The Stories of December 2013

At the end of the year we tend to look back and make lists. In december we have seen a lot of those best of 2013 stories. Luckily we have also seen some great stories. This is our selection of the viral stories that stood out.

Married with his daughter

A lot of people have seen these beautiful and sad pictures of a father and his daughter. He remade his wedding pictures of his now deceased wife with his young daughter. When the father got married they had just bought an new house for the family. That was 4,5 years ago and in the meantime his wife died of lung cancer. When the father sold his house he wanted to remake his wedding pictures but now with his daughter. He asked his sister in law to make these gripping pictures.By far the most powerful pictures shared in december 2013.

Chanel and Marilyn Monroe

Sometimes ads become viral stories and in The Netherlands everybody was sharing or commenting about the Marilyn Monroe Channel nr 5 commercial. Beautifully made with old sound recordings of Monroe about her favorite perfume. But the clip is already a year old and viewed a lot on youtube. So you see, very well made content is still perceived as fresh and new.

Obama selfie Mandela memorial

The selfie has made it to the word of the year and it seems everybody is making selfies these days. Even President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and Denmark Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. They have made this iconic selfie at the memorial service of Mandela. Michelle Obama looks not amused. But the photographer Roberto Schmidt wrote a blog about this pictures and insists that this is not true. He said: “But photos can lie. In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included. Her stern look was captured by chance.”

Beyonce Visual album

On friday the 13th Beyonce surprised the world with a complete new album with 14 new songs accompanied with 17 video clips. This visual album was exclusively available on Itunes for a week and after three days sold nearly 900.000 copies. The album came as a complete surprise without any buildup campaign. According to the BBC the succes has been fueled by a number of factors: By keeping the project secret, the star avoided leaks; while the inability to purchase individual tracks online meant fans had no choice but to pay for the whole album.

WestJet Christmas Miracle: real-time giving

And then there is the Christmas holiday, always a big happening for brands and advertising. The clear winner of the Christmas promotions is Canadian Airline Westjet. They surprised passenger who where boarding their flight with what the wanted for Christmas. Westjet employees then bought all the gifts at the airport of the flights destination. Who would have thought that these wishes became reality. And then the youtube movie went viral. It is now seen 34+ million times. The whole operation is a fraction of the budget of a normal commercial.

Google Zeitgeist 2013

And if we have to choose between all the end-of-year-best-of-2013 stories then The Google Zeitgeist is the winner. Sit back and see the biggest stories of 2013.