Playing the fame game with Hundreds of Beavers.

A Hundreds of Beavers Case Study

“Hits bring money, money bring power, power bring fame, fame change the game.” – Young Thug

We’ve been banging on about brand fame for a while now. There’s a reason for that.

According to the dynamic duo Les Binet & Peter Field, fame campaigns are the most effective drivers of brand effects like mental availability … and business effects like sales, penetration, profitability and market share. 

Fame campaigns are even more effective for smaller brands. They’re also really fun, but that’s not important right now.

So what can fame do for your brand? It’s case study time! And this time it’s one of ours. 

Black and white. No dialogue. No stars. No chance. 

As you may know, SRH produced a ridiculously bonkers indie film called Hundreds of Beavers. Fantastic movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Throw a watch party, invite family, friends and neighbors. Have a blast.

Hundreds of Beavers was one of the darlings of the 2023 international film festival scene. It won a bunch of awards, and everyone seemed to love it. So far, so good. 

But as the festival season drew to a close, we found ourselves without a distribution deal. Distributors told us flat out the film was “too difficult to market.” As marketers, we took that personally. As producers, we had a problem. 

No distribution deal means no theaters and no audience …  and no ticket sales, no merch sales, no Blu-ray release. Hundreds of Beavers would vanish into the ether …  along with any hope of turning a profit.

So we set out to make Hundreds of Beavers famous by turning it into a can’t-miss cultural event through earned media and guerrilla marketing. 

In other words, we had to build Mental and Physical Availability through Category Entry Points (getting together with friends for a laugh) and an emotional and engaging ad/PR campaign with fiendishly effective performance tactics. Fortunately, the movie came with a bunch of Distinctive Brand Assets … hundreds of ‘em. 

With a starting budget of just $25,000, we built a snowball campaign where each phase gained momentum until the film became a certified cult sensation.

Our campaign had to command attention, leverage fame, amplify word of mouth and break into the culture. Oh, and we had to turn a profit.

1. Command Attention — The Great Lakes Road Show

We shoved five filmmakers in a van full of beaver and bunny suits and set off on a whirlwind tour of 15 cities to entertain thousands of fans. 

Using a blitz of on-the-ground guerrilla tactics, local and national PR and in-theater advertising, we sold out 85% of screenings in the Midwest. People loved our film, and they were willing to pay to see it. It got the snowball rolling.

2. Leverage Initial Fame 

Our on-stage shenanigans and PR efforts caught the attention of major critics and top-tier outlets.

Hundreds of Beavers earned glowing coverage in The New York Times, LA Times, Variety, The Washington Post, The Guardian, NPR, AV Club, Filmmaker, Hollywood Reporter and IndieWire, among others.

It was named #4 on the LA Times’ Top 10 Films of 2024, and was featured on multiple “Best of the Year” lists. The AP called it “the future of cinema.” 

And for more than a year, Hundreds of Beavers maintained a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. We have the little trophy in our office to prove it. 

As the buzz spread, independent theaters across the country began booking the film without a distributor, purely from fan demand and earned media.

3. Amplify Word of Mouth to Build Mental Availability

We collaborated with artists on posters and other merch. We sent merch to influencers. Anytime anyone famous said anything nice about the film — Dan Povenmire, Alton Brown, David Cross (nerds love HoB) — you bet we reshared it. 

And we took to social media to engage with hundreds of thousands of fans from around the world. Also, thanks to our brilliant Media Director, we managed to score a free local ad spot during the 2024 Super Bowl.

4. Break into Culture

Through a series of gleefully deranged, lovingly crafted parody posters, rogue costume appearances, and an ever-expanding merch lineup, Hundreds of Beavers evolved into a grassroots phenomenon. 

Fans made their own trailers. Theaters begged for bookings. It became the “gold standard for microdistribution,” according to IndieWire. 

5. Make a Profit

With a $150,000 production budget, Hundreds of Beavers has grossed nearly $2.5 million in merch, downloads, Blu-ray sales and at the box office, returning a tidy little profit to investors. 

The campaign also generated $5.1M in earned media with 11.7M organic views and a 4.6% blended engagement rate.

We didn’t just create a wildly successful campaign, we built a new business model for other indie films to follow. 

The success we built for Hundreds of Beavers caught the attention of Fast Company, which named SRH to their 2025 List of Most Innovative Companies. And we didn’t even apply. 

We took our own Empirical Marketing toolbox and used it to make an “unmarketable film” famous. And with fame came profitability. Also, we’re working on our next film now. 

What does this mean for you?

Experimentation is critical. Not everything we did worked — case studies are a highlight reel — and the real friends were the mistakes we made along the way. 

Ultimately, Marketing (capital “M”, all 4 Ps) drove the success of Hundreds of Beavers. 

We had an “unmarketable” Product with no Place to put it. We navigated all kinds of Pricing with theaters, streaming services and our merch store. We had to get very clever and very scrappy with Promotion. 

So if you’re faced with a big, hairy, intractable business problem (or hundreds of ‘em), give us a call. Not because we made a weird movie famous, but because we can help you take bigger, smarter, more effective swings. Because, as we’ve learned over the past couple of years, safe isn’t.

Sources! 

1. The Long and the Short of It, Les Binet & Peter Field, IPA