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An Australian video featuring a serial hugger's one-man campaign to spread a message of love is among the winners in the first YouTube Video Awards.

Free Hugs Campaign - which featured a song (All The Same) by Sick Puppies, a Sydney band made up of three former Mosman High School students - won the award for the for most inspirational video.

The video features Juan Mann who stands in Sydney's Pitt Street Mall holding a big sign saying "Free Hugs" and offering to cuddle passers-by.

Uploaded six months ago, the video has been viewed over 12 million times making it the 13th most watched YouTube clip of all time.

"It's a way to make people smile," Mann told a reporter from this website last year. "For every person who gets a hug, you see five walk past with a smile on their face."

The hit video came about after a meeting - and a hug - more than a year ago with Shimon Moore, the lead singer of the Sick Puppies, who was working odd jobs by day and playing gigs by night.

"I was one of those guys in Pitt Street Mall with a sandwich board advertising a shoe sale," Moore said...