Viral Chart Highlights: Another epic marketing win from Old Spice

The Pony may still be at the top of the viral chart this week, but there’s another animal hot on its tail – entering the listings at number three, with nearly a million views so far this week is Mr Wolfdog, the new chief director of marketing for Old Spice.It looks like the brand has finally ditched the handsome duo of Mustafa and Fabio to make way for a new arrival. The genius ad from Wieden + Kennedy was launched on Monday to promote the newline of Old Spice Wild Scents and features the four-legged marketing director using a special electronic translation collar to explain some pretty important business lessons; chowing down on a couple of his human assistants and coming out with classic lines such as: “Sometimes, America, you have to eat people – that’s business.” The whole campaign is exactly what we’ve come to expect from the brand: brilliantly tongue in cheek, self-referential and full of the kind of viral hooks that the internet loves.Of course, few big online campaigns these days stop with just a video, and as expected there’s a big integrated social media push behind the ad. Not only has Mr Wolfdog taken over the brand’s YouTube channel, with a series of hilarious instructional videos about how to succeed in the world of business, he’s commandeered its official Twitterand Facebook feeds and has his very own dedicated Tumblr"blog. He’s even using Google Hangouts to interview prospective personal assistants, but potential candidates should be warned, human ‘meat sacks’ don’t tend to last long in his office!

Over to the UGC chart, and going straight to the top of the listings with over 10m views is The Ultimate Wake Up Prank Compilation. The title says it all really; if you want a run-down of every possible idiotic and downright dangerous way to wake someone up from a nice peaceful nap, this is for you.

Number two on the chart, demonstrating the power of mainstream TV to boost the viral nature of online videos, is a clip of a cute little boy having a sing song to Bruno Mars’s ‘Grenade.' The video of the four-year-old was posted online last month, gaining a fairly impressive 200,000 views, but since appearing on Ellen Show last week, the boy has been launched into the viral limelight, with the video of him singing on the show clocking up over 6m views and counting.Also trending this week: Nikola Tesla goes head-to-head with Thomas Edison in the latest installment from Epic Rap Battle; a dancing 88-year-old grandmother shows the world she still knows how to groove; and a hilarious new video from popular YouTube user Dartanian London demonstrates how single men will use Google Glass.For all of the chart news and the full run-down of top videos on the internet this week, check out The Viral Video Chart, powered by VAN, or follow @JoinVan to stay up to date with the latest viral news and YouTube gossip.