Chevrolet Top Car Brand for Social Video Engagement in U.S., Mercedes Take Global Title

Carla Marshall  

When it comes to online video advertising, Chevrolet is the leading brand in the U.S., but American manufacturers lag behind their foreign competitors when in comes to viewer engagement. For U.S. viewers, Chevy video ads attracted almost half (44.7%) of the total number of online shares over the last 12 months. Ford came in second with a 22.7% share. Surprisingly, Dodge only scraped in at third place, despite the blanket social media push given to the Dodge Durango campaign starring Will Ferrell as Anchorman Ron Burgundy.

When it comes to global engagement, Mercedes-Benz, Honda and VW take the top three spots, with Chevrolet the leading U.S. brand by some way, coming in fourth. Ford, in seventh place, is the only other U.S. auto company to make it onto the top 15. While eight European and five Asian companies make the list, other U.S. brands like Dodge (17th), Cadillac (19th) and Chrysler (22nd) just missed out.

Chevy Win Big on YouTube

Over the past 12 months, Chevy has scored major success with their video content, including one of their 2014 Super Bowl ads for the Silverado HD. The commercial has generated 5,549,276 views on YouTube and  87,245 shares across Facebook, Twitter and the Blogosphere.

Although the Chevrolet YouTube channel has a relatively modest number of subscribers (289,804 at time of writing), it has generated 63,121,773 views over 948 videos.

Top 15 Auto brands on Social Video – Last 12 months

1. Mercedes-Benz – 1.96 million shares
2. Honda – 1.77 million shares
3. Audi – 1.61 million shares
4. Chevrolet – 1.14 million shares
5. VW – 1 million shares
6. Toyota – 853,054 shares
7. Ford – 708,072 shares
8. Jaguar – 620,806 shares
9. Kia – 605,962 shares
10. BMW – 603,785 shares
11. Fiat – 595,709 shares
12. Renault – 489,819 shares
13. Subaru – 445,514 shares
14. Nissan – 415,259 shares
15. Volvo – 414,958 shares

U.S. Auto Brands’ Share of Voice – Last 12 Months

1. Chevrolet – 44.7%
2. Ford – 27.7%
3. Dodge – 11.2%
4. Cadillac – 8%
5. Chrysler – 4.7%
6. Jeep – 3.2 %
7. Buick – 0.5%

Each automotive brand was ranked by the levels of viewer engagement and conversation their video campaigns generated in the past 12 months. Thanks to Unruly for the data.