1516 – How Commercials Work Today with Stellar Lense Productions’ Orlando Gomez

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. commercial-free entrepreneur wisdom podcast. Agency owners, consultants, coaches, and B2B service providers, head to upmyinfluence.com slash guest. And I'd love to promote your expertise to our amazing audience. Let's get on with the show.

0:55With us right now is my good friend, Orlando Gomez. Orlando, you are a video strategist and you are found on the web at StellarLensProductions.com. And you are the founder of that company. Orlando, it's great to have you on the show. Yeah, Josh, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat with you again. Yeah. Listen, you've worked with some pretty big companies, Dove. Boy, they do great work. Very, very well known for some of the campaigns that they've done. I was just kind of going through your who's who here, Vivint, Solar, McKinsey & Company. And of course, your IMDB background is pretty extensive as well.

1:43You got the cred. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've been around getting close to 20 years now working in both the film and TV and then the commercial marketing space as well. Yeah, I love it. Um, so yeah, give us an overview of what stellar sense productions is who you work with and, and, uh, when you're brought in and, and, and what, what are the outcomes that you're helping to create? Yeah, absolutely. So on, on the commercial marketing end, um, we really are usually brought in at the very beginning of, of the creative development process for a video campaign. Um, you know, I've always said, I don't, I don't like creating a video for the sake of creating a video.

2:18We want the things that we create to have very specific outcomes and drivers for the business. And so part of our process is trying to understand what those goals are and what type of video we should be creating, what tone and messaging, the language that we should be using. Does it need to be serious? Does it need to be a comedy? Whatever. All those details. And once we figure all that out, then we actually start getting into the script writing process and then take it all the way to, you know, completion. So, yeah, usually we're brought in pretty early in that process to help make sure that that whole flight path is figured out.

3:00Yeah. And so I'm really curious to get your perspective on how commercials work today. So if we're thinking about like a, you know, whether that's a 30 second spot, or I would imagine 30 seconds is kind of that, or 30 or 60 is kind of that standard, right? But I suspect maybe you've done some other, just because of streaming. Now, it doesn't always fit that model. I've seen a lot of like 10 and 15 second commercials. um what are you experiencing in terms of let's start kind of talking about the the format of what a commercial is today or a video commercial today is and then next i want to get into like content because there's big changes i'd say for my observation about what commercials look like today versus what they look like 10 15 years ago oh 100 and that's that's a that's a huge That's a huge load of question to unpack.

3:59But yeah, I mean, first and foremost, it really just depends on where you plan to put it. Where is your audience? Where are you trying to meet people? That's going to be a huge impact on what that video is, the length of the video. You're right. The 30-60 is the traditional broadcast standard. But if you're doing social media, if you're doing streaming, if you're doing YouTube pre-roll, things like that, all of those have very different durations and strategies behind them. Um, the, the big thing in terms of the content though, is we really, really focus on a story driven or a narrative approach, right?

4:36It's, it's not, my mantra is always like, I don't want to talk about how you have the best product, the best service, the best price. You know, everybody says that don't say that you say that you're saying nothing. You're wasting your money. You're wasting your time. Um, we, we are all about creating a human connection with your audience. let them see either see themselves or see what they could be you know see the humanity of who you are and your business those types of things will resonate with people and and at the end of the day it'll cause them to at least pay attention to notice you and then hopefully push them to actually reach out and connect or or you know download something whatever whatever your sales funnel is but because at the end of the day that is the ultimate goal of a good marketing video It's to get people moving to you and into your sales funnel.

5:27And then you got to close the deal from there. But we can at least get people to you with those videos. Do you talk about the various platforms now when we think about long ago, historically, you know, just linear TV and linear video programming versus today. has that impacted content? 100%. So I would say even as short as seven years ago, I would say 95 % of the content we were making was for broadcast. It was all 30 second spots, occasionally a 60 second. And now it's like the other way around. Very few projects that we do are designed for broadcast. So sometimes they'll end up on TV because they can.

