Unicorns are real—in fact Harmon Brothers has helped raise five unicorn companies in the last 8 years, with 6 more right on the cusp of becoming unicorns.
On Raising Unicorns, we share the lessons we’ve learned along the way to help you grow your business and start raising a unicorn of your own.
Latest Episode:
CUSTOM JAVASCRIPT / HTML
Subscribe to the podcast:
Don't miss an episode!
Get clear, actionable insights from our weekly newsletter (plus be the first to know when a new podcast episode launches)!
Benton Crane talks with Daniel and Jeffrey Harmon about the origin of the Skip Ad Button and how it's helped Harmon Brothers to think about advertising in a way that makes video advertising more enjoyable for the viewer and more successful for advertisers.
Benton Crane talks with Billy Gene, the owner of Billy Gene Is Marketing Inc. Together they discuss the future of story-telling in advertising, how being a dad can impact your working habits for the better, and what simplification really means for business marketing.
CUSTOM JAVASCRIPT / HTML
LATEST EPISODES:
Season 3: Raising Unicorns
IN THE TRENCHES AT HB
The Early Bird Gets The Black Friday Worm Sales
Harmon Brother's own Brett Crockett talks about Black Friday and why you should spend time TODAY focusing on your Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions to make sure this year is your best performing ever.
If you copy what other successful companies do, you won’t stand out. Learn how to break through the noise with original content as we review the marketing book, Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
Soak up the marketing genius of professional comedian, writer, and actress Kelly Vrooman, who’s helped create stand-out video ads for companies like Chatbooks, Zerorez, Sash Bag, ClickFunnels, and many more.
A.I. Isn't Perfect, But it Will Save You Time & Money
Let’s get into the trenches of artificial intelligence in the video ad creation. If you’re making your own internal marketing videos, learn all the tricks to save yourself time, money, and fix your mistakes.
We’re back, baby, just in time to geek out on big headlines like Twitter’s revenue stream, new advertising space on baseballers' big, buff, biceps—and no matter how much we love Pixar— the marketing mistake they made that might have cost them millions.
Discover how a well-structured account can enhance targeting, provide a clear overview of your campaigns, and positively impact your ad spend effectiveness.
In this week’s episode we talk about how to use that "Hide" button when a comment doesn't help the cause, how to use negative comments to your advantage, and how responding to every (or nearly every) comment can increase the effectiveness of your advertising spend on social platforms.
The Old School Approach To Attribution Might Be What You Need
In today’s episode, it’s true, iOS 14.5 privacy changes left adbuyers feeling like it was the dark ages. But data driven decisions are still possible, you just have to work a little harder. Here’s how our top notch adbuyer uses different metrics to test different marketing strategies.
Everything you need to know about Direct Response vs Branding
Direct Response vs Branding Ads - they each have their place, and most brands will use them both at some point—but when should you use them. Join us to find out.
Set Up Your Video Ad For Success Before You Launch
Harmon Brothers has never relied purely on a video ad before a launch. Every big hit like Fiberfix, Kodiak Cakes, Purple, and Skull Shaver had the support of a strong offer, landing page, upsell, and more. Learn how you can build your own marketing powerhouse before you launch.
In this episode, the Shane Rickard and Jake Christensen discuss their use of artificial intelligence in their creative workflows. They reveal how they experiment with AI to generate hook ideas and ad concepts for their clients. They also talk the limitations of using AI in business.
We don’t randomly assign a creative team to our clients. We assess the different personality types, comedy style, working schedules, and more—hopefully to create a perfect match.
How to avoid mistakes and save your budget with Animatics
Nothing hurts more than when you’ve invested time and money into a visual part of your ad that doesn’t work. The best way to prevent that from happening is by first creating what we call an “animatic.”
If you want to create a successful video ad without blowing your budget, you need a wickedly talented producer. Here's what it takes to create a successful ad before the ad gets filmed.
Short form vs Long form and everything in between—in this week's episode we explore just how long your ads should be with rules of thumb and the approach we take with our projects.
Why Your Customer is the Hero—and You’re The Guide!
When you make your customer (instead of yourself) the hero of the story, you engage your audience on another level that brings them into the story and allows them to identify—and engage—with your product or service in a way that generates real marketing results.
In today’s episode, hear from some of the incredibly talented women on our team talk through their experience in male-dominated workplaces, and some good practices to creating a healthy work space for everyone.
In today’s episode, we talk easy tactics to create short form content for TikTok. If Scrub Daddy can do it, so can you. Plus, hear how Zach used short form content to successfully raise over $500k for Dry Bar Unscripted.
In this episode, we discuss how we're currently using AI in our process, how you can use it in your business, and how AI itself says you should be using it in marketing. Plus, can artificial intelligence actually be creative?
