“Friends Furever”, an Android commercial posted on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites last February, has become the internet’s most shared video ad ever. The endearingly cute commercial showing apparently impossible animal friendships got 6,432,921 million shares across social media sites and the blogosphere in Unruly's annual Top 20 Global Video Ads Chart.

It also has 20.6 million views on YouTube. The ad shows the unlikeliest of animals prancing and playing together. Among them are chicks cuddling up to a kitten; a dog swimming with a dolphin anda cat opening a door for a dog. The video ends with the phrase, “Be together. Not the same”, meaning friendships cross all lines, even biological ones.

Unruly said its 6.4 million shares make Friends Furever not only this year’s landslide winner, “but also the most shared ad of all time”. It beat last year’s top ad, Activia’s World Cup ad “La, La, La”, which drew 6,094,762 shares across social media since its launch in 2014.

Unruly is an ad tech company that gets videos watched, tracked and shared across the open web. It was acquired by News Corp last September.

Disney’s “Surprise Shoppers” campaign was the second most shared ad for 2015 while third place is a commercial created by Buzzfeed Video for Purina pet food about one man and his pup (3,021,499 shares). Three adidas ads made it into the Top 20, the most for any single brand.

“We’ve been collecting and analysing consumer data on video consumption and sharing patterns since 2006 and one of the key drivers to video shareability is emotional intensity-- how an ad makes a person feel”, said Unruly President Richard Kosinski.

“From the joy you feel when your pup welcomes you home to nostalgic memories of your childhood pet, animals can tap into a wide range of emotions that have broad appeal. By placing the focus on friendship and shared experiences, advertisers in 2015 have successfully used dogs, cats and other furry friends to provoke strong feelings of warmth and well-being”.

Here’s Unruly’s most shared ads of 2015:

Unruly’s rankings are based on the number of shares (not views) that ads on Facebook and YouTube attracted on Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere. It measures an ad’s online buzz or virality, and ranks ads by the volume of active pass-on rather than the passive, paid metric of video viewership.

Contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au or tell us what you think below.