18,000 Followers in 30 Days: La Maritxu Goes Viral
A new bakery with under 100 followers became one of London's most talked-about openings in a single month. In this Influencer Strategists session, host Gordon Glenister talks with Asti Wagner of the influencer gifting app Invyted about the campaign that did it: La Maritxu, a Knightsbridge Basque cheesecake shop she discovered while scrolling Instagram. Wagner explains the hands-off gifting model, why everything being complimentary keeps the content authentic, the results that followed, and the operational lessons of going viral. The highlights below capture how it unfolded.
Key highlights
Wagner spotted La Maritxu, a new Knightsbridge Basque cheesecake bakery, while scrolling Instagram, reached out to the founder, and set it up on Invyted quickly, timed for a November opening into the festive season.
The campaign ran on Invyted's Anytime feature, where vetted influencers redeem a complimentary cheesecake and coffee in return for Instagram and TikTok content with no cap on numbers, so the founder could set it up in about five minutes and let creators walk in.
Because everything is gifted rather than paid, the content stays authentic, with creators showing up because they are genuinely interested rather than for a fee.
Invyted is deliberately exclusive, requiring a minimum of 10,000 followers but reaching creators with over 20 million, giving small brands organic access to talent that would be costly to book directly.
The results were dramatic: the bakery grew from under 100 Instagram followers to over 18,000 in a single month that December, with a handful of videos driving almost 500,000 views.
Demand forced the bakery to scale production four times over, with queues around the block, a reminder that brands must be operationally ready before they go viral.
The content that overdelivered told a story: minimal briefing gave creators freedom, and the strongest posts went behind the scenes into the kitchen with the founder, hooked on the line London's first Basque cheesecake.
On trends, Wagner backs always-on campaigns across a wide range of creator niches rather than the obvious one, citing a nail salon whose food and fitness influencers outperformed its beauty creators by standing out from the crowd.