DTC brands

Erik Huberman

Erik Huberman Shares How Hawk Media Dominates Marketing Without Playing Fortune 500 Games

Brent Peterson sits down with Erik Huberman, founder and CEO of Hawk Media, to discuss building a marketing agency that serves challenger brands rather than corporate behemoths. The conversation covers everything from navigating the lower and middle market space to leveraging AI in marketing without losing the human touch that builds trust with consumers.

Key Takeaways

  • Hawk Media has worked with over 6,000 companies in 12 years, focusing on brands outside the Fortune 2000
  • The agency maintains a 250-person team and starts engagements at $2,000 per month
  • AI works best for tedious tasks and data analysis rather than creative content generation
  • The current economy shows a split between the top 50% who are thriving and the bottom 50% who are struggling
  • Trust remains one of the most important elements in marketing, which AI-generated content can undermine
  • GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) presents new opportunities for brands to appear in LLM search results
  • Small businesses should avoid the trap of thinking AI can replace specialized marketing teams

About Erik Huberman

Erik Huberman built and sold multiple e-commerce companies before founding Hawk Media 12 years ago. After advising major brands like Red Bull, Verizon, and HP, he recognized a gap in the market. The majority of marketing agencies either lacked expertise or only wanted to work with Fortune 2000 companies. This realization led him to create an agency that delivers excellence without the bureaucracy and politics that plague larger organizations.

Erik brings entrepreneurial experience to every client engagement. Beyond Hawk Media, he manages a venture fund, authored a best-selling book taught in MBA programs, and executive produces Kings of Barbecue on Hulu and A&E. He also hosts the Hawk Talk podcast and organizes Hawkfest, an annual summit that attracts 750 brands and companies. When not building businesses, Erik trains in tactical operations, competes in triathlons, and spends time with his young family.

Episode Summary

The conversation begins with Erik sharing an amusing anecdote about being mistaken for Tony Hawk’s business partner at a conference in Banff. This mix-up led to special treatment from local ski resort owners until they discovered their error. While Erik has crossed paths with the skateboarding legend at various speaking engagements, Hawk Media stands entirely on its own merits in the marketing world.

Erik explains how his frustration with the agency landscape sparked Hawk Media’s creation. “At the time there were 24,000 marketing agencies in the US and 99% of them were full of shit and had no idea what they were doing,” he states bluntly. The few agencies that did quality work only pursued Fortune 2000 clients, leaving a massive market underserved. Hawk Media filled this void by building capabilities that work for companies at any scale.

The discussion shifts to how the agency selects clients. Unlike agencies that position themselves as gatekeepers, Erik takes a different approach. He learned his lesson after passing on Dollar Shave Club’s parent incubator when they pitched Liquid Death. “My response was death water. You guys are idiots,” he admits. The brand has since become highly successful, teaching him not to play arbiter of what constitutes a good brand. However, Hawk Media does draw lines around moral guidelines and refuses to work with unreasonable personalities who burn out team members.

Brent raises the question of whether small business owners now believe they can handle all marketing themselves using ChatGPT. Erik dismisses this notion quickly. “I’ve heard that sort of assumption by people watching the trend, but I haven’t seen any entrepreneurs actually execute on that,” he explains. While AI thought leaders predict one-person operations powered by artificial intelligence, Erik sees no evidence of great businesses running this way. The reality involves using AI to augment human capabilities rather than replace specialized teams.

On the topic of AI in marketing specifically, Erik draws a clear distinction between hype and practical application. Generative AI for creative content still looks artificial, which immediately erodes trust with consumers. “In marketing, one of the most important parts is trust. And by using AI, you immediately kill that trust because it’s inauthentic by nature,” he notes. Hawk Media invested in building Hawk AI over 11 years, which digests marketing, media, and revenue data from about 7,000 companies in real time. This predictive analytics approach delivers immediate SWOT analysis and identifies opportunities based on market benchmarks.