In today’s episode, you’ll hear about our tried and tested approach to capturing your viewer’s attention in less than a second. To create killer hooks in your video ads, you don’t need a huge budget, but you might have to question your gut.
Our Secret Sauce: Make Better Ads With Better Feedback
In today’s episode, we talk about how to diversify your ads, and what type of ad your company should lean into depending on your business’s marketing budget, stage of growth, and overarching goals for your campaign.
Our Secret Sauce: Make Better Ads With Better Feedback
In today’s episode, our CEO and Executive Creative Director talk about how we turn poop into gold: We're obsessed with getting creative feedback the right way,
Harmon Brothers CEO Shane Rickard, and Creative Director Jake Christensen give us their best tips for getting into the creative flow and making sure the best ideas rise to the top.
Visual effects can help tell a story in clearer, more memorable (and more budget-friendly) ways, and our in-house VFX expert Bryson Alley and Keith Grover cover how to make that kind of magic happen so that you can create more effective ads on this week's episode.
The right offer can change your entire business. This week we break down the elements you should be using to create an offer so good your customers can't refuse—join Brett and Britt as they share their best offer creation tips.
Editors Keith Grover and Nikki Miceli discuss the editing methods we use to deliver that extra impact for our client's ads—and how you can use those same techniques to grow your business, too.
How our ads have helped raise over $30M in Crowdfunding
From The Chosen to Tuttle Twins, Wingfeather, David, and more, Daniel Harmon and Shane Rickard cover what it takes to create a successful crowdfunding advertising campaign—and a successful marketing campaign in general.
Learn how to effectively remarket to your audience on our latest episode of Raising Unicorns as Britt and Tom share their experience to help you remarket like the pros.
Today we invite serial entrepreneur Scott Brown to talk to us about finding success with less risk through smart testing. Learn why you should treat your ideas like goldfish, how to avoid unhelpful feedback, and how to use feedback to build your business.
Get Adventurous With Your Ads: Next Stop, Anywhere But Facebook
You know putting all of your eggs in one basket is a recipe for disaster. Facebook and Instagram are necessary, but so is expanding beyond Meta. Here's how you should approach that expansion.
Why video is no longer “nice to have,” it’s necessary.
In today’s episode, we explore the cold, hard stats of video ads. Once you’re convinced to step up your video ad game, you’ll learn how to get the best value out of your video ads, different ways to optimize videos in general, and how to start preparing for a future ahead of video—and yes, that could mean the metaverse.
This week on Raising Unicorns, Daniel Harmon and our former CEO Benton Crane dive into our long-standing history with Purple, what you can learn from their success, and what leaning into “objective data” could do for their business—and yours
How to create a simple video ad that makes you money
Team HB shares the formula for our Explainer Testimonial Ad - an ad so easy that you can create it from your couch in a day for less than $200—and so effective that it's earned our clients millions of dollars. The "ETA" ad is one of 15 ad types we teach in our Easy Ads That Sell course. Learn this format for free on today's episode.
Marketing Hack: Dramatically Increase Your Cart Size
Everyone’s trying to squeeze more profit out of their ad spend these days, and one of the best ways to do exactly that is something you should be doing—offering an upsell or cross-sell. In today's episode, we talk about the Upsell/Cross-sell, and three other tools you should be using to bump up your Average Order Value.
In today’s episode we go over the benefits of truth in comedy and truth in marketing. We recommend different strategies for gaining credibility and trust from your customers. You’ll hear from our creative directors that know better than anyone, Ryan Powell and Kaitlin Snow.
This week our marketing experts break down the process of planning a year's worth of video strategy in just one day. We’ll guide you through testing your messaging, and creating your video ads for prime optimization, so you can overcome your procrastination!
This week we share the best practices for choosing your brand name (or rebranding your business). We used this process to help name Purple Mattress and Angel Studios. Ideally you want to pick a name that has as few red flags as possible and resonates with your audience. Check out this episode and we’ll show you how to do it.
Hot Take: You Should Work Whenever Or Wherever You Want
This week we tackle one of the biggest controversies of corporate life: should employees work from home, the office, or both? Our Marketing Director, Brett Crockett, and Creative Director, Ryan Powell weigh in and offer some hands-on tips to focusing up and boosting that productivity no matter where or when you’re working.
This week our Client Success team goes over the 9 ways you can build towards satisfying and profitable results with your marketing agency, or marketing team. These tips will save you a lot of time, headaches, and could make you a lot more money than you think.
This week you learn how to start preparing for Black Friday with our top ad buyers, Tom Broschinsky and Britt Ellsworth. We know Black Friday and Cyber Monday seem far away, but trust us, you’ll see the most profitable results if you follow our advice and start cranking on your audience giveaways, email list, and creative content today. Play your cards right, and this November you could be rolling in some big dough.
