Viral Marketing is surely one reason why websites like YouTube are making it big in the techno generation. Big brands are today relying more and more on the self-replicating wide spreading ads that travel freely online.
Those in support of these rapidly spreading Viral Ads defend these outrageous marketing campaigns by calling them an entertainment concept for promoting products. Surely, some of these are lot fun to watch and forward, but this new concept of shooting an ‘out of the box’ ad for marketing can some times come out with extreme ideas. However, funny and creative, or extreme and absurd, these naturally spreading marketing ads have captured the attention of all genres of advertising.

From hundreds of such Viral ads online, we have picked up Ten most extreme Viral marketing ads. Here’s our take on what we think are the ten best Viral campaigns till date:

1- Honda
Popular motor company Honda entered the Viral marketing world with its daredevil live commercial ad video. The video of skydivers, taking a leap from a plane and spelling H.O.N.D.A in the air, was first aired on British TV and soon became a sensation on YouTube and was viewed more than 400,000 times.

2- Cadbury
The Gorilla ad launched by Cadbury was big hit with outstanding online viewing across the world. The success of a music-loving drummer Gorilla going wild with his drumsticks, and playing rocking music, pushed the ad from TV to Web, where it became a bigger hit. With around 70 Facebook groups, increased brand loyally among people and more than 6 millions online viewing of the video, the Gorilla campaign (despite having no relation with the product it was promoting) proved as Cadbury’s star campaign.

3- Diet Coke and Mentos
Coke and Mentos Experiment was a true example of self-replicating campaign that was viewed online over 10 million times. This less entertaining, more outrageous looking video was an experiment conducted by individuals not related to either of the brand companies, Coke and Mentos. The exploding coke video was a great source of publicity for Coke and Mentos, as the clip became one of the most watched Viral sensation.

4- Blendtec
A blender selling company, Blentec, in Utah launched a video where the co-founder of the firm was shown blending various items. The bizarre one and half minute video gathered real good amount of online viewing on the website and YouTube, as viewers enjoyed the destructive blending of iPhone into a black powder in no time. Although, the lab experiment video did generate lots of publicity for Blendtec and increased its sale, many did find this viral campaign nothing but ridiculously cheap.

5- Dove
Dove shot a mini self-esteem theme based clip, which showed a series of changes a female model goes through during her makeover for a photo shoot. This ad clip was viewed over 12,000,000 times in the same year, which includes 44,000 views generated on the same day of its release. While some might call it a graphically rich entertainment, the ad became a point of debate on many television shows because of its theme and message. Dove’s ‘Evolution’ video was a successful Viral marketing strategy that touched many because of being clean, classy and real.

6- John West Salmon
The Bear fight video showing a man and a bear boxing and wresting over a red Salmon product may not have touched environmentalist and animal activists’ heart, but this low scale ad was a huge hit among online video sharing fanatics. With over 300 million online viewing stats, this Bear-Fight ad campaign truly became a part of Viral ads that spread on the Web in no time and without any effort.

7- Transport for London
In 2008, Transport for London released a campaign called ‘Do the Test’. Aimed at raising awareness about presence of cyclists on road, the campaign addresses vehicle drivers. Although the ad was launched for people of London, its message became a success with the netizens across the world, who just couldn’t help but praise the campaign. With over 5.5 millions online viewing of the video in the first month, the oddly brilliant ‘Do the Test’ ad reached the firth position in the Video Viral chart. This ad was a true Viral marketing campaign as it also became one of the most blogged about Video and had over 6.7 million viewings on YouTube.

8-ZooZoo’s
Almost everyone who saw the famous Vodafone ZooZoo ad on the television watched it again on YouTube. The ZooZoo campaign was a worldwide hit and appealed to everyone from kids to grownups. Although, the campaign was a part of a cricket series and was soon off-air by the end of the Cricket tournament, the videos were soon a hit among online viewers and became one of the biggest Viral ads across internet.

9- Quick Silver
Another extreme Viral ad is this video of young kids who surf through water wave created by throwing dynamites into a river. A complete fake looking clip that generated over 10 million viewers on the net, this ad is an absurd Viral promotion that was created to promote the Quick Silver brand. Despite being a cheap stunt ad, this ad made it big and successfully traveled online among bizarre group of tech-generation kids.

10- Levi’s
A popular denim brand Levi’s came up with a wacky video where a group of men is shown doing stunts with their jeans. With boys back flipping and jumping to get in to their jeans, this video is an odd but entertaining campaign that managed to catch attention of numerous online viewers. This ad showing a bunch of young lads doing stunts with their jeans was a major Viral promotion used by the company, with the online video sharing sites successfully receiving over 14 million views for the same.