Rolling Around in the DIRT (Celebrating Huckberry’s Content)

This intro will tie into Huckberry, I promise.

I’ve been trying to think of a way to describe AI marketing developments this year in a way other than “nuts.” I didn’t use Claude to think of an alternative description.

• Around February, n8n builders swarmed socials with agentic processes that save potentially hundreds of hours per month.
• In the last month or so, LLM-driven organic traffic’s been skyrocketing, and everyone’s scrambling to optimize for AI search (TBD whether this will actually work).
• Four hours ago today (Thursday, April 24), Icon announced “AI CMO,” designed to replace marketing leaders.

That’s a lot to unpack, and I’m not gonna unpack it in this piece, but Dylan Whitman got to the quick of it (a few days before AI CMO was even released):

Almost anyone will be able to create multichannel marketing programs in a matter of hours by themselves. 

That said… Here’s the topic tie-in.

A major component of, as Dylan says, “out ‘human[ing]’ you” will be from content. 

The brands that make relevant, “human” content a deeply integrated portion of their brand will see the most success, and the brands that do it the best will be multi-generational.

The content is the brand, and the brand is the content. 

If you build it, they will shop.

So it is with Huckberry.

Huckberry’s content, reflecting and catering to many elements of modern masculinity, is fundamentally integrated with the brand itself, which is “The One Stop Men’s Shop.”

It’s relatable yet aspirational. It’s eminently consumable. A lot of it can’t be created with LLM prompts and an AI platform.

And it captures the attention of their ICP.

Who might be a certain genre of millennial/younger Gen X guy (boardsporting-curious, outdoorsy, generally open-minded folks who like leather chairs, new restaurants, well-made clothes and accessories, Americana, cast iron, kettlebell workouts, a basic skincare routine, mezcal cocktails, and Anthony Bourdain).

But there are certainly millions of men who share some of those interests, and Huckberry's content is roping them in, too.

(Like me!)

Blogging since 2012 and the YouTube channel that changed everything

TLDR: Huckberry launched their blog in Q1 2012 and YouTube channel in 2016. 

• Their blog is strong, well-written, and super relevant to their ICP.
• Their YT channel is wildly successful and incredibly well-done.

The blog

I used the Wayback Machine to see just how long Huckberry’s been at it. 

More than 13 years.

Check out their site from 2012.

Granted, this is kind of a savage move on my part, like the digital equivalent of digging up a teenager-with-braces picture. But I think it’s incredible to see a brand that’s worked so long and so hard to put out content and build a community. 

Do you see those 97k likes on Facebook & the old Twitter (RIP) follow button?

And they’re aware of the site:

They’ve been plugging away for a long time.

And although some of those early blog articles were, say, a bit more top-of-funnel (read: less dialed in), there were still articles covering pillars of what appears on their current blog (“The Journal”) today. 

Early topics from surfing and craft booze to “barefoot philosophy,” and you can certainly find those on the blog today.

And as for the blog UI… Look how far they’ve come.

Now, they’re pushing 15+ articles a month.

Some of the broader-appeal stuff is definitely “AI but edited by humans” (pic below), though they have some more seemingly human-only work in there, too, like for their column-style articles (example).

Either way, it ranges from solid to great, it’s always informative, and it’s relevant even if you’re not a Huckberry customer (yet). 

In other words, they’re ticking the right boxes. 

One last thing here. They put their blog nearly at the top of the first email of their welcome flow (followed immediately by video content):

Again, the brand is the content, and the content is the brand. 

They’re setting that up from the first touchpoint. (In case the signer-up didn’t happen to discover them through content in the first place… and even if they did, hammer it home, baby.)

And onto YouTube (the main event)

Huckberry launched their YouTube channel at the end of 2016 with a video about an artist (Kyle Steed) they were collaborating with.

Their YouTube channel’s gone through several evolutions, each reaching successively higher levels of success.

In the early days, they featured more individual artist profiles to new brands under the Huckberry umbrella (if you’re less familiar with Huckberry, they sell many independent brands, including Taylor Stitch, and they have their own, including Flint & Tinder). 

And they’d just started to branch into actual outdoorsy content (“How to Make a Swedish Fire Torch”).

You can see their testing over time, with different series (e.g. early travel show, “wearing the same shirt for 72 hours”), other one-off tests, and trendsurfing (“the Huckberry yule log”). 

They really started to figure it out in late 2020/early 2021 when they launched personality-driven, approachable-but-educational food content.

I see Munchies all over these videos, and I’m willing to bet at least part of my liver that’s who they were emulating (totally cool with me, given that everyone on YouTube doing food content is in some way inspired by Munchies, Eater, and Bon Appétit… and Anthony Bourdain.). 

Especially because they started partnering with and creating content with Mason Hereford (well-known New Orleans-based chef who started Turkey and the Wolf), who started appearing in Munchies videos back in 2019.

