YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, has over a billion users — almost one-third of all people on the Internet — and every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views. 80% of YouTube’s views are from outside of the US. YouTube has launched local versions in more than 88 countries, and you can navigate YouTube in a total of 76 different languages (covering 95% of the Internet population).
In South Africa, the platform is gaining popularity with local YouTubers seeing an increase in subscribers.
With an increase in viewership comes an increase in ads watched on the site.
Google SA has today (23 June 2016) released the South Africa YouTube Ads Leaderboard for May 2016. The YouTube Ads Leaderboard showcases the top 5 most popular and creative video ads watched in South Africa for the month just ended. The ranking is determined using some of YouTube’s strongest 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.
The ever-popular Suzelle DIY took top spot in May with her ‘How to Make the Ultimate Burger’ video for Hellmann’s, which racked up some 404,308 views.
We know that South Africans are car fans, so it not surprising that the second and fourth most watched YouTube ads in May were for cars. The second most watched ad was Mercedes Benz – Signature Thrills – The New C-Class Coupé in Virtual Reality, with some 152,173 views.
Next up was the delightfully dry Letgo South Africa app ad – Cliff TVC – Why Hang On?, with 126,322 views. Renault South Africa’s Renault Kadjar available with R-Link2 & Video clocked some 49,285 views. And in fifth position – Doktor Mom SA’s DOKTOR MOM® Herbal Cough Syrup TV advert, with 32,198 views.