At first glance, it might seem like a 2-year-old challenger candy brand and a 149-year-old university don’t have much in common.

But in the last couple years, both Joyride and Texas A&M University have seen success — albeit with different goals and results — through brand-building efforts on YouTube.

Joyride, a sour gummy candy brand that ditches the artificial colors and sweeteners, launched in 2023 and hit shelves early 2024. Early on, founder Tyler Merrick recruited up-and-coming creator Ryan Trahan to help build the brand — a partnership that has helped the product make it onto Target shelves, where it’s become a best-selling candy, according to the brand.

Trahan, who has more than 21 million subscribers on YouTube, wanted to post sales rankings at Target to bring his followers along on the brand’s journey. Merrick said he was resistant at first, arguing that that’s not how the “old guard” operates within CPG. But in the end, it worked.

“We got to No. 1 across candy, which is amazing and super fun, and it’s been sustained in that,” Merrick said. “That’s really just this, the combination of how you pull really great product and storytelling together.”

Texas A&M hasn’t historically put much effort into its external branding efforts, acknowledged chief marketing officer Ethan Braden. In 13 years on the platform, the university had one video that got over 1 million views. The year Braden joined, the account had 336,000 views total.

But after a refocused effort on external marketing and video storytelling rooted in the values of Texas A&M, the account saw viewership skyrocket.

“This past year, we had 80 million views of our content at Texas A&M University, and 88% of those views are outside the state of Texas,” Braden said.

To get there, though, the university had to reposition itself and acknowledge that without taking control of the narrative around its brand, identity, and values, that story was being shaped by other forces.

“If you don’t fill the void of your brand, others will, and you may not like what they have to say about you,” Braden said. “We filled it very uniquely with our values.”