In partnership with

I’m in my health phase… or is it villain arc? I don’t feel very villainous on my new morning routine: a 30 minute walk to the pier to earn my macchiato on the way back. Cut the energy drinks in an effort to get good sleep (a shocking life transition given my childhood dirtbiking drinking Monsters in the California desert), getting sunlight early to make Huberman proud. And hey, I’ve lost 12 pounds! 

But let’s talk social things, yeah? We’ll hit on:

• Hot Wheels grew a huge TikTok audience in one year

• How AI can power your microinfluencer marketing

• Some top notch long-form from a brand

—Jack Appleby

75% of Shoppers Won’t Look Past Amazon’s First Page—Are You There Yet?

In 2025, beating your competitors on Amazon requires effective external traffic strategies. Stack Influence uses advanced AI and a dedicated community to effortlessly automate thousands of micro-influencer collaborations monthly. Top brands like Magic Spoon, Unilever, and MaryRuth Organics use Stack Influence to drive external traffic, create authentic user-generated content (UGC), and dramatically scale recurring revenue—often seeing increases up to 13X in just two months.

Forget negotiating influencer fees. Pay only with products and receive full rights to impactful images and videos created by influencers. Fully automated management means you achieve top Amazon rankings without lifting a finger.

Outrank your competitors and dominate your niche in 2025 with Stack Influence.

Get 10% OFF this month!

How Hot Wheels raced onto TikTok + YouTube

I was such a Hot Wheels kid.

My brother and I built elaborate two-story race tracks—cars flying down the stairs, whipping around corners, launching into turbo straightaways until (inevitably) something in the house broke. I’m pretty sure I even drew up blueprints to capture Santa using Hot Wheels, Home Alone style.

But Hot Wheels can’t just be for kids. Mattel knew they had to re-earn their place with grown car lovers. Auto enthusiasts. Lifelong fans. The ones who don’t just race down stairs, they race for real… okay, they don’t race for real, but they wish they were racing.

And if they were gonna do that? Social had to be the driver.

So, it was finally time to launch the official Hot Wheels TikTok and YouTube channels via “Driven To Be Legendary,” a brand awareness campaign with a little bit of everything. Short-form, long-form, celebrities, influencers, and more!

Let’s break down every content type they used to get to their checkered flag.

Short-Form: little cars to big cars, big cars to little cars

Hot Wheels’ TikTok strategy is kinda genius in its simplicity. Most of their content really just showcases:

• Hot Wheels that’ve been made into real cars.

• Real cars that’ve been made into Hot Wheels.

Why complicate the ideas any more than that? It’s a perfect way to pull in the auto enthusiasts they’re chasing while stoking their existing fan fires.

Take this video for Bone Shaker.

@hotwheels

The definition of Garage Spirit 💥 #HotWheels

I love the storytelling structure here—we see the toy with a punchy hook (“one of the most popular Hot Wheels cars ever”), see the infamous toy version with voiceover sharing details, then quickly get to the full size car the company commissioned.

Then you’ve got the inverse with the Hot Wheels Legends Tour, their traveling show where custom car builders compete to have their cars turned into Hot Wheels. How cool is that? The program also naturally lends itself to quality CarTok content.

@hotwheels

The #HotWheelsLegends Tour is BACK! Meet the winner of our Tampa stop, the 1974 Porsche 914 V8. 🔥 Think this boundary breaking Porsche has... See more

Long-form: The Making Of + a full game show

I love me some great long-form, especially when it nerds out.

Hot Wheels produced a truly documentary-worth series of 5 minute videos on how their toy cars are made. These are extremely well done and would be worth of any streaming service.

And remember the Hot Wheels Legends Tour content from the brand’s TikTok? We get a long-form version on YouTube with big names like Jay Leno judging the cars.

An important note here: while the TikTok and YouTube renditions cover the same campaign, the content is highly optimized for each video network. The TikToks feel like TikToks, and the YouTube show feels like a TV show. No lazy cutdowns—everything’s custom.

Influencer strategy: give ‘em their own cars

You’re probably noticing a running theme here. The whole big car-to-small-car thing has a lotta legs, and honestly? It’s never gonna get old.

Remembering that the brief asked for an auto enthusiast audience, the brand partnered with pro drifters and drivers for micro-interviews and to show off the toy + racing sizes of their rides of choice.

The interviews are a littleeee forced and feel less human, more ~brand~, but it’s still cool to see a racer stand in front of their race cars, holding a palm-sized race cars.

hotwheelsofficial

2M followers

View more on Instagram

Results

These lil’ cars had a big year. Hot Wheels blew past their internal TikTok and YouTube launch goals by over 88%. The stats are grrrrreat.

• 208 million overall views

• 550,000 combined new followers

• Two beloved content channels

If I end up with a Hot Wheel on my desk, you can blame this campaign.

I’m looking for new brand + speaking partners!

I’ve really enjoyed taking on more speaking events + branded content in the newsletter. I’ve just realized it’s such a great way to actually help marketers understand the thinking & strategies behind all this work we do.

If you’re interested in working together, gimme a shout: [email protected]