Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Netflix, TikTok, Google, and…Magnus Carlsen?

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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Welcome back to the Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report, where we have quite a week for you. TikTok Live always seems to spawn strange new genres, and Rotten Mango has the #1 video this week with an explainer on the latest. Veritasium, meanwhile, is exploring the nitty-gritty of Google interviews. And Joe Rogan? He’s making yet another appearance…but this time, sponsored by Netflix of all companies.

Check ’em all out below:

#1 Worst TikTok Mom Loves To Date Killers In Prison & Makes Daughters Call Them “Daddy”
Channel: Rotten Mango
Brand: Shopify
Views: 7,988,630

Rotten Mango opens this beast of a two-hour video with a story that’ll be familiar to anyone who’s spent a little too much time on the internet: the (fake) Russian Sleep Experiment, where POWs were allegedly given the chance to escape scot-free if they just agreed to stay awake for 30 days. Long story short, things went very wrong, and the researchers got a good look at what happens when you deprive the human brain of sleep. Rotten Mango posits TikTok Live has a whole bunch of people putting a too-real spin on this (again, fake) creepypasta by pushing themselves and their sleep schedules to the limits on TikTok Live. But that’s not the only dangerous behavior happening on the platform. Mango eventually transitions into talking about Ash Trevino, a TikTok Live creator who’s been called “TikTok’s Messiest Mom“–and the story gets wild. Her deep dive is sponsored by frequent YouTuber collaborator Shopify, which paid for a total of 20 videos this week.

#2 The Google Interview Question Everyone Gets Wrong
Channel: Veritasium
Brand: Incogni
Views: 5,397,609

Don’t want to flunk your next big Google interview? Veritasium has you covered. There’s one interview question that stumps almost every person: You’re shrunk down to the size of a nickel and dropped in a blender. The blades will turn on in 60 seconds. How do you save yourself? Veritasium man-on-the-street interviews a bunch of folks who have good answers. Crouch down? Stand on top of a blade? Run from one side of the blender to the other and push, hoping to tip it over? But none of these are correct. To find out what is

correct,  he goes on a 20-minute, physics-filled journey sponsored by digital security company Incogni, which paid for nearly 40 videos this week.

#3 Joe Rogan Experience #2275 – Magnus Carlsen
Channel: PowerfulJRE
Brand: Netflix
Views: 4,386,397

If you’ve been in the digital space for, well, any length of time, you’ll know one thing: Netflix kinda has beef with YouTube. So we were pretty surprised when the sponsor of this week’s The Joe Rogan Experience episode, which lives on YouTube, turned out to be Netflix itself. More specifically, the sponsor is Netflix’s new Robert De Niro political thriller, Zero Day. And what did Rogan do with the Netflix big bucks? He brought in chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen for a two-hour chat. Checkmate.

#4 Update on Delta 4819 – Who were the pilots?
Channel: Taking Off
Brand: Flying Eyes Optics, Marshal Protective Services
Views: 2,899,971

Airplanes are having a rough time lately, and Delta Flight 4819 was at the center of a recent incident. While attempting to land at Toronto’s airport, it flipped over onto its roof in a dramatic, icy crash. Thankfully all passengers and crew survived, but it was still a startling incident–and this investigative video from aviation news channel Taking Off digs into the story behind the crash. The video is sponsored by sunglass company Flying Eyes Optics and personal safety company Marshal Protective Services.

BONUS #1,482 The WILD West of Early Sonic
Channel: chaomix
Brand: Factor
Views: 53,825

Sonic is one of the world’s most legendary video game characters, and with his newest Hollywood appearance bringing rival + ally Shadow into the limelight, this dynamic duo is getting more attention than ever. Which is why it’s quite the trip for gaming enthusiast chaomix to investigate why Sonic’s 1991 English-language debut made the character so different from his original Japanese counterpart. Was the original Japanese Sonic more like Shadow? Or was he a different person entirely? Why didn’t Sega‘s localization team do a better job? Get into all this and more (and fast) thanks to sponsor Factor, which paid for nearly 80 videos this week. Yowza!

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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.