Erik predicts that AI will excel at tasks that would typically go to an army of entry-level interns. Anything involving tedium and low-skill requirements becomes prime territory for artificial intelligence. Legal research, accounting functions, and data analysis all fit this category. Creative work that requires authentic human connection remains far from AI’s current capabilities. “If everyone’s using the same AI to create the same creative, it’s not going to be that compelling,” he argues. “It’s going to work for like three months and then it’s going to fall apart.”

The conversation turns to market conditions heading into the holiday shopping season. Erik provides a nuanced economic analysis based on his research habits. Stock markets hit all-time highs while inflation decreases and employment rises. Interest rate reductions create additional optimism. However, the economy now operates as a tale of two cities. The top 50% of Americans who own assets and investments are thriving, while the bottom 50% struggle with paycheck-to-paycheck reality. This split affects different business sectors in distinct ways.

Off-price retailers targeting budget-conscious consumers face challenges, while direct-to-consumer brands and e-commerce companies serving the upper half perform well. “If you’re an e-commerce brand right now, you’re probably going to be in a good place,” Erik predicts for the upcoming holidays. The demographic with discretionary spending continues to spend, driving consumer-focused businesses forward despite economic anxiety in some quarters.

Erik closes by highlighting Hawk Media’s newest offering around GEO. As large language models change how people search for information, brands need strategies to appear in ChatGPT, Gemini, and similar platforms. Hawk Media developed technology to analyze how companies show up across different LLMs and coach them on capturing these new search opportunities. This positions clients ahead of competitors still focused exclusively on traditional search engine optimization.

Final Thoughts

Erik Huberman demonstrates that building a successful marketing agency requires authentic expertise rather than pretentious gatekeeping. Hawk Media serves thousands of challenger brands by delivering sophisticated capabilities without corporate bureaucracy. As artificial intelligence reshapes the marketing landscape, the companies that win will use technology to enhance human creativity rather than replace it. The brands that maintain trust through authentic connections will capture consumer attention even as AI floods channels with generic content.

Can your marketing strategy maintain the hawk-eyed focus needed to soar above competitors while AI turns everyone else’s content into indistinguishable noise?

This has been produced in cooperation with Content Cucumber

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Mo Elhawary

Reverse Engineering Success: Creative Marketing Strategy with Mo ElHawary

Talk Commerce host Brent Peterson sits down with Mo Elhawary, a senior creative strategist who’s spent over eight years helping brands reach eight and nine-figure revenue marks. This episode tackles the often-misunderstood role of creative strategy in direct-to-consumer businesses. Mo shares his approach to finding untapped customer segments without increasing ad spend or launching new product lines. The conversation covers everything from the five whys methodology to holiday season preparation strategies that can transform how brands connect with their audiences.

Key Takeaways

  • Creative strategy extends beyond duplicating winning ads—it’s about challenging what already works to discover new opportunities
  • The five whys model reveals deep customer motivations that surface-level research misses
  • Founders should validate products against problems they personally experience before launching
  • The 70-20-10 framework provides a practical approach for holiday season planning
  • Understanding why customers need products matters more than explaining what products do
  • Customer personas should drive product development, not the other way around
  • Early holiday promotions work because customers understand they’ll receive similar deals regardless of timing
  • Removing elements from products can sometimes create more value than adding features

About Mo Elhawary

Mo brings a unique perspective to creative strategy, having started his career as a pharmacist in Egypt before transitioning into business and marketing. His background in pharmaceuticals provides him with an analytical mindset that he applies to understanding customer psychology and behavior patterns. Mo has worked with notable brands including Huel, Organifi, Dr. Squatch, and Livegood, helping them identify and target customer segments their competitors overlook. He currently operates from Manchester, where he spends his days producing content, attending strategy meetings, and analyzing metrics that most ecommerce brands ignore.

Episode Summary

The conversation begins with Mo explaining his daily responsibilities, which range from delivering creative briefs to working with content creators and analyzing business metrics. However, what sets his approach apart is his focus on reverse engineering customer personas. Rather than accepting surface-level motivations, he digs deeper to understand the core reasons behind purchasing decisions.

