How Aussie SUPERCAR BLONDIE leveraged social media into stardom…
It’s possible you don’t know who Alex Hirschi is, but in today’s social media-dominated world, there’s almost no doubt that you’ve heard of her professional handle, Supercar Blondie. The Australian-born, Dubai-living former radio personality has built her fanbase of around 14 million combined followers on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, on her passion for speed and the enthusiasm she brings to her videos and posts. It would be easy for a cynic to assume it’s the “Blondie” side of the persona that has attracted her legions of followers, but the truth is Hirschi stands apart from the horde of influencers and enthusiasts because of her genuine passion for sharing supercars with the world.
She initially used her journalism degree to land a job in Dubai as a radio host. Soon, she discovered a perk of the job was the opportunity to test and review exciting vehicles, of which she took full advantage. Soon automakers like Bentley, McLaren and others were seeking her out to share their creations with the wider world. Her reviews became more detailed, and her videos more polished, until she decided to commit to covering supercars full-time.
“Just like anyone would, if you were given a McLaren, you would start uploading photos of your experience, and some videos and stuff,” to your personal Instagram account, Hirschi tells us. “I didn’t have any intention of making this a thing on social media.” But soon, the videos she created with her husband led to a growing following that couldn’t be ignored. “I think probably a year after we started uploading on Instagram and working every weekend [and] every night after coming home from the radio job, it became a second full time job really,” she recalls.
“I got to 60,000 followers and that’s when I just decided, hey, if we’re going to make this into something, we may as well just take the leap, quit the job and just go for it. And that’s what happened in April 2017.” That was the start of her meteoric rise, and soon Supercar Blondie was attracting more fans across various platforms and she hasn’t looked back since. “Since I quit my job, I’ve gone from 60,000 followers to about 14 million, so in two and a half years, I suppose it did go crazy and it seemed to make that massive jump.”
While she clearly knows what she’s talking about when reviewing a new model from Ferrari, Lamborghini or Bugatti, Hirschi believes that her content is successful because it’s not only for the automotive obsessed. “What I have made clear was that I’m not actually a car expert, and that is actually one of the reasons why my content, I think, relates to a lot of people. Because I don’t go in talking about all of the really complicated statistics about a car, and how a car all functions and works and all of that. There are a lot of people doing that already. And, there is an audience for that, but it’s very, very small.
“I mean, when you think about it, a lot of us love cars, but not a lot of us are interested in exactly how they work,” she muses. “We just want to see a great car and hear how it sounds, look at all the gadgets and functions. So, I approach it in a way that is going to appeal to 99% of people, instead of the one percent of car experts.”
Her strategy seems to have paid off, enough to enable her to make her supercar dreams a reality — she’s now the proud owner of a Lamborghini Huracán, named Lucy. “My profile can sometimes give the wrong impression that I’m just this rich girl who’s been given everything and I have a million cars in my garage,” she says. “That’s not the case at all. I just work really hard to fly around the world, find the coolest cars, and show them off, and that’s what comes across on my profile. But, what people don’t know is I’ve really had to work super hard to get to where I am and what I’ve been able to afford…. So, I’m really proud of that.”
Text by KEITH GORDON
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