CTV Advertising Strategies:

Insights from CTV leaders at Dentsu, Horizon Media and more

SECURE YOUR SEAT

Hot Wheels Builds Tweet-Powered Vending Machine

Let’s face it: Tweeting at brands or with branded hashtags isn’t worth it unless you get something in return, like a cool social media experience or a chance to win a prize. Hot Wheels and Chevrolet Canada went another route by creating a vending machine that accepts tweets as the form of currency rather than coins.

With the help of Canadian agency TrojanOne, Hot Wheels and Chevrolet Canada, in honor of the Toronto Auto Show, created a vending machine to dispense limited-edition diecast toy car collectables to give away. People at the auto show had to be standing near the machine and had to tweet at @HotWheelsCanada using the hashtag #ChevyCIAS. Location features had to be enabled on users’ smartphones for the vending machine to register their tweets in order to dispense a toy car.

The customized vending machine was just a regular coil vending machine that TrojanOne updated with special computer components that connected the machine to the Internet to search for the designated tweets using the hashtag. The machine used Twitter’s geo-location data to verify that the branded tweets came from someone standing near the machine, at which point the machine dispensed a car model.

“I think the best part was seeing the physical and digital worlds come together with a social action causing a physical world action to take place – when the car dropped after people sent the Tweet, the smile on their face was priceless,” said Mark Stewart, director of digital services at TrojanOne.

The machine dispensed about 2,000 cars over the 10 days of the auto show, and according to Steward @hotwheelscanada tripled its Twitter following as a result of the vending machine project.

https://digiday.com/?p=33038

More in Marketing

Retail media’s mid-2025 reality: Why advertisers are going all in on full-funnel

Retail media’s meteoric rise may finally be leveling off — and that’s forcing advertisers to take a harder look at what they’re getting for their money.

TikTok might be working on a standalone U.S. app, but marketers aren’t sold on the idea – yet

TikTok is developing a lifeboat for its American business, but media buyers are wary of advertising implications.

Bold Calls for the back half of 2025

Now’s a good moment as any to take stock —and make a few bold calls about what’s coming next.