Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Balls, bees, Marques Brownlee

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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Our latest Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report is a sample size of what makes YouTube…well, YouTube. We have a man on a ball bike (not as painful as it sounds), Marques Brownlee dissecting the latest Samsung smartphone, Kurtis Conner surviving entirely off creator food brands for a week, Veritasium going all X-Files on the MIT’s new robot bug project, and for the grand finale, DokaRyan horfing down an inadvisable amount of soju.

Check ’em all out right here:

#1 I built an Omni-Directional Ball-Wheeled Bike
Channel: James Bruton
Brand: PCBWay
Views: 5,767,643

Most creators who hit the #1 spot in our Weekly Brand Reports have 5+ million subscribers, if not tens or hundreds of millions. Now here comes James Bruton, a former toy designer and current robotics/electrical/mechanical engineer who builds wacky projects on YouTube. He has just over 1 million subscribers, but handily defeated our #2 video this week by nearly a million views. We can guess why: In this half-hour video, he built an omnidirectional bike that uses balls instead of tires. The final product looks like something out of Star Wars, effortlessly gliding across the floor of Bruton’s workshop. Considering how much YouTube viewers love science, we expect this isn’t the last time we’ll see him in our top 5. (Oh, and he’s sponsored by manufacturer PCBWay, which also has its own YouTube channel.)

#2 Samsung Galaxy S25/Ultra Impressions: What Happened?
Channel: Marques Brownlee
Brand: dbrand
Views: 4,987,532

Marques Brownlee is one of YouTube‘s top tech creators, so it’s no surprise he got his hands on the latest Samsung smartphone before most other people. (One commenter even jokes “The event hasn’t even started,” referring to Samsung’s annual Galaxy Unpacked event, where it was slated to unveil the Galaxy S25.) But unfortunately for Samsung, Brownlee isn’t too impressed. We won’t spoil his review; we’ll just say that we’re pretty sure most consumers can related to the frustration of feeling pressured to buy the latest and greatest Galaxy, iPhone, and more every single year

. Brownlee’s dissection is sponsored (perhaps unsurprisingly) by device customization company dbrand, which also sponsored the #1 video on last week’s list.

#3 I Ate Only YouTuber Food Products for 1 Week
Channel: Kurtis Conner
Brand: Rocket Money
Views: 4,678,274

Lunchly. Joyride. Chamberlain Coffee. Kurtis Conner has it all–and it has to keep him alive for an entire week. “Eating only…” challenges are a major staple of YouTube culture, and what better way to double the YouTube than to only eat brands from creators? Conner’s video is also over an hour long, which is something we don’t see much anymore in the age of TikTok and short-form. We dig it–and so does Rocket Money, which sponsored this adventure (plus a whopping 42 other videos this week).

#4 Why Is MIT Making Robot Insects?
Channel: Veritasium
Brand: OnShape
Views: 4,214,586

Things are looking a little Dune at MIT. But before anyone starts scrambling for Spice claims, we’re just talking about the robot insects. Humanity has always loved finding ways to make tech smaller–and in the world’s most prestigious innovation labs, that’s happening with things like spybots and combustion engines. Scientists want to make them as tiny as possible–but why? We’ll let Veritasium be the one to tell you that. But we will say his 21-minute investigation into this branch of engineering is fascinating–and who knows? It might prepare you for a world full of tiny mechanical bees.

BONUS #1,703 Drinking Every Soju From South Korea – Tier List
Channel: DokaRyan
Brand: ZBiotics
Views: 38,187

DokaRyan has built his entire YouTube channel off drinking questionable things. The man has risked food poisoning (multiple times) to tell the people what they want to know: What happens when you leave stuff in booze for long, long periods of time? But this time, there’s no risk of E. Coli. Instead, DokaRyan is trying different brands of South Korea’s dangerously delicious liquor, soju, to find out which of them is best. We wish him well–soju may be tasty, but it hits like a train. Thankfully, he’s sponsored by ZBiotics, a company that offers a “pre-alcohol” probiotic drink aimed at reducing hangovers.

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…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.