Inside Sticki Rolls’ YouTube strategy to tap Gen Alpha

Creator Playbooks // August 19, 2026 Inside Sticki Rolls’ YouTube strategy to tap Gen Alpha By Gabriela Barkho CNC x Sticki Rolls x Middle Grey Studios Launched in 2024, toy brand Sticki Rolls first took off through YouTube creators, unboxing videos and trading hauls before growing into a collectible brand and generating more than a billion YouTube views.

Now, the brand is leveraging that success as it focuses on new channels. Sticki Rolls’ signature sticker books first launched in specialty toy stores and on Amazon, before entering Target. In late 2025, the brand expanded into Walmart, its biggest retailer to date, and it’s now available in more than 60 countries.

Last year, the Sticki Book of stickers was awarded as Creative Toy of the Year at the 60th U. K. Toy Industry Awards. Hoping to build on that momentum, the brand held a pop-up earlier this month at New York City’s Chillhouse nail studio, where visitors received custom sticker manicures.

The activation is part of Sticki Rolls’ strategy to bridge the gap between its vast YouTube community and growing physical retail presence. Sticki Rolls’ growth has largely been fueled by YouTube, where its products appear in videos that have accumulated over a billion views. Sticki Rolls now has nearly 1. 9 million YouTube subscribers.

Michelle Wong, senior vp of global marketing for Jazwares, the manufacturing partner that licenses and distributes the Sticki Rolls brand, said Jazwares works closely with the brand’s founders to bring the products to the young sticker-obsessed community.

The brand began as a wearable sticker bracelet concept by co-founders Josh Loerzel and Lev Nelson in 2023, and was co-developed by Sky Castle Toys. Wong said Sticki Rolls’ creator content-led marketing playbook has helped set it apart from the slew of Gen Alpha-geared toy brands.

She added that the brand’s analog, handmade approach speaks to nostalgia for a simpler time in toys. Wong said the experiential event at Chillhouse was planned in response to Sticki Rolls’ meteoric success with young Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences.

Since partnering with the YouTube-born brand last year, Jazwares has built on the brand’s creator-led origins through more creator partnerships, experiential activations, licensing and physical retail.

While Sticki Rolls has presence across many social platforms, Wong said, “YouTube really allows for long-form content and the story building that gets consumers really enveloped in the Sticki Rolls world.” “YouTube is a huge part of the brand’s success,” Wong said.

Sticki Rolls works with several brand ambassadors, like YouTube stars Anna Altamirano and Erin Degan, known as Anna and Erin, who have been with the brand since its inception. Their videos typically feature DIY tutorials on Kawaii-inspired art, viral toys and other crafts, and their channel has accumulated 775,000 followers.

“Anna and Erin really take the product beyond its toy or play function, and bring to it a fun lifestyle and fashion lens” for young female audiences, Wong said. Since the sticker assortment started its viral journey with bracelets, Wong said Sticki Rolls is increasingly leaning into the fashion and styling angle in its messaging.

“That is how the idea of doing a nail salon pop-up for all of our excited fans came about,” she said. “It’s also riding on the nail art trend that is really central to the Sticki Rolls assortment.”

The August 8 Sticki Rolls x Chillhouse salon experience featured custom Sticki-inspired manicures, signature drinks at the Sticki Café, BFF bracelet-making, and a meet-and-greet with brand ambassadors and creators Anna and Erin, the Kawaii artists behind the original Sticki Rolls collection.

Guests also got an early look at Sticki Mates, the brand’s newest collectible character bag charms that expand on the Sticki Rolls assortment beyond its signature sticker bracelets. The two-day pop-up welcomed nearly 1,000 guests and provided more than 500 complimentary sticker manicures.

Google Trends showed that, immediately following the event, searches for Sticki Rolls were up 50% compared to the prior week and 130% compared to the prior month. In addition, Sticki Rolls’ YouTube channel has gained 20,000 followers since the event.

Degan told Modern Retail that Anna and Erin wanted to participate as the weekend pop-up was a “creative space for everyone to come together and get Sticki-fied.” Nail art was the focus of one of their early viral Sticki Rolls videos.

Wong said in-person events help further cultivate the brand’s young community, which focuses on sharing and trading the stickers. “It’s young girls’ form of self-expression and an extension of how they connect and meet other girls,” Wong said. As such, the in-person events and pop-ups will continue to help bridge that gap.

“You can’t get that simply from being online,” Wong s