How a Milwaukee Ad Agency Outsmarted Hollywood
Being named to Fast Company’s annual list of World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025 doesn’t usually fall to a small ad agency in Wisconsin. But, thanks to the foresight to see a potential hit in a black-and-white, shoestring budget independent, mostly wordless comedy film about a 19th Century beaver trapper taking on angry bands of rodents, Milwaukee agency SRH got some deserved recognition.
Last week, Fast Company named Milwaukee-based ad agency SRH (Sabljak, Ravenwood, Hogerton) to its World’s Most Innovative Companies list. Ranked No.10 in the Film & Television category, SRH now shares the stage with Disney, Pixar, and Netflix.
The indie agency now stands aside its bigger list peers because it produced the black-and-white indie sleeper hit Hundreds of Beavers—a film initially deemed “too difficult to market” by distributors—and taking a bold, unconventional approach to its marketing.
With just a $37K marketing budget, SRH turned Hundreds of Beavers into the hottest indie event of the year. Fast Company called it “a kind of Rocky Horror Picture Show for gen z” and credited SRH’s wild, unconventional campaign—including costumed characters, live stunts, and raucous Q&As—for its breakout success.
“It’s bleak out there for indie filmmakers, and most of their movies go straight to streaming without any chance of breaking through,” said Kurt Ravenwood, head strategist and creative director at SRH. “Everything we do at SRH is about helping under-the-radar brands gain traction, so when traditional distributors balked at putting a black-and-white, dialogue-free indie film in cinemas, we knew we could create the momentum needed to find our audience.”
The agency also landed coverage in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Empire, while fuelling social buzz with viral parody posters, some shared hundreds of thousands of times.
The results? Hundreds of Beavers was named #4 Best Indie Film of 2024 by the LA Times, ranked among the year’s best by The A.V. Club and RogerEbert.com (4/4 rating), and defied industry odds—where only 3% of micro-budget films turn a profit—by fully paying back its investors.
A highly non-traditional approach
Fast Company cited SRH’s bold, non-traditional approach to distributing and marketing for the film. With such a small budget, SRH needed to build a brand from scratch, help get people into the theatres, and maximize awareness to spark word of mouth. In other words, no easy feat.
The effort started with a roadshow throughout the upper Midwest. People in beaver costumes wrestled before the start of the movie, street buzz was created, audience participation was highly encouraged, word of mouth grew, and ticket sales rose. Chaos marketing met fans online, unpolished platform native content was shared many-fold, merchandising built a cult following fanbase, and a holiday push excited Blu-ray fans. Fans, including celebrities like David Cross and Alton Brown, championed the movie on social.
“We approached the film like we do any brand: find something distinctive and then make sure it gets noticed over and over again until it feels familiar and inescapable,” said Matt Sabljak, partner and president of SRH. “That’s how you make a weirdo silent film ‘made by a bunch of nobodies in the Midwest,’ as one journalist said, more alluring to a wide audience—make it seem both totally unique and totally familiar at the same time. That’s our bread and butter with brands.”
The results were beyond what the filmmakers thought could happen. $5.1 million in earned media, 11.7 million organic views, 4.6% blended engagement, and $1.3 million in sales with only a $37,636.19 paid media spend spelled success for the little beaver film that could. IndieWire dubbed the marketing effort "the gold standard of micro-distribution.”
The film, which debuted Jan. 26, 2024, hasn’t left theaters and keeps booking new screenings.
SRH is a Milwaukee-based full-service creative agency that integrates strategy, creative and media, leveraging its proprietary tool, The Cogs of Marketing Effectiveness, to deliver insights into brand health.
Founded in 2014 by Matt Sabljak, Kurt Ravenwood, and Sam Hogerton, SRH has worked with brands including the Green Bay Packers, Harley-Davidson, Sargento Cheese, and Nature’s Way. The agency’s Emmy-winning work with Children’s Wisconsin has raised millions in funding for pediatric mental health.
