April Fool’s Freeway Fantasy Most-Engaging Car Ad

Despite only airing 12 times on a single day (April 1), Lexus reigns supreme over the weekly Most Engaging Auto Ads ranking, powered for WardsAuto by iSpot.tv.

The company’s playful commercial envisions a feature called “Lane Valet” that would let drivers take control of a car that’s going too slow in the passing lane and gently direct it into the right-hand lane – something surely all drivers at one time or another must wish was possible. Alas, such a technology doesn’t exist (yet) and Lexus proclaims it an April Fool’s joke at the end of the spot.

At No.2 is Volkswagen’s salacious spot about an ever-growing family that topped our chart last week. Although some may find its implications of sexual activity cringe-worthy, it points out how VW models serve families of different sizes.

Mazda snags two spots in the rankings: in third place, a new ad for the ’17 Mazda6 narrated by Aaron Paul, who voiced a previous long-running ad for the automaker. At No.5, Mazda’s clay modeler Yuta Takanashi is in the spotlight talking about how the human touch creates design with feeling.

Kia slips from third to No.4. Despite nearly 3,000 airings and almost two months on TV, the Kia Niro commercial featuring actress and comedian Melissa McCarthy still gets people talking.

iSpot.tv, the real-time TV ad measurement company with attention analytics from 10 million smart TV screens, allows customers to monitor social actions, search activity and online video views associated with TV spots across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, Bing and Yahoo!

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1. Lexus: Lane Valet

44.11% Digital Share of Voice, 109K Earned Online Views

2. Volkswagen: Luv Bug

21.72% Digital Share of Voice, 116K Earned Online Views

3. Mazda: Driving Matters: Feeling

4.23% Digital Share of Voice, 61K Earned Online Views

4. Kia: Hero’s Journey

4.2% Digital Share of Voice, 38K Earned Online Views

5. Mazda: Beauty

1.31% Digital Share of Voice, 16K Earned Online Views