By now you’ve seen “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” TV ad campaign, featuring Isaiah Mustafa, that pulled the Old Spice brand back from the brink of irrelevance and effectively restoring it to the #1 spot in market share.

The campaign launched in February during Superbowl XLIV and by the time Procter & Gamble’s Global Marketing Officer Marc Pritchard described its success at the ANA Conference in October, Old Spice had generated 1.8 billion PR impressions (globally) and an incredible explosion of online engagement with a 2,700% increase in Twitter followers, 800% increase in Facebook fans, 300% increase in website traffic, and over 140 million YouTube views (collectively). All this translated into double digit sales.

So, you just can’t get enough of the Cadbury’s eyebrow dance? Especially if you live in the UK… maybe not so much since Kraft bought them up.

You love those talking baby commercials from E-Trade? And now that Lindsay Lohan is suing E-Trade for $100 million for besmirching her (first) name with “milk” addiction, you really love them.

And who can resist cute dogs at 1000 FPS?

But before launching your own YouTube sensation, consider only 15% of all video ads actually go viral according to a new study from Millward Brown (this actually sounds pretty good to me considering users now upload over 24 hours of video to YouTube every minute). The marketing research company just announced their Creative Viral Potential (CVP) metric for predicting viral success of video ads (you can view the press release here). After analyzing behavioral data from YouTube for 102 video commercials along with survey-based data, they’ve come up with four essential components to viral success:

• Awareness Index – a measure of branded engagement that has long been used by advertisers to predict the success of their TV advertising
• Buzz – which identifies whether an ad is likely to generate pass-along
• Celebrity – the profile of a celebrity when used in an ad
• Distinctiveness – a measure of originality

However you prefer to break down viral success, these free online services can help you research, measure, and manage your video campaigns.

1. YouTube Insight – YouTube’s analytics and reporting product that enables anyone with an account to view detailed statistics about their videos.
2. Viral Video Chart – offers at-a-glance basic statistics on all videos. Good to see how competing videos compare.
3. TubeMogul – the first online video analytics and distribution company serving publishers large and small who need independent information about video performance.
4. Visible Measures – an independent measurement firm for Internet video publishers, advertisers, and viral marketers. Currently offering a free public beta.

I’m sure there are other free video metrics so if you have found something worth sharing, leave a comment.

Juliette Gordon Low would be proud of her enterprising young ladies for utilizing viral marketing to sell Girl Scout Cookies while promoting a positive message about leadership, community service, and financial responsibility. Cookies have been a lucrative tradition of the Girl Scouts since Low’s day (circa 1917), bringing in about $700 million in sales each year. Using social media to reposition this classic American brand is smart and, quite frankly, it is about time.

The YouTube video What Can A Cookie Do? has already received over 35,000 views since its launch on 1/18/10 and is part of a much bigger re-branding effort that will be kicking into gear this Spring. The message: “Every Cookie Has a Mission: To Help Girls Do Great Things.” Hey, isn’t that what we all want.

The video message is clean, simple, and direct; effectively communicating the Girl Scouts’ new mission statement. But I would be remiss if I didn’t note the irony that less than a year ago 8-year-old Wild Freeborn was banned by the national Girl Scouts association from using YouTube to sell cookies online (who, by the way, had 700 order in the first two weeks).

So, what do you think of the video? Are the Girls Scouts re-branding efforts a step in the right direction?

One of the featured case studies at last week’s B2B Social Communications event held by the Business Development Institute in New York City was IBM’s use of Social Media, specifically, their YouTube viral video series entitled Mainframe: The Art of the Sale. The brainchild of comedian Tim Washer, the series started 3 years ago and has since dramatically increase awareness of the company’s mainframe computers not only with IT execs but with college students (the next generation).

The take-away for B2B communicators and marketers: leverage your in-house resources, use “absurdity” to tell your story, and don’t let fear hold you back. You can watch part of Tim Washer’s presentation on 3 Minute AdAge.

If you still think that Social Media is a fad then you’re not only missing the boat, you can’t even find the ocean.  But hey, not all is lost. Here is a nice video summary from Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics. Lots of stats presented in the same vein as the “Did You Know” videos.