6:21We'll repurpose a video or we'll do a cut down or otherwise. But a lot of the stuff that we're creating now is either is meant is meant for digital. It's meant for your social media. They're going to be using them as ads for their landing page and their sales funnels. But going the digital route is definitely the thing we're seeing the most of and our clients seen the most success. And it's a cheaper point of entry, right? Broadcast is expensive. Let's just be honest. And that's just local marketing. I'm not even talking about trying to get beyond a local TV network. Getting into the national level, it's dramatically more expensive.

6:58So with social media and buying ad space and Google ads and things like that, it's a whole lot more affordable. And you have a lot more control of where that's going to be, where those ads are going to be placed where those videos are going to be seen. And then ultimately that will impact the type of content and just how it's leveraged. Yeah. And how do you, what is the creative process? Like when, let's say you're coming in, you're going to have a sit down with a new client, they're selling breath mints. You know, how do you go from, you know, well, our breath mints have retzin in them and uh you know how do you come up with a hook that is going to be memorable entertaining engaging with an audience yeah so we we separate we separate the discovery and the creative development process so so the first meeting that we have is getting to know the company getting to know the brand getting to know what they're about all those things that make them who they are.

8:04And then from there, we use that to inform what we do in the creative. So a lot of times, a lot of times those those very brand specific things don't end up translating, we don't use them, because it's it's too insider, or it's too technical, or it's or otherwise, and it's, you don't want you don't want to confuse your audience, you don't want to make them think more than they have to, you don't, you don't want to, you have very, very few limited seconds of their time to hook them, you don't want to waste that precious time on, you know, the formula of your, your, your product, right? You know, like you said, the toothpaste, like it's, you know, yeah, this patent pending formula, like nobody, nobody cares.

8:44Yeah, right. Genuinely, nobody cares. So, you know, we were all about finding ways to quickly make that human connection, make them laugh, make them cry, make them feel something, we want them to feel something, When the people feel something, they're more prone to act and they're more prone to do what you ask them to do because they're motivated. And I would imagine when you're engaging with a brand and you're thinking about what is, you know, it's more than just creating a 30 second that's going to run and pre-roll on some, you know, streaming show or something like that. You want to think holistically about the whole campaign.

9:25And obviously, now you're coordinating with different departments. What's going to be running on social? What is that user experience? Because obviously, if you create a clever commercial and you're really leaning into a hook that doesn't exist anywhere else in the products, branding, and content, that would seem like a big disconnect for the user. So there's probably bigger marketing or operational considerations, I would imagine. Yeah, so it's a fine line. With us in particular, we're a part of a larger marketing strategy, right? Yeah. And we recognize that. We're not coming in and totally redoing your whole messaging and brand campaign and how you're perceived in all the different platforms that you put yourself out there on.

10:18We're just the video component, the one tool in your tool belt. So it does have to line up with what you're doing as a whole. But we've always found that video kind of gives you a little more leeway. You can kind of get outside of your comfort zone a little bit more outside the box. And honestly, I tend to push our clients in that direction. And the idea being that if the goal is to stand out and the goal is to be seen and the goal is to get people to engage with you, to be remembered and engage with you, then you have to do something that's worth remembering. And so if you're just doing the same safe thing that you've been doing for the last 20 years, and you're saying the same thing that everybody else says in your industry, then why would you stand out?

11:02How would you stand out? And so we do get a little bit of kind of push the envelope and kind of move people away from that comfort zone and generally to great effect. Yeah. Orlando, I know one of the areas that you have some expertise in one of the industries you've done a lot of work with is in solar. What are your observations about the solar industry right now from a marketing and growth perspective? Just anything from the, you know, your observation, because I know you actually with Stellar Solar, you're kind of serving as a CMO as well. Yeah, so Stellar Solar is a family-owned business. And it was really interesting.

