Jeffrey Harmon

NEW THING: Dancing in the Apple Store

Jeffrey Harmon — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:39:52 +0000

Found this today. ZERO inhibition. The girls behind him are so uncomfortable. Viral Magic.

This is the not the first time this kid has done this. He has a YouTube channel with 35 videos and 18k subs. He knows what he is doing.

Search “apple store dance” on YouTube and you get 2600 results. Apple is the greatest brand the world has ever seen.

All extreme sports businesses should be on YouTube

Jeffrey Harmon — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:30:26 +0000

YouTube is probably the single most effective marketing tool for anyone who has a product or service connected to extreme sports. Don’t believe me? Check out the examples below:

Devin Graham, my old roommate and the guy who shot the original Bad Breath Test for Orabrush, released this video two days ago. It is a promo that he did for JetLev (a ridiculously awesome water jet pack). The video will hit a quarter million views tonight and I expect it to end up with well over a million views. I want to see them do a documentary style video on the story of JetLev (like the one Devin did for Orabrush). At $100K a pop, you might think that the YouTube audience is not the JetLev target demographic, but I believe JetLev is comparable to SegWay and it will be most used as a rental for tourists. YouTube is the perfect crowd.

GoPro gets it. They are releasing a couple of videos a week. Not only are their videos naturally viral in nature, but they are promoting them with ads as well, raking in tens of thousands of subscribers to their YouTube channel. They could get even more subscribers if they just asked for them, but GoPro is still blowing away their competitor Contour who doesn’t get YouTube.

Guns and Gear, a hack guns dealer in Georgia, started a YouTube channel one year ago. A white trash guy, with a foe Russian accent, profanes as he blasts targets with high-powered assault rifles. I am not a fan, but someone loves it because their videos have been viewed 62 million times and they are the fastest growing YouTube channel in the past 30 days. That kind of growth fills me with envy.

This is one of my favorite videos this month. Tempest Freerunning Academy just released this video to promote their new parkour training gym. I have watched the video at least 4 times.

Moral of the story: if you have a business in extreme sports without a YouTube strategy, then it is time to invest.

iPad 2 PUNKED (Parody)

Jeffrey Harmon — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:14:10 +0000

On March 2nd I was watching the iPad 2 video intro and this video concept came to my mind. I have several ideas everyday but this one stuck. Luckily I had the team to pull it off. It wasn’t as timely as I would have liked because we had to wait for the iPad to come out on Friday at 5pm. I got the last iPad available at Verizon.

We asked Chris Hansen to do the make-up. Austin Craig played each of the parts. Dave Ackerman and Austin Craig wrote it. It took two days of shooting simply because of the hours needed to change the makeup.

At least 500 YouTubers are now making their living on YouTube alone

Jeffrey Harmon — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 06:21:31 +0000

This brought tears to my eyes. Shaytards story is very inspiring. They paid off about $195k in debt in 4 years. This family is making several hundred thousand dollars a year on YouTube!

YouTube is just getting started. Even though YouTube hasn’t yet been recognized in the same way, their growth resembles Facebook’s growth. If my calculations are correct then I can safely estimate that at least 500 channels on YouTube have already created full-time jobs. Orabrush’s YouTube channel alone has been the source of over 14 jobs. I LOVE IT.

Social Marketers should attend VidCon 2011

Jeffrey Harmon — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:13:20 +0000

We attended VidCon 2010 and we will be going again this year. VidCon inspired a lot of the “Diaries of a Dirty Tongue” series that was recognized as a top social media campaign in 2010 in AdAge’s “Book of Tens”. Last year, VidCon was completely sold out for attendees, BUT Orabrush was one of the only brands at the conference. This year it is going to be a lot more crowded. I predict that by 2012, it will be packed with every major brand. If you haven’t put it on your calendar, get it in now.

Here is the first video we did for “Diaries of a Dirty Tongue”. It was about VidCon2010:

Interview with Rick Mathieson (part 1 and 2)

Jeffrey Harmon — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:06:23 +0000

Last week I had an Interview with Rick Mathieson. Here are the LINKS:

INTERVIEW: ORABRUSH CMO JEFF HARMON ON THE SECRETS OF A SOCIAL MEDIA SENSATION (PT. 1)

INTERVIEW: ORABRUSH CMO JEFF HARMON (PT 2) – A ‘DIRTY TONGUE’ GOES VIRAL

Rick Mathieson is an award-winning writer, author, speaker and frequent media commentator on marketing in the digital age.

Heralded as “a strategic marketing expert” by Harvard Business School”s Working Knowledge, his insights on postmodern marketing have been featured in ADWEEK, Advertising Age, Wired, Forbes and on MSNBC, CNN Radio, CBS Radio and NPR.

His research into next-generation business models has earned praise from USA Today.

6 YouTubers Every Marketer Should Follow

Jeffrey Harmon — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:21:52 +0000

This week Rick Mathieson (Author of The On-Demand Brand) asked me in an interview what kind of advice I could give to fellow marketers to help them understand YouTube.

MY ADVICE: BECOME A YOUTUBE JUNKY.

If you are average, you watch 4 hours of TV per day, but only 15 minutes of YouTube. At Orabrush, we watch a LOT of YouTube :) That’s right, we are paid to watch YouTube everyday—infact, my wife and I don’t even have a TV.

To help you begin your YouTube addiction, I’ve put together a short list of YouTubers that are on the bleeding edge. I am subscribed to each of them (and many more) and I believe any marketer worth his salt will have these channels in their sub box on YouTube:

RhettandLink

This music video promoting pillows has had over 3.4 million views since Sept of last year:

In my opinion, Rhett and Link are thought-leaders in integrating brands on YouTube. Their work in pioneering branding on YouTube has got them recognized by Wired, AdAge, Adweek, The Huffington Post, and others—in my opinion, they deserve much more attention for what they have done.

Tobuscus

Tobuscus is a favorite at Orabrush. Here is a promo he did for Zelda (it has almost 1 million views):

Tobuscus has a similar model to RhettandLink. He is building his YouTube channel around ads. Orabrush is shooting a video with Tobuscus this month. Stay tuned for an update.

WheezyWaiter

At Orabrush, we have chosen to work with WheezyWaiter (Craig) three times (here, here, and here). He has also worked with Ford and been in AdAge. Craig’s channel has the most loyal following of any YouTuber I have seen.

MysteryGuitarMan

This video showcasing Guaraná has over 2.7 million views:

MysteryGuitarMan is a mix of video editing and music. Getting your product placed on his channel is more than most small brands can afford.

Freddiew

This video has over 3 million views:

Although Freddiew has done a commercial with MysteryGuitarMan for Garnier Fructis the real reason I am including him is so you can see what kind of video effects are possible without a budget.

Juicystar07 & Allthatglitters21

Beauty gurus are the hottest thing on YouTube. Blair & Elle are near the top. If your product falls in their domain, theirs is a subscription must. We sent both of these YouTubers Orabrushes to review. When Blair did her review, her fans crashed our servers, sending us more online traffic than the stories done by Nightline or the NYTimes combined!

Nightline ABC – The Story of Orabrush

Jeffrey Harmon — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:37:03 +0000

I love it how they contrast our ads with Super Bowl ads. It was a lot of fun to have Brian Rooney and his team here for an entire day. The NYTimes article was awesome, but I think the fact we are a very visual company makes me like this story even more.

18 months ago, I couldn’t have imagined anything like this. Orabrush has been a blessing in my life.