Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: MrBeast, Ryan Trahan, Mark Rober

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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In this week’s Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report, we have the who’s who of top YouTubers, from MrBeast to Ryan Trahan to Mark Rober. Follow up with an episode from Joe Rogan and a deep dive on terrible movie wigs, and you’ve got a nice encapsulation of what pops up on the platform’s Trending tab these days.

Check ’em all out below:

#1 Watch This Video To Feed 1 Person In Need
Channel: MrBeast
Brand: DoorDash
Views: 41,646,575

This week’s top video is just MrBeast doing MrBeast things–and, of course, getting more views than any other creator (at this point) could hope to achieve. But there’s a twist: With this latest video, MrBeast says that every single view will help feed someone in need. To prove that point, he spends this 10-minute upload taking people around communities in Africa and in the U.S. that are affected by hunger. In Africa, he shows himself donating things like desks and farm equipment, and back across the pond in Philadelphia, he works with a nonprofit that takes viable food waste and distributes it to people in need. This is the sort of work he can continue, he says, if people watch this video. And so far, nearly 42 million have.

#2 How Many Days Can I Double $1?
Channel: Ryan Trahan
Brand: Shopify
Views: 8,668,141

Ryan Trahan made a massive splash in summer 2022 with his penny series, where he started with one penny and spent a month bargaining, hustling, and resetting his way across America to deliver a giant penny to our #1 spot holder, MrBeast. He (understandably) took a bit of a break afterward, but now he’s back–and this time, he’s not just working with a penny. He’s working with a whole dollar. This whopping hour and 13 minute-long video follows Trahan as he tries to spend as many days as possible in a row doubling his daily amount of cash to see if you really can hit $1 million in just 20 days.

#3 How Do Hot Air Balloons Steer? (+6 Other Science Mysteries)
Channel: Mark Rober

Brand: CrunchLabs
Views: 7,800,219

Mark Rober has something in common with MrBeast, and we’re not talking about Team Trees or Team Seas. Both of them have launched companies that are so successful, they use those companies to sponsor their own videos. For MrBeast, that’s his candy brand Feastables. For Rober, it’s his STEM subscription box company CrunchLabs, which he launched in 2022 in tandem with opening his new headquarters. Similar to his CrunchLabs kits, this video answers top science questions–you know, the sort of stuff you might passively wonder about, like whether or not you can steer a hot air balloon.

#4 Joe Rogan Experience #2303 – Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
Channel: PowerfulJRE
Brand: ExpressVPN, DraftKings
Views: 3,911,609

Joe Rogan is once again in our top 5–a consistent place for him since the last presidential election put several Republican frontrunners on his podcast. Also once again, he has attention-grabbing guests: Dave Smith, a libertarian who runs a podcast called Legion of the Skanks, and Douglas Murray, who just wrote a book called Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization that posits Israel is “a beacon of progress in a region dominated by authoritarianism and extremism.” Rogan is sponsored by the usual podcast suspects (ExpressVPN and sports betting app DraftKings), and it’s worth mentioning that while his show is solidly on YouTube these days, he recently made an appearance on Netflix as a guest on Tony Hinchcliffe‘s right-wing comedian show Kill Tony.

 

BONUS #1,539 I Ranked The Worst Wigs In Cinema History
Channel: Queen Coke Francis
Brand: Private Internet Access
Views: 46,150

Hair and makeup are still underrated parts of the moviemaking industry. Sometimes a well-suited wig can make all the difference in how a character comes off onscreen. And sometimes…well…Let’s just say these are a whole new kind of cinema sin. There are few people with more expertise in wigs than drag queens, which is what makes Queen Coke Francis the perfect host of a video that runs down the worst wigs in film (and TV!) history. Her video, like many others on YouTube, is sponsored by a VPN company: Private Internet Access, which sponsored 14 videos this week. (For context, its closest competitor, NordVPN, sponsored 22.)

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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.