11:43Like the reason we got into it is just because we perceive the industry as just being a mess. Lots of - It is, it is. It is a mess. And it's really unfortunate because it really is a no-brainer product that everybody should have if for no other reason than to just reduce your energy bill by 30 % to 50%. But because of bad messaging, bad marketing, people... Door-to-door sales, pushy salespeople. Pushy salespeople saying anything to get the deal. Yeah. My dad and my brother were in solar sales, and they quit because it was a mess. and they saw how they were being taught how to sell it, how their companies were being pushed to sell it.

12:35And so we just wanted to get into like, we're all about just being like, look, we're like your neighbor. We're here, we're local. We wanna help you know the facts. At the end of the day, we are an education company. And if we're not the right fit and you don't go with us, that's fine. At least you will know the truth. And we even tell people like, If you come to us with another proposal and that other proposal, apples to apples is better than ours, we will absolutely tell you, take that. We gave you our best offer up front and we say, this is what it's going to cost. We don't come back with, oh, let's take off$10 ,000.

13:13Where'd that$10 ,000 come from? Well, it was going to go in my pocket, but I'm just going to give it back to you. We don't do that. It's just, yeah, this is great. Anyhow, all that to say, we've really leaned into this whole just being human, the human component. We're real people who really care. And at the end of the day, if we're not the right fit, we're not the right fit. And it works for us. And the amount of trust we have with our customers for as relatively young a company as we are compared to some of the other bigger players in the industry, it's dramatic. And again, it's because of how we talk, how we position ourselves and how we market.

13:54Yeah. Let's say that someone's got a budget and, you know, overall budget, let's say it's like$40 ,000 and they're looking at their options. They're like, well, we could spend 25 on production and have 15 to run ads on. Or do we try to cheap out and get some thrown together for 6K and then have$34 ,000 left for ad spend? What's the pros and cons of going either direction? Yeah, I guess at the end of the day, it just depends. Again, it's what are you trying to do? What do you want to accomplish? And how is the best way to get to that point? So a big thing is knowing your KPIs, right? So how many people do we have to get in front of to get X number of people to call you?

14:46And what's your conversion rate of those calls? And then knowing all of that, what's your goal? Ultimately, at the end of the day, you want to make more money, right? As a business owner, you want to drive revenue. So we start from the revenue. Well, how many calls do you, how many deals you have to make to get that revenue? This number of deals. Well, how many calls you have to get to make that many deals of this number? And so you work it back and then we can kind of figure out, okay, so is it better to have something that's really engaging, that's going to get people's attention, get them to get in touch with you.

15:18And then you worry about your closer from there. Or is it one of those things where we really need to put this in front of a ton of people because you need massive volume. And so, yeah, maybe it's better to spend a little less on your production, but put it out in front of a lot more people because you need to have a higher volume of calls to meet your goals. It just kind of depends. And a lot of that has to do too with the, I guess, the value of the product, right? So if you're selling a$20 item, in order to meet your sales goals, you probably need to get in front of quite a lot of people. You probably need to sell thousands and thousands and thousands of product to make that valuable and make that, get an ROI on that video.

16:02But if you're selling, if your service or your product is a$10 ,000 item, a$20 ,000 item, well, you don't need as many people. So now we can focus on making something that's compelling, something that really elevates your brand and the value of your brand. That's a whole other thing. The perception of your company, the perception of your value is going to be directly tied to what people are willing to spend with you. And that comes through a lot in your production value. If your video looks cheap, people are going to assume you're cheap. And And if that doesn't line up with the dollar amount you're charging, you're not going to get the deal.

16:34Yeah. When somebody works with a video strategist, well, let me ask you this. Let's say that they're having a conversation. How would they be able to vet a video production company? Well, like if they're looking at producing some good original, high quality original content, what questions would you say? yeah, make sure you ask these questions. And if they don't pan out, come talk to me. Yeah, totally. So a lot of a couple of things, obviously, one, look, look at their body of work, you know, you have to like what they produce. And if, if, if what you're envisioning what you're wanting, you don't see that in their work, that that's already, you know, an indicator that probably not the right fit.

