Conventional wisdom says that viral videos are supposed to be fairly short. But Apple's most popular video of 2012 turns out be almost seven minutes long.
Video analytics company VisibleMeasures ran the numbers on videos that Apple released in 2012. The top 10 have almost 40 million views in aggregate, and are very focused on Apple's most popular products. Three of the top 10 Apple viral videos released in 2012 are about iPhone, four promo Apple's iPad, and two are conversations with Siri.
Only one was about a non-phone and non-tablet Apple product: a video on the MacBook Pro with retina display.
The top video, with 13.3 million views, is an almost seven-minute video introducing the iPhone 5:
| Video | Campaign | Views | Watch |
1 | Introducing iPhone 5 | Introducing iPhone 5 | 13,325,996 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNsGNlDb6xY |
2 | Introducing the new iPad | The new iPad | 5,617,961 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQieoqCLWDo |
3 | Piano | iPad Mini | 4,086,306 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM9U70HgLsQ |
4 | Thumb | Introducing iPhone 5 | 2,623,875 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Rc4MDmr8o |
5 | Introducing iPad Mini | iPad Mini | 2,397,371 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL0UlqpfuQc |
6 | Rainy Day | Siri | 2,197,401 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP1YAatv1Mc |
7 | Introducing MacBook Pro With Retina Display | Introducing MacBook Pro With Retina Display | 1,938,637 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Neff9scaCCI |
8 | The new iPad | The new iPad | 1,823,592 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq3HrsM1ql8 |
9 | Date Night | Siri | 1,797,709 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqXGWQhowXk |
10 | Physics | Introducing iPhone 5 | 1,429,549 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4IRsCjMqdI |
Here's the full list:Notable misses?
"I was surprised to see that the controversial Apple Genius campaign didn't have a creative on the list," VisibleMeasures' Matt Fiorentino said to me in an email. "Their Mayday spot just missed the list with 1.3 million views."
Visible Measures counts not just views but what the company calls "true reach views," which a company representative explained to me is the combination of views generated by Apple uploading the video, plus any views of copies or derivative content uploaded by Apple fans anywhere on the web.