But when they launched their travel series DIRT, Huckberry struck (or, more accurately, created) gold.

DIRT

DIRT is a part-food, part-travel, part-adventure, part-cultural, part-Earth-celebrating, part-human-celebrating-and-storytelling YouTube series where “each adventure ends with a feast.”

It’s hosted by Josh Rosen, a surfing, snowboarding, mountain biking, food-obsessed, NYC restaurant survivor and DTC brand founder (Saturdays New York City, an apparel/lifestyle brand). 

He comes off as an affable, down-to-earth guy who’s down to do/eat anything and leave judgment at the door.

 Basically, he’s Huckberry’s ICP.

And DIRT is the real deal.

While inspired by the YouTube and food/travel OGs that came ‘afore, DIRT has its own voice, narrative style, videography, and pacing. 

Each video is broken into days or “chapters” to ultimately create a cohesive story. Each new place has an associated food/drink/activity, and each video culminates in a “feast” that brings the whole story together.

However, the goal isn’t to make a show about Josh. 

The videos are told by local landscapes…

And people who take pride in what they do.

The team involved has clearly put an extraordinary amount of research and effort into production.

They go off the beaten path from typical travel shows.

And they're featuring inclusive stories (not common among American travel/foodtube until fairly recently)

I’ve watched 20,000 hours of YouTube in my life (sadly, true) and have gone deeper into Food/TravelTube than anyone should. DIRT is featuring stories, experiences, and people who haven’t been covered in other videos I’ve seen.

And viewers are brought along on Josh’s adventures. 

They’re nodding or chuckling at all the little sparks of connections and funny memories you’d have on your own travels.

DIRT as a show name, of course, is apt. 

Dirt is the basis, in one way or another, for much of life. And getting up close and personal with it brings you a whole lot closer to the Earth and humanity. ‍

When so much is replicable in tactics and style (by using AI), DIRT and the rest of Huckberry’s content moves have separated it from everyone else and built a content flywheel to power it for decades to come.

Since we’re here… A couple other content call-outs

I realized I could turn this into a very, very, very long article, but I do want to shout two things out that Huckberry’s doing with their content that every brand can likely learn from.

1. They’re incorporating products they sell into aspirational content

The best marketing often creates or shows aspirational states that compel customers to purchase—to get closer to those states.

Thousands of DIRT viewers want to have incredible adventures like Josh, and—given that Josh is a cool guy who looks cool doing cool stuff—they can get a step closer to what they see in DIRT by buying what he’s wearing in the episodes.

For every episode of DIRT, site visitors can find what Josh was wearing, and honestly, it has me hooked in, too. 

In writing this piece, I can feel my credit card heating up from across the room.

It’s an incredible tactic, and all the big kids use it:

Brands sell into aspirational looks and lifestyles when their products are featured in shows and movies. 

But the even better version is when you’re selling what gets people to the aspirational states ‍you’re creating.

2. They’re nailing content types, from discovery/TOFU to product education for customers

1. TOFU: DIRT on YouTube for discovery

(I may have mentioned this one already.)

DIRT has broad appeal, is getting hundreds of thousands to millions of viewers every month, and is branding Huckberry into people’s brains.

2. BOFU/product education: 

Another current YT series Huckberry’s been putting out is “Ask Huckberry,” where the team (style experts) answers questions about seasonal styles, outfit ideas for different situations, and more.

I’ve seen some recent spicy arguments on LinkedIn about the state of the marketing funnel at this point, so I’d argue this one could serve as a classic bottom-of-funnel that focuses on potential customers who are more ready to buy and existing customers who are looking to add to their wardrobes via Huckberry.

3. Customer/product education (definitively): 

Yet another Huckberry YT series is “Gear Lab,” where Huckberry employees answer questions, show off their favorite looks, and more.

I watched a number of these videos, and the topics range from how to care for waxed jackets to full product breakdowns for employees’ favorite “EDC” (everyday carry) items.

And customers are actively interacting with these videos (great sign of community):

I should end this article now, but I just thought of an idea for Huckberry based on all this content talk

Idea: test incorporating bits of content onto PDPs.

Currently, product images feature standalone images of the items and some outdoorsy shots.

• Show “As seen on…” [insert YT video]
• Show Josh from DIRT in a couple action shots

Okay, that’s it.

(They may have tried it already.)

Remember: Huckberry’s content is years in the making

Ecomm brands and retailers reading this (who may be looking to build a content-driven edge): nobody expects you to pull off what Huckberry’s doing out of the gate. They’ve been at multichannel content creation for a decade-plus.

And this sort of strategy likely won’t pay off in the short term. Investing in a YT channel and video content is a long-term strategy.

In other words, Huckberry’s content is aspirational to brands, too, especially as everyone is getting smashed by tariffs. This is what a mature, fully developed content strategy looks like. It is a media business.

Any microstep toward a more developed and integrated content strategy is a win.

‍