Remember that ad Samsung ran earlier this year mocking iPhone 5 fans for standing in line for a smartphone when “the next big thing” (aka Galaxy S III) is already here? Yeah, well, according to Visible Measures (a video advertising firm) that ad is the most popular tech ad for 2012.

Visible Measures tracks “popularity” of an ad by the number of “true reach views”. “True reach views” are how much views an ad received when uploaded to video sharing websites, including Youtube and other video websites, plus any parodies or variations thereof.

According to Visible Measures, the Samsung ad mocking iPhone 5 received 71.8 million views. In second place is an Intel/Toshiba laptop ad with 54.4 million views, followed by:

• A Galaxy Note II Samsung ad with 42.2 million views;
• A Galaxy Note 10.1 Samsung ad with 22.9 million views;
• A Project Glass Google ad with 20.8 million views;
• An iPhone 5 ad with 18.4 million views;
• The LG IPS monitors ad with 17.3 million views;
• Another Galaxy Note II ad with 16.4 million views;
• A Google Nexus 7 ad with 13.8 million views;
• And a Microsoft Surface ad with 13.6 million view.

Let me reiterate the above mentioned views aren’t directly related to how much money each company spent on marketing. In other words, Samsung having four ads in the top ten doesn’t necessarily mean Samsung spent more money on marketing than Apple. (Although, in reality, Samsung probably did spend more money on marketing than Apple.) While I’m sure there is some sort of relation between marketing dollars and how viral an ad becomes on the internet, the “true reach views” Visible Measures calculates is not related to marketing budgets but rather user shares and user views.

[via AllThingsD]