- Anthony Potero, the YouTuber known as Anthpo, is launching a new business.
- Potero is the brains behind viral stunts like the Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest.
- Pufferfish, founded by Potero and Talia Schulhof, will work with brands to make viral ads.
No one likes a boring ad.
Anthony Potero, the YouTube creator with 1.9 million subscribers known online by "Anthpo," wants to help brands stand out with a new viral content and stunt marketing company.
A recent brand partnership with cult-favorite footwear brand Crocs became an internet phenomenon and laid the groundwork for Potero's latest venture.
Potero told Business Insider he pitched a handful of ideas to Crocs, and the brand ultimately landed on the "most complicated one" he'd outlined: putting 3D printed Crocs on statues across New York City. Potero would also go undercover, build a character and a narrative, launch an entirely new social media account on Instagram and TikTok, and document the entire process.
The "Kid with Crocs" accounts racked up millions of views and hundreds of thousands of followers.
Potero said that after he revealed that he had been behind the account, his inbox quickly flooded with interest from other brands.
Potero texted Talia Schulhof, whom he had met in 2023 while working for YouTube juggernaut MrBeast, about the influx of inquiries. Schulhof had been working on a popular short-form video talk show called "Hollywood IQ" with the media company Mad Realities, and had previously worked with Potero on a few of his YouTube videos.
The two 24-year-olds teamed up in the summer and are now launching Pufferfish, a new creative marketing company focused on viral stunts that have a cultural impact — both in person and online.
"We have a finger on the pulse of what it takes to go viral," Schulhof said, adding that the pair wants to help brands tap into "the pace at which the internet is moving."
Gen Z whisperers who understand the zeitgeist of online culture are already shaping the future of marketing, from Duolingo's former social media manager Zaria Parvez to firms like Gen Z-led JUV (which rebranded to UTA Next Gen after being acquired by the talent management giant in 2024).
Brands are also recognizing that in an era of content overload, thinking outside the box by literally getting outside is one way to cut through the noise. Think Apple TV's stunt in Grand Central Terminal promoting the latest Severance season, or 2024's barrage of advertising for Charli XCX's Brat album.
"Bringing people together is silly," Potero said. "There's so many little human touchpoints."
The making of a viral stunt
"Kids with Crocs" wasn't Potero's first rodeo with a viral stunt. Remember the Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest that attracted thousands of people, including Chalamet himself? Potero was behind that event. He's also the brains behind a Cheeseball Man stunt where he dressed up in a ski mask and cape, gathered hundreds of people in an NYC park, and ate an entire massive tub of cheeseballs.
The basis of Pufferfish's offerings will be Potero's knack for immersive stunts.
Potero said he wants to teach others the "psychology and the art of it all, and then build a company surrounding it."
The company's team of four, based in an office in Midtown, consists of Potero (the company's chief creative officer), Schulhof (the CEO), and two others, including a strategic advisor. Potero's separate team for his YouTube channel is about seven people, and occasionally, the two teams overlap and share resources, Schulhof said.
"There's not a lot of overhead for running a content company," she said. Paying the production team is the main expense, and the marketing startup is bootstrapped without outside capital.
Targeting six-figure deals, the company is working with brands on bespoke campaigns. They'll incorporate digital content and work with content creators, and often have an IRL component, too.
"We take a blank slate approach, think about what the client needs, what's going on on the internet right now, what people are craving, what people want to connect with lately," Schulhof said. "Then we figure out how we can make a brand new campaign for them."
One of Pufferfish's first campaigns: a set of provocative billboards scattered across Manhattan for the language learning app Airlearn. In giant font, the billboards have translations for words like "kock" — Swedish for chef — or "pussi" — Finnish for bag.
The goal? Make an ad that gets people to stop, take a photo, and share it with a friend or online.
Beyond the billboards, Pufferfish also worked with Airlearn to come up with a puppet character to use in social media content.
Lessons from MrBeast
Potero and Schulhof worked for YouTube's top creator, MrBeast — whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson — on the company's short-form video content team in Greenville, North Carolina, shortly after they had both graduated from college.
If there's one main lesson to take away from it all, Potero said, it's that "there is no secret formula."
Working at MrBeast gave Potero and Schulhof a perspective about how to work in and build a creator-centered company, particularly when it comes to hiring.
Talent in the creator space isn't as cut-and-dried as a beefy résumé. What really matters is being obsessed with online content — and consuming a lot of it.
"That is the criteria for being able to make stuff in this industry," Schulhof said. "It's changing the need for experience."
"The real talented people I'm seeing in the space right now are really good storytellers and are very emotional," Potero said. "Especially in the wake of this AI takeover, being a human and being able to speak to humans is going to be the only value prop we can have, fortunately."
