We know you’re #sliving for the weekend, so we’ll keep this short. Our latest Sunday roundup is all about Prime Hydration, online therapy, and TikTok’s unexpected obsession with luxury laundry.

AI REVOLUTION 🤖

Even chatbots feel the sting of rejection. According to a new study, AI girlfriends have become 7x more popular than AI boyfriends.

DATA • BRANDED BUZZ 📈

BetterHelp is willing to bet that we all need therapy

The stats: Mental health concerns don’t discriminate and (apparently) neither does BetterHelp. The online therapy service has sponsored over 600 videos across a wide variety of content categories since the beginning of 2024—nearly 100 of which hit YouTube over the last week alone.

• The next most active sponsor, Squarespace, hasn’t backed even half as many videos this year (although, at 299 and counting, it’s pretty close). Next up is Factor, which sponsored 291 videos during the first two(ish) months of 2024:

The breakdown: BetterHelp has faced plenty of controversy over the last few years for allegedly sharing mental health data with tech giants like Facebook for the purpose of ad targeting. But how does the online therapy company target consumers when advertising its own services?

• When it comes to YouTube sponsorships, the answer seems to be a high-volume, high-spend strategy. During the end of February, BetterHelp sponsored 98 videos over a single seven-day period.
  
  

• More than half of those clips (~50) generated fewer than 100,000 views—but that doesn’t mean BetterHelp is focusing all its energy on small creators. The company also sponsored five videos that brought in more than 1 million views each, including two videos that landed in last week’s list of Top 10 Most-Viewed Branded Videos (aka Unspeakable’s “I Bought 50 1-Star Products” and MrBallen’s “Top 3 Disturbing Missing Person Cases”).

The takeaway: Between early January and the end of February, BetterHelp sponsored hundreds of vlogs, podcasts, food videos, comedy shows, gaming playthroughs, ASMR clips, and TV/film breakdowns from both large and small creators. That everything-but-the-kitchen-sink strategy has (theoretically) instilled 225 million viewers with at least a basic understanding of BetterHelp’s services over the last 90 days.

• Will other mental health and wellness brands take the same approach? We’ll keep perusing data on Gospel Stats to find out—and you can do the same by checking out the full site for insights into YouTube sponsorships, rising stars, and influencer marketing trends.

TOP STORIES 📰

• 2024 is turning out to be a slam dunk for Logan Paul and KSI. The duo’s beverage brand, Prime Hydration, has been named the official sports drink of the Los Angeles Lakers. (Tubefilter)
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• TikTok is expanding its Effect Creator Rewards program to a grand total of 53 regions—but there’s a catch. (Tubefilter)
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• Danny Duncan’s new energy drink brand, Matador, is set to land in 10,000 stores by the end of 2024. (Tubefilter)
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• After losing 85% of its business during COVID-19, a luxury dry cleaning business found redemption—and over 600,000 laundry-loving fans—on TikTok. (Tubefilter)

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING 📺

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.