TOGETHER WITH

It’s Tuesday and MapQuest is back, baby. The self-proclaimed “OG of online mapping” is climbing the App Store charts after refusing to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.

CREATOR COMMOTION

The camera: In April, Markiplier visited GoPro‘s booth at the NAB Show with a goal in mind. He wanted to see the company’s first interchangeable lens cinema camera, the Mission 1 Pro ILS, ahead of its September 2 release date—but they wouldn’t show it to him.

So, the creator-turned-filmmaker (aka Mark Fischbach) found another way to get the company’s attention. He bought enough GoPro stock to become its biggest single shareholder. Soon after, the company invited him to its offices, gave him an ILS, and agreed to sponsor his channel.

The resulting YouTube video is a gushing endorsement in which Fischbach says he believes the ILS could be the future of filmmaking.

The potential: Fischbach’s experience producing and distributing his $50 million box office hit, Iron Lung, left him acutely aware of the hurdles faced by indie filmmakers. On the distribution end, he worked with YouTube to become an official aggregator.

Now, he envisions a future where he could work with the ILS on the production side. The camera originally piqued Fischbach’s interest because it costs just $699.99. After getting his hands on one, he says it has a shot quality that surpasses the $7,000 RED Komodo-X he used to film Iron Lung.

Other reviewers have offered similarly enthusiastic assessments, with some wondering whether the ILS could be the camera that saves GoPro from going under.

The company certainly needs a hit. GoPro stock is cheap right now. During its IPO in 2014, the company sold shares for $24. This year, shares were generally under $1, and sank to an all-time low of $0.57 after dismal Q2 results and a SEC filing that admitted there was “substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue”.

After news emerged that Fischbach now owns 8.5% of GoPro, stock prices have surged upwards of 161% to $1.57/share.

Firefly is expanding commercially safe AI audio across creative workflows, from social content and vlogs to short films and podcasts, with tools to…

Have you tried Firefly AI Assistant? It’s now available to try for free.

Firefly AI Assistant is now free to try, with daily generations and popular creative skills like Create Storyboard and Create Brand Kit helping creators spend less time managing tools and more time creating. 

And Gemini Omni Flash is now available in Firefly, joining recent additions like Runway Aleph 2.0 and Kling 3.0 alongside Adobe’s own models.

Ready to bring your creative ideas to life? Learn more about the news here.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Last time around, Gospel Stats’ Weekly Brand Report was ruled by newcomers—but MrBeast isn’t one to stay out of the game for long. The man known as Jimmy Donaldson has already reclaimed his usual #1 spot in the rankings, with a smorgasbord of back-to-school content and haircare videos following in his wake.

🥇 #1. MrBeast x Feastables, Lowe’s, Old Navy: Last To Leave Mansion, Keeps It (104M views)
In MrBeast’s most recent “last to do X wins Y” challenge, 15 competitors were tasked with outlasting each other in an attempt to win a “mansion.” Sponsors for the video were Old Navy (with a back-to-school promo) and Lowe’s, a long-time partner of Donaldson’s.

🥈 #2. Alan’s Universe x Walmart: Back to School with Walmart! ??? @Walmart #Walmartpartners (24.4M views)
Walmart brought its own infusion of back-to-school spirit to the rankings by tapping Alan Chikin Chow to show off kid-friendly products in an Alan’s Universe microdrama. While this was Chow’s only sponsored video of the week, Walmart teamed up with creators Your Rich BFF (#249), Erica Ha (#863), and Operation Niki (#1029).

🎰 #2,163. moneysigneric x Rocket Money: WHAT I EAT: AYCE KBBQ + Hotpot, Lobster Rolls, and a Delicious Meatball Supreme (11M views)
Summer might be winding down, but food is a year-round phenomenon. Further down the charts, moneysigneric brought viewers to an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ and hotpot in a video sponsored by prolific YouTube advertiser Rocket Money, which backed a total of 16 creators this week.

Check out the full branded ranking here and head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

AD WORLD

The blog post: From YouTube’s 2026 NewFronts event to BrandConnect’s fresh slate of AI augmentations, YouTube and Google have put AI at the center of their joint pitch to brand partners this year.

But that doesn’t mean they want brands to lean so far into AI that “human connection” becomes an afterthought.

That’s one of the major takeaways from a new post in the Google Ads Help Center. After synthesizing data from recent Demand Gen campaigns (which play across multiple Google products, including YouTube), Google determined that human voices are still an important aspect of brand creative.

In its Help Center post, the tech giant noted that advertisers who include text overlays and visualize products in the first five seconds of a video can receive slight upticks to their conversion rate as a result. But speech makes the biggest impact; when a human voice is present within a piece of creative, conversion rate increases by 12% (per Google).

The post also cautions advertisers against creative that doesn’t include actual human faces.

The context: Of course, just because Google is advising brands to behave like humans doesn’t mean it’s telling them not to use AI. After all, the post uses the phrase “human voices”—not “human speakers.” As the tech giant’s automated dubbing tools become more sophisticated, advertisers won’t have to choose between including human voices and harnessing the power of generative AI.

Ultimately, Google wants its ad partners to strive for balance. There are plenty of innovations that can make campaigns more efficient, but at the end of the day, nothing can replace the appearance of a human touch.

WATCH THIS 👀

The freerunner: Extreme sports content has become a reliable niche for creators all over the world, and YouTube Shorts is no exception.

Take Walace Freerunner. Thanks to daring, parkour-focused short-form videos like this one, the Brazil-based high flyer snagged 300,000 subscribers in our latest weekly ranking while also surpassing three billion lifetime views.

So, what is it about Walace’s content that commands so much attention?

For one, the creator has the acrobatic ability (and the costumes) to embody Spider-Man, a favorite character among Shorts viewers. The fast pace of Walace’s videos, however, may be their strongest selling point.

Freerunning essentially challenges athletes to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible—a perfect fit for the Shorts feed, where plotlines have to be compressed to satisfy minimal attention spans.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.