Harmon Brothers - A MARKETING CONVERSATION with Daniel Harmon

In this episode, Josh talks to Daniel Harmon of Harmon Brothers, the agency that created viral ads for Poo-Pourri and Squatty Potty, among others. They discuss the methods behind Harmon Brothers’ success, and dive into their creative process. This is a discussion anyone interested in advertising will love.

 

CREATIVITY AND SELLING CRAP

From the famous unicorn squatty potty commercial to their Poo-Pourri commercials, the Harmon Brothers aren’t afraid of using potty humor to sell, well, potty products. And their films work: from their use as YouTube video promotions to the free social media marketing they received from people eager to share the humorous videos, those films put brands on the map.

But good marketing, even joke-filled YouTube marketing, doesn’t come without deep creative thinking. The great creative companies all spend time learning how to be creative. For Harmon Brothers, this comes from making creative space, as inspired by the Deep Work book and other strategies to allow themselves to operate at their most imaginative. We learned a lot from this talk, and we know you will, too.

DIGGING DEEPER

Daniel discusses their practice of sitting with a project for a while, engaging in intentional downtime before starting on it. You can read more about the creative value of boredom in THIS BBC article. 

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200522-how-boredom-can-spark-creativity

More and more ads are being watched without sound. You can read more about how that affects viewers here:

https://www.teads.com/sound-off-or-sound-on-the-impact-of-sound-on-mobile-advertising-and-how-to-design-for-sound-off-environment/

Daniel says that nothing sells better than the truth. You can read an article about this, with some examples, here:

https://www.marketsmiths.com/2019/truth-well-told-still-the-best-marketing-strategy-of-them-all/

You can learn more about the book Deep Work here:

https://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/