The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

'Santa' has a gift for your vagina! (Period ads just got cool!)

By Mel Peck

August 1, 2013 | 5 min read

Honda has been getting a bit playful with its viral ads of late, and it seems to be paying off. The car manufacturer has had several videos trending in the viral chart over the past few weeks. Interestingly none of them have been directly promoting a car model, but instead have focused on celebrating the creativity of the Honda brand. We saw Mean Mower and Honda Hands both top the listings last month, and this week Sound of Honda - Ayrton Senna 1989 has taken the number one slot with over a million views and counting.

The one and a half minute video features a recreation of former triple world champion, Ayrton Senna’s, incredible record-breaking F1 circuit at Suzuka in Japan. There’s just one thing missing – the car! Honda took data from the original race to create an atmospheric tribute to the event using only giant speakers and lights placed around the track. It’s actually a surprisingly effective way to take viewers back in time to capture the mood of the moment. And coming 10 years after Senna’s death, it makes for a nice little memorial.

Also going viral this week is a new advert from an American tampon delivery company called Hello Flo. In case you’re wondering what kind of service they provide, the ad puts it perfectly by describing it as being “like Santa for your vagina!" According to the brand’s website, subscribers receive a monthly box of period related goodies, from tampons and pads to sweets and treats.It seems the days of hush-hush period adverts featuring women dancing on the beach in white dresses and scientific demonstrations with beakers of blue water are over - periods have become cool! We saw one of the first breakout examples of this new approach to sanitary hygiene products last year when BodyForm raised the bar with its award winning Facebook response video. Now Camp Gyno is following suit, brandishing around ‘taboo’ words like 'vagina', 'vadge' and 'menstruation'.The video features a young girl who gets her first period (or as she describes it, ‘the red badge of courage’) whilst away on holiday. All of a sudden she’s the coolest kid at camp, dishing out advice and tampons to all the other girls and comparing herself to Joan of Arc, "It's like, 'I'm Joan', and their vadge is the Arc." It’s a pretty funny video and hopefully a sign that period advertising is finally stepping into the 21st century.

Moving across to the UGC Chart:You might have seen some of the cute videos of super excited dogs welcoming their owners back from time away that have been trending recently – here’s one of my faves. Well, anything dogs can do, cats can do too right? Or maybe not… Top of the UGC chart this week with over 6 million views is a clip of a cat welcoming its owner home from holiday - as you can imagine kitteh is a tad less excitable!

Coming in second with over 2 million views in 2 days is Porn Sex vs Real Sex (demonstrated by vegetables). There’s been a spate of videos illustrating sex with food recently. We showed an awesome little classic called How to sex your food at #KittenCamp not long ago and despite kind of grossing the audience out, it went down a storm. Now KB Creative has set out to dispel some of the myths created by the porn industry, setting the record straight with some colourful food metaphors.

Also trending this week is possibly the best cycling invention that I never knew I wanted (until I watched this video) - Bubble Wrap Bike. Elsewhere in the chart we have a hilarious compilation of some of YouTube prankster, Remi Gaillard’s most popular stunts and a hidden camera social experiment to find out what happens when a hot girl asks random guys on the street if they want to have sex. (There’s also a version of this where the guy is doing the asking, as you can imaging the responses are quite different ;-)For all of the chart news and the full run down of the most shared online videos this week, check out The Drum Viral Video Chart, powered by VAN, or follow @JoinVan to stay up to date with the latest industry news and YouTube gossip.Join the Viral Chart mailing list for weekly updates on top trending videos!

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +