
Views: 48.4-million
5) Adidas
The Dream: all in or nothing
Star power: Lionel Messi, Dani Alves, Luis Suárez, Mesut Özil, Robin van Persie, and more
Views: 35.2-million
6) Itaú (bank)
Mostra tua força Brasil
Star power: Brazilian musicians Jair Oliveira, Wilson Simoninha, Fernanda Takai, Paulo Miklos
Views: 17-million
7) Adidas
House Match
Star power: David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Gareth Bale, Lucas Moura
Views: 16.2-million
8) Castrol
Neymar Jr. v Ken Block
Star power: Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, rally driver Ken Block
Views: 15.5-million
9) Nike
Risk Everything
Star power: Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, Wayne Rooney
Views: 14.9-million
10) Beats by Dre (now owned by Apple)
The Game Before The Game
Star power: Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, Serena Williams, LeBron James, Thierry Henry, Rio Ferdinand, Javier Hernández Balcázar a.k.a. Chicharito, Mario Gotze, Robin van Persie, Lil Wayne, Luis Suárez, Nicki Minaj and more
Views: 15.3-million