The JAM Jar

As Christmas draws nearer and everyone gets into the festive spirit, there’s another end-of-year tradition that’s hard to avoid… the annual review. Right on cue, YouTube has released its list of the top trending videos of 2014.

We’ve been reviewing our favourite top ten viral videos, including ‘Goku versus Superman’, which is a rap battle that is both hilarious and genuinely skilful; ‘First Kiss’, an awkward but oddly joyous film in which strangers snog each other – to be honest, it felt like a weird thing to be watching in the office; and the Nike World Cup advert, which shows a kick-about being interrupted by a host of famous (and Nike-sponsored) football stars.

Best of all, though, is ‘Devil Baby Attack’. It shows real New Yorkers approaching an innocuous-looking pram, only to be sent shrieking by the animatronic horror-baby within, complete with black eyeballs, jerky swivel-head, and Exorcist-inspired projectile vomiting. The video, which had 20 million views within two months, was a PR stunt by Thinkmodo to promote Devil’s Due. The film flopped, but the stunt was an instant classic.

Together, the videos account for hundreds of millions of views from more than 21 million subscribers. The top ten is based on the number of views, shares, comments, likes and more.

YouTube receives over a billion unique hits a month, and takes on 100+ hours of new footage every minute. The number of daily subscribers is reported to be up three times on last year too. It’s an invaluable tool for any brand seeking to promote their product.

Stay tuned to read JAM’s review of 2014 next week, and here’s to another year of crazy viral videos!

Words: Jack Brodie

Here at JAM we love nothing more than a big PR stunt!

Apart from making our day-to-day jobs even more fun, they provide brands with a fantastically impactful moment that can leave consumers talking, and for all the right reasons.

In the spirit of reviewing the year we’ve taken a moment to look back at the year and countdown our top five favourite PR stunts of 2014:

Number 5: Royal Mint launches new £5 Coins

A brilliantly thought out photo story can be a fantastic way to grab column inches.

When the Royal Mint launched the shiny new £5 coin in July, they rather cleverly incorporated Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and other London landmarks (that all feature on the coins) within a collection of stunning photographs, all of which were featured in the likes of The Guardian, Independent and The Times.

Number 4: Burger King serves gay pride burger with powerful message

To celebrate gay pride in the US, fast-food giant, Burger King served its customers with a powerful message; ‘The Proud Whopper’.

Selling normal Whoppers to its customers, each burger was wrapped in rainbow packaging with a message inside reading “we’re all the same inside” – without telling them what made the ‘Proud Whopper’ different.

Filming customer reactions, the video has received over 5,000,000 views on YouTube.

Number 3: The Krispy Kreme double hundred dozen

Now we’d be lying if we said that we weren’t totally sold because this stunt involved doughnuts, but it does demonstrate the very tried-and-tested method of taking a client’s product and making it BIGGER!

To highlight Krispy Kreme’s new business ordering service, a Double Hundred Dozen box was created and snapped for media – prices on application, apparently.

Yum!

Number 2: 38ft Incredible Hulk opens Tower Bridge

We absolutely love this!

3D Projection Mapping (basically projecting moving images or film onto buildings) has now become big (and expensive) business, namely due to its large spectacle and crowd drawing benefits. This fantastic stunt from Disney, to launch the Disney Infinity 2.0 game, involved all your favourite Marvel characters popping up over London.

Our favourite part? The big green guy holding up Tower Bridge, obviously!

Number 1: Share a Coke

Our number one campaign also happens to have topped the list of PR Week’s Power Book 2015.

Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign has had consumers up and down the country searching shelves for their namesake bottle, not only helping to drive brand awareness, when sugary drinks are in the firing line from health watchdogs, but also driving consumer footfall in stores.

Even Client Services Director, Maurice, has his own bottle!

Genius!