YouTube’s Most-Watched Ads in MENA

Telecommunications, airline and electronics brands took over the May 2014 YouTube Leaderboard. The Saudi Arabian telecommunication company, STC, holds the top two spots on this month’s leaderboard. The first spot features the rewarding of an STC user and his friend with an all-expenses paid trip to watch an overseas football match in an effort to promote STC’s QUICKnet recharge cards. The second STC spot is an in-store activation which surprised visitors with a quick quiz to test their knowledge of STC’s monthly packages, all participants were given prizes after successfully answering the questions. Next, Vodafone released the first webisode-format ad showcasing the antics of Barakat and his tech-savvy grandmother. Turkish Airlines shared their one-shot ad which builds up to an epic pool dunk. Finally, LG released an official trailer outlining the features of their mobile device, LG G3.

The Results:

Brand/Country: STC الاتصالات السعودية
Creative Agency: JWT
Viewership: 1,775,593

Brand/Country: STC الاتصالات السعودية
Creative Agency: JWT
Viewership: 860,707

Brand/Country: Vodafone Egypt
Creative Agency:
Viewership: 544,578

Brand/Country: Turkish Airlines
Creative Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky
Viewership: 2,957,647

Brand/Country: LG Mobile Global
Creative Agency:
Viewership: 1,453,985

The YouTube Ads Leaderboard charts the ads people chose to watch this year (determined quantitatively via paid-to-organic view ratio and audience retention), not necessarily the “most watched” ads on YT. As such, these ads won’t be the ones with the highest view counts, but those that engaged their audience by using savvy promotion to ignite organic pass-along