Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Meme, Minecraft, meet squirrel

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.

The Super Bowl has headlined YouTube‘s top sponsored videos for a few weeks, and though it’s now past, our latest Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report is still led by football–just, you know, the other kind. Also high up on this week’s list are a smorgasbord of internet classics: memes, Minecraft, questionable vehicular activities, and befriending a wild animal.

Check it out right here:

#1 I Tested Banned Football Products
Channel: Futcrunch
Brand: Top Eleven

Soccer-focused (sorry, most of us are American here) channel Futcrunch tops this week’s list with a look at products that are banned in pitches around the world. Futcrunch and guest OussiFooty browse everything from banned jerseys to gloves to socks that FIFA is so serious about it slapped down a $70K fine for them back in 2018. The video is Futcrunch’s first upload in over a month, with the one before it featuring him trying out 1-star soccer products. A product he evidently doesn’t think deserves one star, however, is Top Eleven, the mobile game sponsoring his latest video.

#2 RANKED Meme Olympics
Channel: LazarBeam
Brand: PrizePicks

If there’s one thing the internet loves, it’s memes. Especially when those memes are part of LazarBeam‘s ongoing Meme Olympics series, where he and friends load into Fortnite and try to accomplish various hooliganish challenges, like who can die first while dressed as a cartoon chicken. But there’s a twist to this episode: because LazarBeam has now hit Unreal (the highest rank you can get in Fortnite‘s competitive mode), the challenges take place in lobbies that ostensibly contain the game’s most elite players. The showdown is sponsored by a familiar face on our Weekly Brand Reports: daily fantasy sports site PrizePicks, which also paid for this week’s #4 video–and 34 others.

#3 I Spent 100 Days in an Evolved Parasite Outbreak in Hardcore Minecraft… Here’s What Happened
Channel: Forge Labs
Brand: Opera

You might not know this with games like Grand Theft Auto, Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Valorant, League of Legends, and of course the aforementioned Fortnite seemingly dominating gaming spaces, but Minecraft has remained one of YouTube‘s biggest games for over a decade now–and keeps seeing growth in number of creators and viewers. So we’re not too surprised that the #3 video this week follows Forge Labs into the block-based game, where he tries to survive a super hardcore mode straight outta nightmares. His grueling adventure is sponsored by browser Opera GX, which also sponsored over 30 other videos this week.

#4 Jumping The Steepest Street In America!
Channel: Danny Duncan
Brand: PrizePicks

Danny Duncan‘s increasingly ill-advised stunts have taken to the streets. You may remember his getting-kicked-out-of-Walmart video took spot #2 on our Weekly Brand Report around this time last month–which means he was due for trying something even more bombastic to keep bringing the views. This time he’s in Pittsburgh, watching a driver jump the steepest street in the USA. A few banged-up car parts and concerned neighbors later, the deed is done, and it’s all sponsored by PrizePicks.

BONUS #1820 Meet my pet squirrel
Channel: Alex Ernst
Brand: Hello Fresh

And last but not least, we have Alex Ernst, who’s retained the whimsy of his early Vine days with his YouTube channel full of fictional vlogs. In this newest video, his fictionalized self is in what one commenter affectionately (we think) calls his “crisis era.” That crisis era involves making friends with the local squirrels around his apartment, including one named Cheese. Cheese is a street-savvy urban squirrel–and not a paid actor (we think)–who at first is wary of Ernst, but eventually is seduced by his offerings of human delicacies. Appropriately, the video is sponsored by meal kit company HelloFresh–and so were 29 other videos this week.

…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.