Today's Guest

Mike Vannelli is the Creative Director at Envy Creative. In his role, Mike leads a production team to film online and TV commercials and explainer videos for brands, products, and businesses. As Mike shares, there is a lot involved in creating the perfect video, and Envy has everything you need for the whole process, including a film studio, actors, filming equipment, and an entire creative team. Hear tips on how small businesses can leverage videos to increase their brand exposure and get their message in front of potential customers.

Resources Shared

• Envy Creative
• Thryv
  

Episode Transcript

(Please excuse grammatical errors due to transcription)

Gordon Henry:

Hey, Hey, this is Gordon Henry at Winning on Main Street, and this week we're lucky to have the Creative Director of Envy, that's E-N-V-Y, Envy, a leading LA-based creative agency with us. Mike Vannelli. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Vannelli:

Happy to be here.

Gordon Henry:

So a little intro on Mike. He started his video career producing music videos for artists like Three 6 Mafia and Machine Gun Kelly we're definitely talking about that. At the time. He did a lot of different styles of videos and commercials to find out what style he liked. Then he started with Envy Creative, again, E-N-V-Y if you look it up. Companies, brands, products, and startups started asking them to make their videos and commercials. From that point forward, he's been making commercials, ads, explainer videos, mostly for businesses, brands tech. They make smaller videos to fit budgets of bootstrap startups.

To date, he's made over 2,000 videos. So a ton of experience all over the map in terms of clients. One of the main reasons clients love working with Envy is because their pricing, timing, and quality, they own all of their equipment that's required for large scale productions, rarely have to rent equipment. That's one of the ways they keep things lower cost. So Mike, welcome to the show. First, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself? How did you get started? You can tell us about Machine Gun Kelly, how'd you get into the creative production business? Just a walk through your impressive background.

Mike Vannelli:

Sure. So yeah, I always knew I wanted to get into the creative industry, especially video. And when I started out, I was doing a lot of just kind of free stuff to get experience. And then I was doing some music videos starting out with just some local artists, and that was basically just so that I could learn the craft and get a handle on how to use the equipment and things like that.

And I did that more and more just for some local artists. A friend of mine started working at Sony and he said that they were looking for a new up and coming director for some of their music videos for their clients or for their artists. And so he brought me in and tried me out, and then I stayed on with them for quite a while, like you said, with Three 6 Mafia and Machine and Kelly and Wiz Khalifa. And so did a lot of music videos for them. And one of the reasons I was doing music videos is because I wanted to get paid for what I was doing. And besides doing major motion pictures or TV, music videos and commercials are kind of a couple of the only mediums where somebody is handing you money saying, "Hey, do this," and you're doing it in return.

So I did that for a while, for years, and then really just wanted to do something a little bit more, not creative necessarily, but just something where I did different stuff every time. And so again, the other side of the coin is to do commercials where somebody's handing you money saying, "Hey, please make this." So started doing commercials again, had to work my way up from the bottom again because I didn't have any commercials in my portfolio. And then it just kind of grew from there. I did a lot more and now I'm with Envy.

Gordon Henry:

Right, sounds good. So talking about Envy, it seems like you guys have an interesting model there. You do everything in house to keep budgets tight, and I assume that allows you to reach a broader slate of customers. You don't have to just work with the big guys. You could also work with smaller clients, right?

Mike Vannelli:

Yeah, exactly. So we did look at a couple other models that other agencies were doing and we saw that they had a smaller office and they would normally outsource for their camera rentals and they would rent locations and they would do custom casting for actors every time. And we saw that and it was kind of just a little too much work on the backend rather than just doing everything upfront. And Envy invested in, we have a 5,200 square foot studio space, and Envy invested in standing sets and equipment and a big prop warehouse. So we just made sure that we had everything in house as well as a roster of actors that we have kind of vetted over time at making sure that they're good in whatever that we put them in. And so with all that together, whenever a client comes and asks for a video or a project, usually our bandwidth is pretty high because we can shoot multiple commercials in one day because we have multiple sets and we have actors we know that'll do a good job and we're not renting the equipment.

So we can normally do multiple shoots in one day and we just have a large bandwidth, but we also do rent equipment and locations and casting if we really need to. We've done that as well. We're no stranger to that.

