Predicting the viral success of the John Lewis advert

Bad news: the data suggests we’ll be seeing a lot more of it.

The latest John Lewis Christmas advert is here. It’s about a disturbed young child who procures a mail order bride for his horny pet penguin.

The John Lewis adverts have been incredibly successful over the last few years — will this one have the same effect?

London-based company Unruly deals in social media analytics for video. It shared some data with us, comparing this advert with previous ones

Last year’s ad, ‘The Bear and the Hare’, racked up 200,000 shares across social media, and went on to become the most popular John Lewis advert of all time.

This year, the advert earned 73,871 shares in just four and a half hours across Facebook and YouTube, suggesting it’s on track to surpass the bear.

That isn’t just down to luck.

David Waterhouse, the head of content at Unruly, says: “Posting an ad on YouTube alone isn’t enough to make an ad go viral.”

“With over 75% of video views taking place outside of YouTube, you need to activate your ad across the millions of properties that make up the Open Web in order to be sharing a success.”

So the launch itself has been as ruthless as the advert is saccharine. An impressive feat.