Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Best buyin’

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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Zhong and his #1, FIFA-sponsored video aside, this week’s Gospel Stats Brand Report is full of faces we haven’t seen in a while–or have never seen at all.

Airrack is in at #2 with a vid paid for by DraftKings, but #3 and #4 are where we’re looking. Both videos, one from Andrew Bond and one from Gohar Khan, are sponsored by Best Buy, which seems to be in the thick of a back-to-school/dorm decor ad push.

As for our bonus video…no spoilers. You’ll have to check it out below:

#1 Who Can Stand On The Ball The Longest??? #fifaworldcup #ad
Channel: Zhong
Brand: FIFA
Views: 24,164,512

After landing at spot #2 last week with a long-form video, Zhong is back to Shorts. Like nearly every video he’s posted for the past month, this one is sponsored by FIFA to generate traffic for the World Cup. We’re (understandably) seeing WC coverage start to wind down in the wake of the tournament’s conclusion, but since this worldwide phenomenon only happens once every four years, people are clinging to the excitement for as long as they can.

Zhong’s 42-second clip takes a classic soccer player’s party trick/warmup and turns it into a multiperson competition where everyone gets to rep a country’s team. Folks featured are part of Zhong’s usual videos (which, for the past several months, have mostly been about the HUNTR/X girls getting pregnant, hence the Rumi wig getting a guest spot here).

As he did in his other FIFA videos, Zhong calls on viewers to “like if you think Messi’s the GOAT, and subscribe for Ronaldo.” Maybe next week, we’ll take a look at what all this FIFA excitement has done for Zhong’s channel numbers…

#2 I Cheated Until the Arcade Banned Me
Channel: Airrack
Brand: DraftKings
Views: 19,377,221

Airrack is using a video that’s all about winning to promote sports betting app DraftKings.

This 23-minute upload is a chronicle where he and his self-dubbed “elite team of experts” head into a Dave & Buster’s and try to win nearly 300,000 tickets in one sitting, all with the goal of walking away with the arcade’s most expensive prize: a PlayStation 5. The video’s title is clickbait and we can’t quite figure out why there’s an OpenAI logo on Airrack’s thumbnail glasses, but he and the boys do put in some long hours winning the same games over and over.

This is not a unique video idea. Drew Gooden clocked in at an arcade back in 2022 with a similar goal; one of the games he leaned on, Quik Drop, is also instrumental in Airrack’s plan. And, just this past March, Hunter Williams took a team of pals into an arcade for a multi-day venture where he too was trying to win a PlayStation 5.

Neither of those previous videos were promoting DraftKings, though. The sports betting app tapped Airrack to promote its World Cup wagers–and paid for ~20 other videos this week, including a Joe Rogan

episode where he chats with MrBeast.

#3 See color in a new way with the Samsung Micro RGB TV from @BestBuy #BestBuyPartner
Channel: Andrew Bond
Brand: Best Buy
Views: 18,563,190

Tech and gaming creator Andrew Bond is our top partner for Best Buy this week. His one-minute Short brought 18 million views for the brick-and-mortar brand’s Micro RGB TV, which (judging by Bond’s enthusiasm) beams primetime colors straight into your brain.

The general theme of this video is that Bond is an adult and can do what he wants, including going home with a $3,000 TV on a whim. We get it: This appeals to Bond’s audience of gamers, many of whom probably grew up hiding their Game Boy Colors under their pillows when Mom stuck her head in at 3 a.m.

Now we have no one to tell us to stop playing Red Dead Redemption 2 on our pricey, supersized living room TV all night. But you know what they say about great power…

#4 Dorm Tech Essentials
Channel: Gohar Khan
Brand: Best Buy
Views: 15,599,393

Best Buy‘s second video of the week comes from MIT grad Gohar Khan, who graduated college with bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science, Economics, Data Science, and Business Analytics. Now, he makes a wide variety of college survival guide content on everything from SAT prep to essay-writing to fitting a part-time job and downtime into an already busy schedule.

For this 31-second Short, he gets personal, bringing in his brother to show off Best Buy’s pocket-sized dorm tech. According to Khan, his bro got stuck with a small room and now needs to maximize his space, so Khan’s advice is to upgrade it with an Amazon Echo Show 5 ($89.99), a Sonos Play ($299.99), and a Nintendo Switch 2 ($449.99). Man, things have come a long way since I bought a $50 set of sheets and a lamp and called it a day.

BONUS #2,518 Lets Watch 19 Minutes of People Buying Cars They Cant Afford
Channel: Marissa Van
Brand: FSA Store
Views: 69,094

Yeah, so the economy is bad right now. And one of the hardest-hit areas is cars, where both new and used models have prices (and interest rates) jacked to the extreme. Lots are full of cars that aren’t selling, predatory dealers are signing people into deals they know aren’t affordable long-term, and repos are at a record high.

In this video, Marissa Van walks viewers through some truly anxiety-inducing scenarios. While it sucks that these are situations happening to real people, hopefully her content will teach buyers how to avoid falling into the same fate. (We recently wrote about how nearly one-third of U.S. adults watch financial content on YouTube every day and trust creators’ advice on things like debt, credit cards, and saving strategies.)

Meanwhile, her sponsor FSA Store helps consumers avoid losing their pre-tax health-expense dollars by offering a marketplace of products all eligible for FSA purchase. In this climate, every dollar counts.

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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, wfrom hich you can download right here.