17:21Not necessarily the case, but it's a good, good starting point. But But you really should be looking for things like story points. How do they describe the work? If all they're talking about is your camera angles and the gear they're using and how nice it's going to look, that doesn't matter. The flash is insignificant these days. Everything looks great. Technology is fantastic. It's easy, accessible. You need to know that you're working with somebody who understands the psychology of video marketing, how things translate to screen. You need to make sure that they understand storytelling and how to do proper storytelling in a very short period of time.

18:04If you're doing a 30-second spot, that's a very small amount of time to set up a problem, present a solution, and show an outcome in 30 seconds. That's hard. You need to make sure that they're well-equipped

18:22in that department. And then just make sure that they're communicative, that they communicate with you well, that they're on the ball, and that you just have a good rapport with them, and that there's a professional nature to it. Video can also, like Solar, have a bad reputation of just a couple guys with great cameras and just run and gun and just, they're just going to go out there and do what they're going to do. And they don't really care. But yeah, at the end of the day, I always come back to a story. I had, I had a meeting with, I had a meeting with a, with a client that was, they were, they were looking to spend a hundred thousand dollars on an ad just in production.

19:04They were a huge company in California in the tourism and, and, and leisure industry. And when we met with him, it was interesting because they actually gave us their, their, their budget up front. And we started, we came with them in this presentation. We had this whole like concept of like what we want to do and how, how we would do it and the kind of the story behind it. And in the meeting, our first meeting with him, they said, you know, it's really funny that you keep talking about this whole, this whole story dynamic. You're literally the only company we've talked to that's mentioned story.

19:37And it blew my mind. Yeah. You know, because all it's easy. When you start thinking of big dollars and big numbers, people started being like oh well we can go here and we can shoot this and this is going to look great and and then we can we can get this kind of gear and we can get these kinds of cool shots and and you forget about the end of the day it's the story the story is what's going to get people to call the story is going to get people to move not um you know yeah we should we shoot on red cams yeah we have you know really sophisticated aerial drones and all this cool gear but it doesn't matter those are just tools if the video is going to work it's got to have a good story and that's what's going to convert all right lastly what's lou diamond phillips like in person lou diamond phillips was cool he was it was an awesome guy to work with he was so chill um after after the production he came back to the office he hung out with all with all the staff our crew and and the cast he took photos with everybody oh that's cool like he was goofing around yeah no he was totally totally awesome guy and what was was such a trip about working with him is he's such a great actor like I was giving some what I felt were very, very nuanced direction.

20:46And he would be like, oh, no, I think I get you. You want to do this, this, that. Wow. Yeah, do that. And then he absolutely nailed it. Wow. The nuance was incredible. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. I can't say enough about the guy. Awesome, dude. Orlando, your website, StellarLensProductions.com. When somebody goes there, what would you recommend they do? Just start digging in. We recently updated it, added a bunch of content on the page. I used to keep it very minimal. Now we have like, you know, explored your heart's content. We sorted it by category so you can dive into different types of videos that we do.

21:24And then, yeah, and then what I would say also to, so we are, if you're interested at all in video production, we are actually offering a free video marketing assessment. Basically, it's a strategy session. So if you go to StellarLensProductions.com strategy, you could fill out the form there, set up a time to meet with us. And then we basically will do what we typically do with a new onboarding client and figure out who you are, what you're about, and kind of give you advice on where you should be going with your video marketing. Again, you don't have to use us. That's the information that we recommend to you based on our expertise.

22:02But if you do choose to go with us, we'll take$1 ,000 off of your service. Very cool. Orlando J. Gomez, video strategy expert, creative director with Stellar Lens Productions, of which you're also the founder. Again, the website is Stellar Lens Productions. And Lens is L-E-N-S-E Productions. So, again, just click around. If you're listening to this in a podcast app, click on the show notes. We got a direct link so you can connect with Orlando for the strategy. session. Orlando, awesome. Thank you so much for the conversation. Good to see you again. Good to chat. And thanks for being a guest. Likewise.

22:39Thank you very much.

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