Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Who’s hungry?

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. You can also download our YouTube 2025 Sponsorship Landscape Report here.

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This week’s Gospel Stats Brand Report begins and ends with chow-downs, but in between we’ve got an eclectic mix of true crime, gaming, and baby cam–complete with an equally eclectic mix of sponsors.

Check it all out right here:

#1 Last To Leave Grocery Store, Wins $250,000
Channel: MrBeast
Brand: Square
Views: 130,495,105

MrBeast has spent a lot of time in the glitz and glam lately. He’s done videos with dozens of celebrities and dozens of streamers, dropped the second season of Beast Games on Amazon Prime Video, and has teamed up with sponsors like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But for this upload, he’s going back to a video format of yesteryear.

As he claims in the beginning of the video, “I don’t know any of these people, they’re not my friends, they’re just random shoppers.” And all those shoppers were roped, unknowing, into a MrBeast video that awards the last person standing with $250K. If they can hunker down and live in the grocery store longer than anyone else, under the glare of the cameras, they’ll get the cash.

And with the way grocery prices are right now, that $250K might just cover what the winner’s already got in their cart.

OK, we exaggerate…kind of.

This 45-minute chronicle is sponsored by Square, which the video description praises for “supporting neighborhood businesses like The Bread Lady, Simply Natural Creamery, Blackbeard Coffee, and Blue Ox Games. Square is the all-in-one platform that helps businesses like these run smarter every day.”

#2 Cop Runs Into Secret Killer Dumping Body Parts In River
Channel: Dr Insanity
Brand: BetterHelp
Views: 14,403,245

We just wrote about how true crime content can be tricky when it comes to snagging sponsors. Dr Insanity, however, doesn’t seem to have a problem finding companies to pay for his bodycam rundowns.

He’s popped in our top 5 several times, and this video is much like his others: It uses police footage to tell the story of how 70-year-old Idaho resident Alan Bruce was caught attempting to conceal evidence that he had murdered 47-year-old Patrick Shelton. Bruce was later convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Dr Insanity’s sponsor for this week? BetterHelp, one of the most prolific YouTuber sponsors. It paid for a whopping 65 videos this week.

#3 Best fam cam Insta360 GO Ultra! Use my code ‘SONIA360’ or link in bio to grab your GO Ultra today✨
Channel: Sonia Mara
Brand: Insta360
Views: 14,853,190

We’ve mentioned it before: the titles creators give sponsored Shorts never fail to interest us. While long-form YouTubers are pouring hours into crafting video titles that will catch viewers’ interest from the search or recommended tabs, Shorts creators seem to be titling for SEO, or using the title space as a substitute for the video description.

And it appears to be paying off. This Insta360-sponsored Short, where creator Sonia Mara straps a camera to her baby’s head for an ultra close-up of them eating, has racked up nearly 15 million views.

It’s one of several Insta360 videos this week, including #19, #3030, and #3559.

#4 so @Roblox sent me something 👀… #robloxpartner
Channel: bunhat
Brand: Roblox
Views: 11,332,827

In the leadup to Creator Showdown Las Vegas, taking place April 24, Roblox has a classy way of letting creators know they’ve been picked to participate.

bunhat (also known as bundun within Roblox) is one of those lucky eight creators, and in this video he takes viewers through what it’s like to get mail from Roblox itself. We won’t spoil too much, but we will say Roblox is obviously familiar with the vast network of streamers who talk up its games, and prepared this gift with bunhat–and his live audience–in mind.

He also wasn’t the only one to get an official Roblox box this week. ProjectSupreme comes in at #2948 with his own glowing invite.

BONUS #1,978 Eating 7-ELEVEN BREAKFAST for an ENTIRE WEEK in Japan!
Channel: Strictly Dumpling
Brand: Surfshark VPN
Views: 386,658

7-Eleven is making a push to stock U.S. locations with fresh food and treats similar to the smorgasbord it offers in Japanese stores. At my local California station, for example, we now have a regular rotation of fresh sushi, ramen, those TikTok-viral fruit ice creams, and, of course, the famous egg salad sando.

But Strictly Dumpling‘s video makes that selection look piddly. Powered by Surfshark VPN, he’s exploring 7-Eleven Japan’s enormous range of breakfast items by living off them for a week. Ah, the dream.

While we don’t often see VPN companies in the top 5 most-watched videos, they make up a sizable portion of the ~4,000 sponsored uploads posted each week. Surfshark alone sponsored over 40 videos this week, and so did NordVPN. These companies keep coming back to creators and keep investing in our industry–and we think that’s pretty cool.

 

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…and there’s a lot more data where that came from. If you like our Weekly Top 5, you’ll love everything else Gospel has to offer. Start with our newly released YouTube 2025 Sponsorship Landscape Report, which you can download right here.