This week our Marketing Director, Brett Crocket and Chief Creative Officer, Shane Rickard get down to business. Together they talk about when you should put your blood sweat and tears behind your funnel or your ad—especially in this post-iOS 14 world. They also give great insights on how to streamline your offer, cater to different social platforms, and more.
This week you’ll hear about why split testing is a poor man’s message testing, and how you can use message testing to build passionate fans of your brand, like it has for Owlet, Freshly Picked, and more. This info is coming straight from our Chief Strategist at Harmon Brothers Consulting.
This week you’ll hear from the OG Harmon Brother crew. Together they discuss the different business building innovations that were necessary for The Chosen, VidAngel, Drybar, and Angel Studios to become so overwhelmingly successful.
This week you’ll hear from our CEO Benton Crane, Theron Harmon, and Brett Crockett. Together they talk about how a lower ROI isn’t always a bad thing, holistic advice for companies struggling post iOS 14, and how to optimize your funnel for success—even with abysmal customer acquisition costs.
This week you’ll hear from our CEO Benton Crane and Will Young, Founder of Sana Benefits. Together they talk about how to juggle your business, your investors and your customers as you start your path to becoming a unicorn.
This week you’ll hear from two of our expert ad buyers with experience managing anywhere from thousands to to millions of dollars in ad spend. They give you actionable changes you can make today to help you escape the death spiral set off by iOS 14. They’re out in the field, with all the tips to the higher conversion rates you’ve been hoping for.
This week you’ll hear from Daniel Harmon and our Head Writer, Zach Atherton. Together they discuss how to generate funny content, why hiring comedians is so important, and the reason writing breaks are so important.
This week you’ll hear from the two copywriting experts and creative directors, Zach Atherton and Brandon Cummings. Together they discuss the Harmon Brothers’ secret sauce: our writing retreats. They give you all the ingredients you need to get a top-notch video ad script in 2 days.
Benton Crane talks with the current CEO of VidAngel, Bill Aho. Together they discuss VidAngel’s growth and success even after Disney sued them, how to show your customers you care about them, and the benefits of employee benefits.
Benton Crane talks with our renowned producer, Bryan Fugal. Together they discuss the key to making ads that convert—no matter what your budget is, why storytelling is so important in your ads, and when you should DIY or start hiring someone else to do the work.
Controversial Opinion: Give Your Customers Control Of Your Ads
This week Benton Crane continues last week’s conversation with the OG Harmon Brothers Crew and uncovers the business advantages of letting ad-viewers decide what they WANT to watch, and you’ll learn the secret to getting your money’s worth out of long-form ads.
Benton Crane talks with Daniel and Jeffrey Harmon about the origin of the Skip Ad Button and how it's helped Harmon Brothers to think about advertising in a way that makes video advertising more enjoyable for the viewer and more successful for advertisers.
Benton Crane talks with Neel Kulshreshtha, the CEO of Skull Shaver. Together they discuss the benefits of starting a business in the USA, the perks of copycat businesses, why a “good product” isn’t enough, reasons to focus on customers instead of your competition and more.
Dallas Jenkins: How did the Chosen Spread The Word?
Benton Crane talks with Dallas Jenkins, the creator of the hit tv show with a fresh take on the life of Christ. Racking up over a 100 million views, The Chosen has become extremely popular with a very unique business model. Instead of asking Hollywood’s permission, The Chosen earned millions of dollars from investors around the world excited to see this series come to life. In this episode, Dallas shares how they grabbed the world’s attention.
Benton Crane talks with Kaitlin Snow, a Partner at Harmon Brothers and Creative Director of The Chosen’s Devil Ad Campaign. Together they discuss An easy way to test your ad content, how to overcome the status quo, creating satire in advertising, and how amazing Angel Studios and The Chosen were as clients.
Benton Crane talks with Jaimie Thornton, the Director of ConsumerDirect Mortgage. Together they talk about how to rebrand a business, when they decided to rename their business, and how to make strong, persuasive claims about your company.
Naveen Dittakavi: Never Stop Questioning Your Process
Benton Crane talks with Naveen Dittakavi, the founder and CEO of Next Vacay, and one of our incredibly successful clients. Together they discuss the right way to budget your company, how to improve your business from the bottom up, why you should question everything, and an inside scoop on what it’s like to work with the Harmon Brothers.
Keto Chow: Building Trust With Your Customers: New and Old
Benton Crane talks with the Co-founders of Keto Chow—and one of our favorite clients—Chris and Miriam Bair. Together they discuss how to turn a side hustle into a full blown, busy business, the least painful way to delegate, and why you have to start building a strong relationship with your audience on social media if you want to succeed.