Mo introduces the five whys model through a weight loss product example. Most brands focus on product superiority—better ingredients, more testimonials, competitive comparisons. Mo’s approach asks why customers want to lose weight in the first place. The answer might seem obvious at first—to look better. But asking why again reveals deeper motivations. Why do they want to look better? Perhaps to feel attractive to their partners. Why does that matter? Maybe their relationships have suffered. This process continues until the real motivation surfaces.

“Once I find that, then I can understand the core reason why people do need this product,” Mo explains. This methodology led him to help one brand target women aged 45-55 who’d experienced weight gain after having children. These women felt their partners had become distant. They’d tried expensive solutions they couldn’t sustain and cheap alternatives that didn’t work. The brand’s messaging shifted from weight loss benefits to relationship restoration and personal empowerment.

The conversation moves to product development, where Brent asks about creating customer personas. Mo’s response challenges conventional wisdom. “You should never come up with the product without knowing who you’re going to target,” he states firmly. Too many entrepreneurs start with product ideas and then search for customers. Mo advocates for the reverse—identify a problem you personally face, one you’d solve for yourself regardless of whether anyone else buys the solution.

This principle connects to the SIT Design Thinking model, which asks whether products need additions, subtractions, multiplications, or other modifications to serve customers better. Mo uses the evolution of mops as an example. Traditional cleaning required a mop, bucket, and water. Newer versions eliminated the bucket and water entirely, using disposable sheets instead. The product improved by removing elements rather than adding them.

When discussing validation, Mo emphasizes understanding customer awareness levels. Some customers know they have a problem and actively seek solutions. Others don’t recognize their problem exists. Steve Jobs succeeded with the iPhone partly because he believed in solving a problem most people didn’t know they had. “People didn’t mind having phones with buttons,” Mo notes. Jobs created a solution to an unrecognized problem because he personally experienced that problem.

The holiday season strategy reveals Mo’s practical side. He recommends a 70-20-10 framework. Seventy percent of focus and budget should support what’s already working—proven products and strategies. Twenty percent should clear inventory that’s been sitting on shelves. The remaining ten percent can test new concepts, but only if it doesn’t exceed that budget allocation.

“So many brands get distracted and they want to do a million things at the same time during this holiday season and they miss it,” Mo warns. He notes that every day during peak season represents substantial revenue opportunity, making focus critical. He also encourages brands to consider pre-holiday promotions, as customers have learned they’ll receive similar deals whether they buy early or wait.

Brent brings up Amazon’s strategy of creating multiple Prime Days throughout the year, questioning whether brands risk devaluing their offers. Mo acknowledges this concern but suggests the key lies in authenticity—discounts should represent genuine value rather than inflated regular prices marked down.

The episode concludes with Mo’s recommendation to study Huel’s founder story. The founder stepped down from CEO to CMO after recognizing his strengths lay in marketing rather than executive management. This decision exemplifies Mo’s broader philosophy about playing to strengths and building businesses around personal passion rather than forcing yourself into uncomfortable roles.

Throughout the conversation, Mo emphasizes that creative strategy isn’t about working harder or spending more—it’s about understanding customers at a level competitors don’t reach. His approach requires asking uncomfortable questions, challenging assumptions, and digging past surface-level answers until real motivations emerge. This depth of understanding allows brands to create messaging that resonates emotionally while maintaining logical product benefits.

Mo Elhawary demonstrates that effective creative strategy starts with understanding human psychology rather than product features. His five whys model and design thinking framework provide practical tools for brands seeking growth without proportional increases in ad spend. The 70-20-10 holiday framework offers a roadmap for maintaining focus during peak season chaos. Perhaps most valuable is his insistence that products should solve problems founders personally experience—authenticity in business often starts with genuine need.

Final Thoughts

The question remains: are you crafting strategies that merely describe what your products do, or are you creating connections based on why customers truly need them? Because in the world of DTC, that strategic difference might just be what separates sustainable growth from stagnant sameness.

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