Welcome to our rundown of the most-watched branded YouTube videos of the week.
We’re publishing this snippet of a larger Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report in order to analyze sponsorship trends in the creator economy. Any video launched in tandem with an official brand partner is eligible for the ranking.
And – as the name up above would imply – all the data comes from Gospel Stats. If you’re interested in learning more about Gospel – and which brands are sponsoring what creators on YouTube – click here.
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The latest Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report shows us just how power a creator’s endorsement can be. The channels behind the top three sponsored videos in the ranking all reach at least 20 million subscribers. That provides a lot of visibility for the brands that pony up and secure partnerships with those big names.
Without further ado, here are the four most-watched branded videos from among all sponsored YouTube content uploaded during the week ending October 8. For fun, we’ve added in a fifth video to remind our readers that creators don’t need 20 million subscribers to execute successful brand partnerships.
#1 World’s Most Dangerous Trap!
Channel: MrBeast
Brand: Stumble Guys
Brand partnerships with MrBeast certainly don’t come cheap, but the most-subscribed individiual YouTube creator makes sure that his sponsors get a lot of bang for their buck. He recently linked up with Stumble Guys, a mobile game that resembles the similarly-titled Fall Guys. In both of those games, players must negotiate platforms without falling, and that’s exactly what happens in one of Jimmy Donaldson‘s latest YouTube uploads. He promoted his Stumble Guys integration with an action-packed clip that has pulled in more than 120 million views to date. The part where the contestant is trapped in a ball made me wish that Super Monkey Ball had sponsored MrBeast, but Stumble Guys is a worthwhile partner, too.
#2 The World’s First Square Bike
Channel: Dude Perfect
Brand: Quaker
An idiomatic reference to “square wheels” is used to poke fun at bad engineering concepts. But Dude Perfect is willing to throw its weight behind that unusual concept, and based on the resulting viewership, the old adage may need a revision. For an episode of their OT podcast, the Texas-based creator group examined unusual products, including a square-wheeled bike. Quaker signed on as the sponsor to promote its own unusual idea: A breakfast cereal that tastes like a Chewy bar. The result was a harmonious partnership between a brand that’s willing to try unusual combos and a channel that is willing to embrace weird ideas.
#3 Why Korea is Dying Out
Channel: Kurzgesagt – In A Nutshell
Brand: Brilliant
Kurzgesagt presents an interesting case study in the world of influencer marketing. On one hand, the Munich-based channel is a sponsor’s dream: It counts more than 20 million subscribers and regularly pulls in millions of views on new uploads. But Kurzgesagt’s philosophy of “optimistic nihilism” makes it hard for brand partners to send upbeat messages. Course platform Brilliant solved that problem by focusing on Kurzgesagt’s data-driven approach. The channel’s regular watchers know that data can be wondrous, even if it’s also overwhelming. Brilliant is inviting those consumers to indulge their curious nature by learning more about data science.
#4 I Made My Giant Beyblade Way Too Powerful!
Channel: I Did A Thing
Brand: Opera
A video two years in the making provided a nice boost for an alternative web browser. The Australian YouTuber Alex Apollonov, better known as I Did A Thing, recently returned to a homemade Beyblade he first introduced two years ago. The problem with the massive homemade gyroscope is that it’s too powerful. To make it more balanced, Apollonov had to tinker with the amount of energy that goes into it. That process is a perfect segue into Opera‘s GX browser, which lets users users control the spread of CPU across many open tabs. I think this settles it: On Apple operating systems that have Opera installed, the spinning beach ball of death should turn into a Beyblade.
BONUS: #1,395 PARIS VLOG 2023 | Chanel unboxing, dinner at the Louvre + fashion week ad
Channel: Noorie Ana
Brand: YouTube
YouTube always stays busy during Paris Fashion Week, and this year’s event is no exception. During the eight-day celebration of haute couture, the world’s top video site threw its weight behind Noorie Ana, a vlogger based in the U.K. With YouTube’s help, Ana attended some of Paris’ most luxurious dinners and runway shows. Her resulting vlog is an effective advertisement for YouTube, because it shows the high quality of the platform’s creator content. Ana’s partner Trieu is a top-tier cinemagrapher, and the couple’s Paris Fashion Week vlog is a visual journey worthy of Ana’s luxurious outfits.
…and there’s a lot more data where that came from. If you’re interested in learning more about Gospel – and which brands are sponsoring what creators on YouTube – click here.
