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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This week’s videos vary wildly, from a good old MrBeast installment to a serious peer into police work to inspirational skits and a transit expert redesigning one of North America’s fastest-growing cities. One thing’s clear: as the summer heat continues beating down on us, people are finding new and interesting things to watch, boosting genres we don’t always see here on our Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report.
See them all here:
#1 Parents Discover Their Daughter Is A Mаss Killer
Channel: Dr Insanity
Brand: LifeGard
This week’s first video is more serious than our usual fare, but it’s emblematic of the skyrocketing growth of true crime content over the last five years. Media about crime and criminals has always drawn a crowd, but since the start of the pandemic, true crime has seen a particularly sharp rise, with creators like MrBallen and Bailey Sarian gaining millions of followers by telling stories about victims, killers, and more. In this video, true crime researcher Dr Insanity (1.25 million subs) uses police footage to tell the story of Mackenzie Shirilla‘s parents as they found out their daughter had intentionally caused an accident that killed two people. (She was later sentenced to life in prison.) The gut-wrenching 28-minute video has gotten 11 million views since going live July 2, and it’s sponsored by self-defense company LifeGard.
#2 We Rebuilt a Village
Channel: Beast Philanthropy
Brand: Lectric eBikes
It’s not often that MrBeast gets knocked out of first place on our Weekly Brand Reports. But that’s because this week’s video comes from one of his secondary channels, Beast Philanthropy; we figure the discrepancy between its subscriber count, 25 million, and the subscriber count of MrBeast’s main channel (300+ million, aka the most followed channel on YouTube) is what left him with around 6.4 million views for this video instead of the tens of millions his main channel always brings in. In this video, he teams up with activist Dora moono Nyambe, whose efforts to build a village and school in Mapapa, Zambia, have been challenged after a storm destroyed her dormitories. MrBeast brings in a team to help rebuild, and is also running a fundraiser that so far has collected $21,000 to help Dora make her dream come true.
#3 BOYFRIEND and GIRLFRIEND Keep Fighting | Dhar Mann
Channel: Dhar Mann Studios
Brand: Zenless Zone Zero
Dhar Mann Studios was founded in 2018, and since then has racked up 22 million followers by producing “short, motivational cinematic videos to inspire people,” as per its channel bio. We’re not sure about the “short” part–when you think short film, you tend to think 10 or 15 minutes. But Dhar Mann Studios’ films, all posted to YouTube, can stretch for an hour, and are composed of several skits sewn together to tell one big story. This video is clearly meant to inspire couples who can’t find a way through friction. Our leading lad and lady fight, break up, and come back together with a shiny happy ending (not to spoil too much) in this 23-minute chronicle that’s sponsored by Zenless Zone Zero. It’s not a surprise that this latest game from Genshin Impact developer miHoYo is being advertised on YouTube, as miHoYo is a frequent creator sponsor, and Dhar Mann Studios gives its placement high-production treatment with a two-minute ad sketch.
#4 I Bought One Of The Most Rare Vehicles On Earth
Channel: HeavyDSparks
Brand: Athletic Greens
In 1976, someone built a vehicle unlike any other. And now, in 2024, Discovery stars The Diesel Brothers have bought it: The Boaterhome. It’s a chimeric beast, built with a Dodge Ram chassis fused to a trailer that carries a boat with two marine outboard motors. The thing is insane, and according to one brother, Heavy D, it’s one-of-a-kind, since it’s got customizations that the other boaterhomes out there (yes, there are more) don’t have. It was a wreck when Heavy D tracked it down, full of rotting doors, old carpet, and piles of who-knows-what, but he has plans to restore it, and judging by the 8+ million views on his video, people want to see him restore it. The vid is sponsored by supplement company Athletic Greens, who also sponsored 17 other videos this week.
BONUS #1,062 Giving Edmonton a Transit Makeover
Channel: RMTransit
Brand: Nebula
What if a city planning expert could do whatever he wanted to improve a location’s transit system? That’s the question urbanist/public transport critic RMTransit answers in his latest video, where he picks apart Edmonton, Alberta‘s big plans for moving people around its city. Edmonton is a fast-growing city, going from around 1 million people in 2020 to 1.5 million in 2024, and it intends to get those people bustling on public transit. RMTransit (who’s based in Toronto) has concerns, though. Is Edmonton focusing on quality over quantity? Will the transit options it’s building be a “serious alternative” to individual people climbing in their cars and trucks? In this video sponsored by creator-owned streaming service Nebula, he sits down to plan out what he would do to change Edmonton’s game.
…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.
