Android’s “Friends Furever” ranked first in Unruly’s 2015 most-shared ads chart, with 6,432,921 reported shares. That is a share count, not a view count or lifetime total. Unruly counted shares across Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere from January 1 through November 16, 2015, and excluded movie and television trailers.
This distinction matters when an editor compares the chart with a video-view leaderboard. The two lists may contain the same creative while measuring different behavior. Unruly’s November 19, 2015 announcement is the primary source for the method and the figures it explicitly reports. HubSpot reproduces the complete 20-item order, but its page is a secondary list rather than a primary dataset.
The ranking is useful as a historical record of social pass-along behavior. It is not a current benchmark, a complete calendar-year total, or evidence that a particular creative formula caused an ad to succeed.
What does “most-shared” mean in Unruly’s 2015 ranking?
“Most-shared” means that ads were ranked by recorded social shares, not views, reach, completed plays, sales, brand lift or return on investment. The measurement window ended on November 16, so the chart should not be described as a definitive December 31 total for 2015.
Before comparing this result with another ranking, record four fields: the metric, source, collection dates and exclusions. A list based on views or a different period is not directly comparable, even if it uses the same ads.
A historical share ranking is meaningful only when its metric, platform coverage and measurement window travel with the number.
The 20 ads in the 2015 ranking
The order below is HubSpot’s reproduction of Unruly’s chart. Unruly’s announcement independently confirms the chart and several positions, but the reviewed page does not expose every row as a complete text table. Use Unruly for methodology and the individual figures it states, and identify HubSpot as the source of the full reproduced order.
The fourth entry needs particular care. HubSpot labels it “ROC,” while Unruly describes a disguised Cristiano Ronaldo commercial for Monster headphones. The list therefore uses the narrower primary-source description and preserves the naming conflict.
- “Friends Furever” – Android. Unruly reports 6,432,921 shares.
- “Disney Characters Surprise Shoppers” – Disney Parks.
- “Puppyhood” – BuzzFeed Video and Purina. Unruly reports 3,021,499 shares.
- “Cristiano Ronaldo in Disguise” – Monster headphones in Unruly’s description. HubSpot labels this entry “ROC.”
- “Lost Dog” – Budweiser.
- “Love Has No Labels” – Ad Council. Unruly reports 2,743,138 shares.
- “Maya” – Zorba.
- “Slap Her” – Fanpage.it.
- “Robert Downey Jr. Delivers a Real Bionic Arm” – Microsoft.
- “Best Friends” – Kleenex.
- “My Dad’s Story” – MetLife.
- “The Unique Connection” – Pandora.
- “Pipe Dream” – DC Shoes.
- “Revenge” – Clash of Clans.
- “Red Nose Day” – Coldplay’s Game of Thrones, The Musical.
- “Create Your Own Game” – Adidas.
- “#ManontheMoon” – John Lewis.
- “Unfollow” – Adidas.
- “Mog’s Christmas Calamity” – Sainsbury’s.
- “Yesterday is Gone” – Adidas.
Unruly reported 40,219,853 shares across its 2015 Top 20, compared with 29,038,725 for the prior year’s Top 20. It described that as a 38.50 percent increase under its own methodology. Unruly also reported three Adidas commercials in the chart, the most for any one brand. These are chart-level comparisons, not universal estimates of social sharing.
Read Unruly’s contemporaneous announcement for the methodology, selected ranks and reported counts. See HubSpot’s reproduced list for the full numbered order. The page’s YouTube links can illustrate creative execution, but they do not establish historical rank or share count.
What the leading campaigns show, and what they do not prove
Unruly described “Friends Furever” as a story about unlikely animal friendships. It described the third-place Purina commercial as a story about one man and his puppy, and “Love Has No Labels” as a diversity and inclusion campaign. Unruly also discussed emotional intensity and recurring themes including warmth, happiness, friendship, sadness and inspiration.
Those are sourced descriptions and interpretations, not proof that an animal, cause, celebrity or emotional beat caused an individual ad to rank highly. Unruly reported eight cause-related campaigns in the Top 20, but its announcement does not provide a complete item-by-item classification table. Exact counts of dog, cat or soccer-focused ads should therefore not be presented as Unruly-verified facts.
Recurring emotional or animal-centered themes can generate hypotheses for campaign research. The ranking alone cannot show why a particular ad was shared, so test the pattern against audience and objective data instead of treating it as a guaranteed recipe.
Unruly’s follow-up on 2015 content trends adds context on emotional themes, animal-centered advertising and cause marketing. It is commentary, not a second ranking table. The reviewed primary announcement does not confirm HubSpot’s claim that the Purina spot was intended to drive viewers to a Welcome to Puppyhood destination, or that “Friends Furever” used music from Disney’s Robin Hood, so those details are not treated here as established facts.
How to turn a historical ranking into a reliable editorial record
The practical task is source normalization, not an automated connection to Unruly. An editor can use the HubSpot list and Unruly announcement to create one structured record per campaign entry in one specific chart. The workflow below is a proposed editorial design. It is not a documented Unruly integration, API or export process.
Keep campaign identity distinct from creative identity. In the example below, “Friends Furever” is the creative title, Android is the advertised brand, and the row belongs to Unruly’s 2015 chart. The record grain is one campaign in one specific chart, not one CRM contact, deal or aggregate report.
{
"record_key": "2015|https://unruly.co/news/article/2015/11/19/most-shared-ads-of-2015/|friends-furever|2015-01-01|2015-11-16",
"chart_year": 2015,
"rank": 1,
"campaign_title": "Friends Furever",
"advertiser": "Android",
"share_count": 6432921,
"measurement_start": "2015-01-01",
"measurement_end": "2015-11-16",
"ranking_source_url": "https://unruly.co/news/article/2015/11/19/most-shared-ads-of-2015/",
"verification_status": "verified",
"notes": "Historical Unruly share count, not a current or lifetime total."
}For a row without a primary-source count, use a null share_count. Enforce record_key with a database uniqueness constraint or transactional upsert when concurrent editors or jobs can write the same chart. A lookup followed by an insert is not race-safe. If citations are stored separately, give each citation its own identifier and link it to the campaign-chart record. That preserves the distinction between a ranked observation, an aggregate chart summary and any later business-system event.
- Every precise share count has direct support from the Unruly announcement.
- The measurement window and exclusions remain attached to the chart record.
- HubSpot-only order or naming details are marked as secondary or disputed.
- Theme labels include a source or reviewer rationale and make no causal claim.
- Concurrent writes use an enforced unique key or transactional upsert.
When these records need to fit alongside business systems, ConsultEvo’s CRM systems service page is relevant context. This article does not claim that a particular CRM integration, Unruly connector or current public API is available.
What this ranking can, and cannot, tell a marketer
The chart documents social sharing within Unruly’s historical method. On its own, it does not measure sales, brand lift, total reach, viewing completion or ROI, and it cannot predict what will work on today’s platforms. Modern comparisons require compatible definitions, platform coverage and measurement periods.
Use the list to form testable ideas about storytelling and shareability, then evaluate those ideas against the campaign’s audience and objective-specific outcomes. A performance claim needs a separately defined outcome measure and a valid comparison, not just a high share position.
For the primary methodology and reported figures, consult Unruly’s 2015 announcement. For the reproduced 20-item order, consult HubSpot’s list, while retaining the source distinction described above.