And this year’s top ads on YouTube are...

It used to be that the great ads of the year were released during the Big Game. One day a year, we were treated to funny, touching, and memorable ads during the game that we rewatched online afterward (remember The Force or the Old Spice man?).

Today, brands have stepped up their game on YouTube and are creating videos that people seek out and choose to watch, every day. So what were the top ads of 2014? Well, we took a look at the ads that debuted on YouTube in 2014, and evaluated them against metrics including audience engagement metrics (watch time, likes, shares), video views, and audience retention metrics (how much of a video people watched) to come up with our leaderboard of the top ads of 2014 on YouTube.

Thanks to the creativity of this year’s videos, people are spending more time watching videos from brands than ever before. In fact, we watched more than 1 billion minutes of the top 10 ads this year alone. And while the top ads are nearly 50 percent longer this year compared to last—averaging around 3 minutes each—we stayed tuned longer, spending around 50 percent more time watching them.

Here are the ads that grabbed our attention in 2014:

1. Nike Football: Winner Stays. ft. Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Rooney, Ibrahimović, Iniesta & more
2. Nike Football: The Last Game ft. Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Rooney, Zlatan, Iniesta & more
3. Budweiser Super Bowl XLVIII Commercial -- "Puppy Love"
4. Always #LikeAGirl
5. Devil Baby Attack
6. Duracell: Trust Your Power - NFL's Derrick Coleman, Seattle Seahawks
7. Galaxy Note 4 -- Then And Now
8. P&G Thank You, Mom | Pick Them Back Up | Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
9. Global Be(er) Responsible Day | “Friends Are Waiting” | Budweiser
10. Heineken | Routine Interruptions | The Payphone with Fred Armisen

To celebrate this year’s top ads around the world, we teamed up with Kurt Hugo Schneider to remix them into an original video to the tunes of YouTube creators Scott Bradlee, Taylor Davis, Mike Relm, and Michael Thurber. You can watch it here:



You can also catch up on all the top ads individually by checking out our playlists for the Top Trailers, Top Brand/Creator Collaborations, and Top Sports Ads of 2014. For more on the top ads lists for the year, visit Think with Google.

Alyson Yaffe, YouTube Marketing, recently watched “Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens Official Teaser Trailer #1 (2015) - J.J. Abrams Movie HD.”

#YouTubeRewind 2014: Celebrating what you created, watched and shared

2014 was chock full of YouTube moments that vaulted into pop culture. We got pranked by a spider dog in Poland, learned what it’s like to walk the street for 10 hours as a woman in NYC, and watched total strangers share a first kiss. We laughed, we cried, and yes, we sang along to “Let It Go” roughly a bajillion times.

In celebration of the people, memes and moments that made up an epic year, more than 100 YouTube creators gathered together for our annual Rewind video: a giant, global mashup looking back at the best of 2014 on YouTube. With creators from Japan, Germany, Israel, Mexico, France and beyond, it’s the biggest and most international Rewind video yet.

 

And here are the top trending videos for 2014, based on views, shares, comments, likes and more. This year, the list represents the amazing variety of creativity brought to YouTube each day, which can include social commentaries, pranks, advertisements, and thrilling moments from traditional media and big names on YouTube. Collectively these 10 videos have hundreds of millions of views from creators with more than 21 million cumulative subscribers.

1. Mutant Giant Spider Dog (SA Wardega) by SA Wardega
2. Nike Football: Winner Stays. ft. Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Rooney, Ibrahimović, Iniesta & more by Nike Football
3. FIRST KISS by Tatia PIlieva
4. The Voice IT | Serie 2 | Blind 2 | Suor Cristina Scuccia - #TEAMJ-AX by TheVoiceOf Italy
5. iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test by Unbox Therapy
6. Bars & Melody - Simon Cowell's Golden Buzzer act | Britain's Got Talent 2014 by Britain's Got Talent
7. Budweiser Super Bowl XLVIII Commercial -- "Puppy Love" by Budweiser
8. Devil Baby Attack by DevilsDueNYC
9. Goku vs Superman. Epic Rap Battles of History Season 3. by ERB
10. 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman by Street HarassmentVideo

When it comes to music, it was a year of powerful female artists, as you can see from our list of top music videos: female artists took eight of the top 10 spots (Shakira took two!). 2014's top 10 music videos were collectively played billions of times from channels with 55+ million subscribers. 

1. Katy Perry - Dark Horse (Official) ft. Juicy J
2. Enrique Iglesias - Bailando (Español) ft. Descemer Bueno, Gente De Zona
3. Shakira - Can't Remember to Forget You ft. Rihanna
4. Shakira - La La La (Brazil 2014) ft. Carlinhos Brown
5. Jason Derulo - "Wiggle" feat. Snoop Dogg (Official HD Music Video)
6. Iggy Azalea - Fancy (Explicit) ft. Charli XCX
7. Sia - Chandelier (Official Video)
8. Taylor Swift - Shake It Off
9. Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass
10. Nicki Minaj - Anaconda
... and check out even more top music videos.

Check out our YouTube Rewind channel for more top videos of the year from around the world, and our YouTube Brand channel to see a mashup of the top branded videos of the year and a list of the top ads on YouTube for the year. Stay tuned next week for Google's annual look at the people, places and events that captured the world's attention.

Kevin Allocca, Head of Culture & Trends, and the YouTube Rewind team recently watched “YouTube Rewind: Turn Down for 2014.”