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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