Creative Director and copywriter, Daniel Harmon is one of the brains behind the popular ads for PooPouri, Purple mattresses, Chatbooks and more. In the 113th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with Daniel about The Harmon Bros. approach to creating advertising that’s calibrated to go viral, demonstrate the product, and sell enough to make a lot of money. Here’s what we covered:

•  how growing up on a potato farm led to a career in advertising

•  using YouTube to sell a tongue brush, air freshener and mattresses

•  how a Huffington Post article gave the Harmon Bros. their name

•  the creative process that led to working with Golidlocks

•  why they hold “writing retreats” as part of the creative process

•  how he (and the HB team) knows when something is truly funny

•  how they cast talent for their videos and look for the “comedic X-factor”

•  the two levels of hell and how to stay out of both (when it comes to casting)

•  what ads need to do at the end of the day—even the funny ones

•  how the HB formula works for both humor and serious ads

•  what it takes to get hired by an agency like Harmon Brothers

•  what it takes to turn “gross” into “gold”

•  the course they built to share all of their how-to secrets

There’s a ton of great advice, stories and ideas that anyone serious about creating compelling ads (especially those that work in environments like YouTube and Facebook). To hear it all, click the play button below, or download the episode to your favorite podcast app. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.

 

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Orabrush

Devin Supertramp

Austin Craig

Poopouri

Harmon Bros.

The Goldilocks Ad

Studio C

The Abe Lincoln Ad

Hey Whipple Squeeze This

How to write ads that sell  (The HB Course)

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

Intro: Content (for now)

Outro: Gravity

 

Full Transcript:

Rob:   This podcast is sponsored by The Copywriter Underground.

Kira:   It's our new membership designed for you to help you attract more clients and hit 10K a month consistently.

Rob:   For more information or to sign up, go to thecopywriterunderground.com. What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts? Ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habit, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Kira:   You're invited to join the club for episode 113 as we chat with the Chief Creative Officer at Harmon Brothers, Daniel Harmon, about storytelling and humor, what it takes to create viral videos that also sell products, building an agency, and what we need to do to create amazing work like the Harmon Brothers.

Welcome, Daniel.

Daniel:           Thank you. Thanks for having me on, guys.

Kira:   All right. Well, why don't we start this off with your story, Daniel, about how you ended up as the Creative Director at Harmon Brothers.

Daniel:           My story actually goes back to when I was born. No. Not exactly. I was born in Idaho, Burley, Idaho specifically, and grew up working on the potato farm. This seems tangential, but it's not. I learned to do sales face-to-face before I ever got into selling anything through video or through social media. What I mean by that is in order to earn money, my brothers and I, we would grab a truck that my uncle had and we would fill it full of 50-pound boxes of fresh Idaho potatoes and illegally, I'm sure, drive it down across the Utah border and go door-to-door or street side and sell boxes of potatoes. We would sell a 50-pound box for $20.

Utah was a really good market because it wasn't Idaho where everyone already has potatoes and because there's a lot of families there. We figured out that we could make more money selling potatoes door-to-door and face-to-face than we could if we worked minimum wage job...