Gordon Henry:

Right. Flexible. And as I understand, it's not just delivering the digital file to the client, you also do ad campaigns, you manage the [inaudible 00:06:40] or the online campaign.

Mike Vannelli:

So we actually used to do that. What we kind of turned to instead of doing managing the actual ad campaign is we launched a new service that we call a media package. And a lot of agencies that we work with that just do ad campaign management really like that because rather than just doing a one-off video, basically we say that our media package includes a lot of pretty much everything that you would need in either a launch or a rebrand or just to get a bunch of digital content for your brand.

So it includes a commercial, includes that in all the different orientations for all the different socials, as well as how to video for your product page or for your help page, and then photos and gifts and everything else. So that's been really popular. That's kind of what we turn to more of the creative side than the management side.

Gordon Henry:

So if you're a smaller client though, if you have a smaller client, maybe like many of our listeners tend to be local businesses, maybe like a roofer or a dentist or an attorney, local businesses, not necessarily brand names. A lot of them are probably promoting themselves through online videos, Facebook, Instagram, and so forth. That's something you guys have a lot of... I've heard you talk a little bit about promoting yourself that way. So you do create those types of videos and you recommend that kind of usage of the video. You just hand off the video, you give it back to the client, and then they find their own agency.

Mike Vannelli:

Correct. Yeah, that's exactly what we do.

Gordon Henry:

Okay, makes sense. So tell us a little bit about your clients, a couple of big clients and who would be a couple of the smaller clients.

Mike Vannelli:

So couple of the bigger clients we've done, we've done stuff for FIFA. We've done stuff for Dr. Squatch and Warner Brothers games. Recently we did one for McDonald's and Costco. So those are kind of the-

Gordon Henry:

Okay, household names.

Mike Vannelli:

Yeah. Household names. And then-

Gordon Henry:

Yeah, on the other end?

Mike Vannelli:

And then the other end we do a decent amount of drop shipping people. So if they want just user generated content, we'll do that. That's kind of newer. We've just been doing that in the last couple years since TikTok has been really popular. But honestly, there's so many smaller clients that we've done that...

Gordon Henry:

Would they be the local businesses that I was describing, would they be a dentist or an attorney?

Mike Vannelli:

Yeah, yeah. We just finished one it's called BestLawyers.io. And so they're a law firm in LA and then yeah, we do local mom and pop, but our client base is pretty global, so 99% of it is just remote. And so we have a pretty streamlined process. We have creative brief forms that all they have to do is fill it out and it kind of gives us everything that we need to make their video. Even if they're remote, if they want to be in the video, we have kind of like a training video that kind of trains them on the basics of how to record themselves if they want to appear in the video. That's a very rare case because that's kind of what they're paying us for. But yeah, so our client base is pretty global, but we've also done local ones as well.

Gordon Henry:

Okay. Yeah, I was really curious about that. So most of the videos that some local client in, let's say on the East Coast, you're in LA on the East coast would say, "Here's what I want to do." And they fill out the brief. You just do the whole thing at your studio there, production facility in LA, and if they want to be in the video, you can instruct them how to take the videos of themselves and you insert it into the video.

Mike Vannelli:

Yeah, exactly. And we always tell the clients that they can be as involved as they want in the production process. So we've had clients that come to us and they say, "Hey, we have a concept, we have this idea, we have this and this, and then can you do a custom casting and can you send us auditions and can you do this and do that and send us pictures of locations."

So we have that end where clients want to be really involved and they have a very specific vision, but then we have the other end where clients just say, "You guys are the pros. Here's what I need. Send me the script just to make sure this is along our brand guidelines and then just run with it."

Gordon Henry:

Got it. Got it. So let's talk a little bit about fees. If I'm a local business, what should I be thinking, budgeting in my head about what it costs to do something like this? And when I say this, you describe, obviously tv, I don't know, might be more expensive. What does it cost to make these different types of file formats?

Mike Vannelli:

Sure. So we normally say that if you are just looking for a TikTok video, then you're looking probably on the high end of 500 for a video. Now we always tell people like, "Hey, we know that you can go on Instagram or some other platforms and you can probably pay a lot less, but you're paying a UGC content creator. You're not paying a production studio with professional cameras and actors to make it look natural and the experience that comes with that." And we do kind of explain, "Hey, we still make it look like it's a UGC, but we're not using phones. We're using a camera that the actor, we have a little rig that they're holding to make it look like they are, but we're using our professional cameras, we're using our professional lighting and sound and sets, so it's all controlled." So for something like that, say like 500 on the high end, again, we always tell clients also, regardless of what kind of video they're asking for, sky's the limit depending on what they wanted.

