The Top 10 YouTube ads in August

Nike managed to find its way back to the top of YouTube’s leaderboard last month with an ad featuring its cartoon version of Cristiano Ronaldo taking a gravity-defying free kick, while the new Fifa 15 game and a video to promote wearing sunscreen rounded out the top three.

1. Nike – “Perfect Kick” starring Cristiano Ronaldo

Creative Agency: Wieden + Kennedy

Ronaldo may be well known for some of his free kicks, but here’s betting none of them looked like this. In this latest ad from Nike, the sports brand recruits the cartoon version of its brand ambassador to show off its new Ordem ball, the official football of the Premier League, Series A and La Liga this year. Ronaldo’s free kick takes a gravity-defying trajectory towards the goal. We’ll have to wait to see if the likes of Wayne Rooney, Gareth Bale or Andrea Pirlo can replicate it for their clubs this season.

2. EA Sports – FIFA 15: New player faces and stadiums

While Nike is busy expounding on its new ball, EA is promoting its new game, Fifa 15, which is due for release on 25 September. The games developer is keen to make this year’s release about more than just playing the game, it’s about “feeling the game” and so it has more than 200 new player models and the same chants football goers will find on the terraces. Newly promoted Burnley, Leicester and QPR will also be able to see their home grounds accurately recreated in all their virtual glory, an honour not usually bestowed on the smaller teams.

3= How the sun sees you

Artist Thomas Leveritt has a viral hit on his hands with this video, which shows people the damage the sun is doing to their skin using ultraviolet light and then how sun cream blocks out the sun’s harmful rays. As an attempt to get more people to protect their skin from the sun it’s not very subtle but it does seem to be working. It has been viewed 13 million people film since it was posted on 12 August.

3= Miu Miu – Somebody: Women’s Tales #8

The second entry for an artist, this one is by Miranda July and forms part fashion retailer Miu Miu’s series of “Women’s Tales”, a number of short films created for the brand by up and coming directors. This one aims to show how difficult it can be speak with people you are close to and offers people a messaging service, Somebody, that can help. We see one relationship fall apart, another saved and, to end, a strange ménage-a-trois between two prison workers and a potted plant. Not quite sure what message Miu Miu is trying to get across there.

4. NERF Blasters – Amazing Skills

If you thought Ronaldo’s skills were impressive earlier wait until you see these guys. Using a football and a NERF Blaster, two football freestylers Billy Wingrove & Jeremy Lynch, the duo behind YouTube channel F2 Freesytlers, show off their abilities with both devices. Expect free kicks, keepie-uppies and Nerf “bullets” being fired into wheelie bins.

5. Infiniti – Chasing The Edge: Speed Is Not Enough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvc-BUrSg68

Creative Agency: TBWA

Infiniti, the luxury division of Japanese car marque Nissan, has enlisted Red Bull F1 driver Sebastian Vettel and two challengers to show off its Q50 Eau Rouge prototype car. The three motorsport drivers had to race around the Spa-Francorchamps track in Belgium. The catch? They had to rely on fans showing their support through Infiniti’s online hub to build up time to spend on the track. The winner was decided by who drove the furthest before the clock stopped. We won’t spoil the surprise!

6. Acne Prank!

7. World’s Largest Urban Zipline

8. Adidas – Predator Instinct: The Game

9. Puma – #ForeverFaster: Calling All Troublemakers

10. GoPro – Kama The Surfing Pig

This rank is determined using some of YouTube’s signals of viewer choice – number of views within the country, view rate (how much of an ad people choose to watch) and percentage of organic views versus paid views.

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