Couple years ago, we did one where this guy said, "I really need the main actor to be driving a Lamborghini in the video." And so we said, "No problem, we can do that, but obviously it's not included in our base costs." So yeah, for kind of UGC, it's our more affordable ones because we have kind of limitations where it's 15 seconds only. It includes up to just a couple actors, and we can do those pretty quickly. But then once you get into commercial ads and things like that, we normally say between 1,000 and 2,000 are our base pricing. And then again, it can go up from there. But compared to a lot of the competition that we know that they outsource stuff that's well beneath their standard pricing.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah, no, that sounds pretty reasonable even for a smaller local business, that's really, really good.

So maybe sounds like a very basic question, but I imagine some people may listen and think "Video, that's interesting, but do I really need that? Can't I just make a Google ad or can't I just have refer people to my website? Why do I need to make a video?" Can you address that, why this is so important?

Mike Vannelli:

Sure. Yeah. So video is the highest converting medium online and in general, so like if we're comparing it to other forms of ads, so with text nowadays, not a lot of people want to read. And so if it's going to be text, they might not read the whole thing. Text nowadays is good for how-tos and outlines and things like that, or just general SEO because Google likes to crawl it. But even now Google can transcribe videos so it can see what you're talking about just on the back end.

With audio, audio's still really good. Basically if you're not in a position where you can watch video, so podcasts are really great, or in the car for just listening to if you're not actively looking at a screen. But video still is the best medium for being able to show off a product or brand, being able to engage not only visually but audibly, and then if you have text as well, you're kind of hitting all the senses and it's just the most engaging when it comes to all that. So on the scale of ROI or return on investment, when you invest in a piece of advertising, video definitely is the highest converting.

Gordon Henry:

Right. And certainly if you're trying to build a brand, even a local brand that people in your community will recognize, I would imagine the video just bumps you up in terms of stature that if it's a professional looking video, people take you more seriously. You seem more credible.

Mike Vannelli:

Exactly. Yep.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to just turn for a second to the business side of your business of Envy. I don't know if you were there at the very beginning, but how has the business grown? Was it VC funded? Did the founders put in money? How did you build the business?

Mike Vannelli:

So Envy's bootstrapped, so pretty much Envy started just with a handful of clients and a DSLR camera, and then pretty much no loans are taken out, it's just for listeners that aren't familiar bootstrap just means you make money from the business and then you put that money back into the business.

Gordon Henry:

And as it's grown, that's continued. Now the business is profitable. Is that a fair assumption?

Mike Vannelli:

Yes.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah. And how big, give us a sense of the scale. You mentioned employee, how many employees working there?

Mike Vannelli:

So right now there's 12, so still kind of boutique, but [inaudible 00:17:55]-

Gordon Henry:

Yeah, boutique. And how many, I think I said at the beginning from your sort of boilerplate info you shared with me, about 2000 videos you guys have done. Is that-

Mike Vannelli:

Actually around 4,000.

Gordon Henry:

Okay, so it's grown. So 4,000, and that's over what time span?

Mike Vannelli:

About eight years.

Gordon Henry:

Okay, so that'd be like 500 a year, is that sort of a good round number?

Mike Vannelli:

Pretty much.

Gordon Henry:

Wow, that's a lot of production. Yeah.

Mike Vannelli:

Yeah. Like I said, because of the setup that Envy has, we have a really high bandwidth for knocking out projects.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah. You guys are in the LA area, Simi Valley, if I'm not mistaken, but you work globally, which is cool.

Mike Vannelli:

Correct.

Gordon Henry:

How do these global clients all over the place find you. Is it just, they look up online [inaudible 00:18:48] and they find their way to you? Or do you have some way of promoting yourself to get them to find you?

Mike Vannelli:

Yeah, we advertise ourselves. Because we film video ads, we do have a lot of video ads for Envy, and we promote those on all the different socials. And then when we make videos for clients, we also just tell them like, "Hey, when we deliver a video, we retain the rights to repost it as a work sample."

And so a lot of our traffic just comes from us posting it as a work sample saying, "This is a video we made for a client. If you want one, then feel free to get in touch." And so a lot of people, when they see that, then they say, "Hey, this is a pretty good video." And so they get in touch that way. But yeah, we run ads on all the different socials.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah. Makes sense. Mike, we got to take a quick break. We'll be right back with more from Mike Vanelli from Envy Creative. Don't go anywhere.

Thryv:

This episode of Winning on Main Street is brought to you by Thryv. The small business management platform that you and your customers will love. No matter where you are, thryv helps you run your business, keep organized, and get paid faster. All from one login and dashboard. Thryv makes it easy for customers to find you online, instantly interact and stay engaged. And with free unlimited support 24/7, there really is no comparison. Go to thryv.com/pod for a quick demo to see everything Thryv can do.

Gordon Henry:

And we're back with Mike Vannelli from Envy Creative, really fascinating discussion about where video is at today for small businesses, well as big businesses and how you can build a really great video campaign for as little as $500 a shoot. It's pretty affordable, I would think, for any business that's serious about scaling or building their brand. So Mike, in terms of Envy's path, let's talk about where you're going. What do you see as next for you and Envy Creative? Is this thing going to be, you said 4,000 videos you've done in eight years. Is this going to be double that soon? Where does it go from here?

Mike Vannelli:

Yeah, we're always looking to the future. We're hoping to keep that train going as well. We also have a couple other projects we're looking into. We do understand that some businesses, they like doctor's offices, things like that. They don't necessarily need an ad because they have enough just foot traffic as it is. But we are working on some projects like prerecorded videos for informational, for maybe doctor's offices and things like that to have playing on their TV lobby. So basically kind of customized pre-recorded where they're already pre-recorded with maybe things that people or patients waiting in the waiting room would get some useful information out of while just waiting. But we would just stick in the doctor's office's like name and logo in the video, but for the most part it's prerecorded. So we are trying to reach some other markets where again, they don't necessarily need an ad for their business, but video could also help their customer or their client or their patient experience better when they're just waiting around or in the lobby or something like that. So that's one project we have going on.

We have a couple other things we're looking into, but right now the commercial end of it and the ads is definitely still our bread and butter and going strong.

Gordon Henry:

Yeah. And are you doing multiple languages now? Spanish or whatever as well as English?

Mike Vannelli:

We only do American English. Some of our actors can do decent English related accents like British and Australian. We don't do it in any other languages, but we always tell clients that we can either do subtitles in a different language or we can always just hire other voice actors to dub it in a different language as well. But right now still, still just American English.

Gordon Henry:

Got it. So if you thought about a local business looking to promote themselves using video, what would you say is your biggest tip for someone who's hearing this and just they're going to have one takeaway, what would be your biggest tip for somebody who's thinking about using video as to what they should do next?

Mike Vannelli:

I would just say to get started sooner than later. One thing that we always tell clients, and even internally when we're talking with our team, is that the longer you wait, the longer you have to wait. So if you're saying, "Oh, well I want this video in 30 days," then if you wait another two weeks before you order a video or you get the process started, well now you're waiting 45 days because you waited two weeks to start. So the longer you wait, the longer you have to wait, and the sooner you get started, the sooner you get it.

Gordon Henry:

Where can people find you and learn more about what you're doing and potentially become a client?

Mike Vannelli:

So best way to get in touch is on our website, so it's think thinkenvy.com, so that's T-H-I-N-K-E-N-V-Y.com. And then it's also thinkenvy on all the socials. So Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, just everything, thinkenvy. So you can find us anywhere.

Gordon Henry:

All right. Well, thinkenvy. So Mike, thanks for coming on our show. This has been great and a ton of learning really, and I think very practical information for a lot of our listeners. So really appreciate you being here.

Mike Vannelli:

Yep. Thanks so much for having me.

Gordon Henry:

And I want to thank our producer, Tim Alleman, our coordinators Diette Barnett and Daniel Huddleston. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please tell your colleagues, friends and family to subscribe and we'd really appreciate it. If you'd leave us, a five star review, it helps us in the rankings. Remember, small business runs better on Thryv, get a free demo at thryv.com/pod, P-O-D. That's thryv.com/pod. Until next time, make it a great week.

Listener Reviews