Creatives Grab Coffee - Using Humor, Employer Branding, and Client Acquisition (ft. Al Dente Entertainment) #89

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Join us as we sit down with Peter Schels, founder of Al Dente Entertainment, one of Germany's leading video production companies known for injecting humor into corporate videos. In this episode, Peter shares his inspiring journey—from working with major TV networks to starting his own production company, and how embracing humor became his unique niche in the corporate video world.We explore Peter's approach to building genuine client relationships, his strategies for navigating a competitive market, and the surprising importance of awards in boosting both team morale and client trust. Peter also dives deep into the growing trend of employer branding in Germany and shares valuable insights on pitching bold, creative concepts to traditionally conservative corporate clients.Timestamps00:00 - Episode Introduction and Sponsor Messages02:19 - Guest Bio: Peter Schells from Al Dente Entertainment03:30 - Peter’s journey from TV acquisition executive to founding Al Dente Entertainment04:22 - The story behind naming Al Dente Entertainment05:57 - Transitioning from TV production to entrepreneurship07:52 - Challenges of managing business and sales09:42 - Strategies for acquiring new corporate clients14:15 - Modern methods for maintaining client relationships17:46 - Creating viral corporate videos19:57 - Overcoming hardships in video production business21:24 - Growing from solo entrepreneur to a 20-person team23:34 - Building and sustaining a strong creative team27:19 - Humor as a unique niche in corporate video production29:53 - Pitching humorous content to corporate clients32:46 - Creating humor that resonates globally34:26 - Employer branding trends in Germany37:09 - Navigating competitive markets in corporate video40:24 - Pricing strategies and client negotiation43:41 - Benefits of entering video production awards49:02 - Exploring corporate video awards like Cannes49:58 - Reflecting on company legacy and vision52:45 - Episode closing remarks53:45 - Outro and podcast informationSPONSORS:Canada Film Equipment: www.CanadaFilmEquipment.comAudio Process: www.Audioprocess.ca🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vHd8BdbkMQITFZmDJ0bo9🍏 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/creatives-grab-coffee/id1530864140 🎞️Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS – https://www.lapseproductions.comTo learn more about the show, visit: https://www.creativesgrabcoffee.com/

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Okay, hi everyone. We got another episode today, and we got our first guest from Germany. We got Peter Schells from Al Dente Entertainment. Peter, welcome to the show. Nice to meet you. So let's start off with a little bit about how you got into the video industry

along with a little bit about your company. About my own life? Well, how you kind of got into the video industry. We don't have to go back to childhood and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First inspiration. When I was five years old, I saw this movie. No, actually, I studied in Munich, communications, psychology and politics, and around this time, I didn't know exactly what to do.

So I did a lot of internships in different companies most of them and different media companies like advertising a public relation radio stations TV stations stuff like that and in turn out pretty quickly that Making something with moving pictures would be a nice idea And this is it how it started Well, and then I guess when did you start Al Dente Entertainment? I thought it was much later on,

because after my university career, I spent a little time in the US as well, with CBS this morning as the German intern, and afterwards I started to work for a German TV station called RTL Television as an acquisition executive for films and series, especially for American programs. And after that, I changed into the entertainment business and worked as a producer for comedy formats, for game shows and stuff like that.

And eventually I started Al Dente in 2004, so 20 years ago. And Al Dente is a very Italian name, so for a German company it would be called Al Dente. Yeah, well this is more or less a common question. How did you get this name, al dente? Actually, I really don't know exactly how I came up with the idea. I just know I didn't want to give the company's name with my own name, like Peter production, Peter Shales

production, stuff like that. This is kind of hybris. And on the other hand, I didn't want to choose any kind of international sounds like an English typical English name like the moving company, the shooting company, I don't know, or at least not any Maori speech which made me translated success in the morning

or something like that. So since I speak a little Italian and I love Italian food, of course, it turned out to be al dente entertainment. And since al dente means on point and with bite. That is kind of a philosophy and it matched very well with my own way of how I work. It definitely stands out and it is memorable.

I mean, it was funny, because as Dario mentioned, we kind of were thinking, oh, is this an Italian company? It's like, no, no, it's just in Germany. But one thing we were curious about also was like, what made you decide to kind of go off on your own? Cause you were so entrenched in like the TV world and you've had many years experience there.

Like what made you feel like it was time for you to kind of go out on your own? Right, right. That's true. Because I had an opportunity around this time. I developed a lot of formats for television, first for a company I used to work for, and afterwards just on my own.

And I had something which sounded interesting to a decision maker in the big TV station. He said, yeah, we can do that. But you can do it on your own. You're just a single person. You need a company to do that. And so I had to think about how can I now found a company and never did this before and

a long friend of mine a long-term friend of mine who knows very well what to do told me come on we do it together I'm be your partner just in the background and then we have a company. And this is the way it worked. And afterwards I had a company, but no job, because the pitch turned out that another company produced the format, which is the bloody TV business. And so I had a company without any kind of making money.

And for a time, it looked like we have to stop it immediately. And then I just decided to move ahead and to do something which I did 10 years before, like reports from events with celebrities and stuff like that. And so I started slowly to push on and to do a little TV features and stuff like that. And after a while we changed into the corporate world. So what was it like going from, you know, working for another company to starting your own and then having to do, I mean, you are producing, so you're handling business management side, but now you're also adding sales to that.

So what was that process like for you? Well, um, huh, that's a good question. First of all, I think, uh, of course you have always to do something with business in a way I did the acquisition, a TV station, so of course you have to do with contracts, with calculations and stuff like that. But honestly, I'm not a typical economic person. I saw myself always more on the creative side, on the communication side, you can say. And to start acquisition in that business was really new for me. Thank

to God I had already a kind of a network. So the first thing you always do when you start a business, you call the persons you know. And you use the contacts you know. And I did this as well. So I could start with this little tinier things, like I told you before. And when it moved into the corporate world, which happened just by coincidence, to be honest, I had a lot to learn how to do the, around this time, pool acquisition and really to call companies to find out who is the responsible person, who is the decision maker, who is the person you have to talk to, where can you present yourself?

And that was a hard and bloody way. So in terms, so I guess it was a whole new direction for you and everything. Would you say, how did you, how did you, what were some of the things you learned doing that? Like what were some of the things that helped you? Doing the acquisition? Yeah. And just, and just like, again, you're doing, you're doing more sales now. You're acquiring clients on your own.

What were some of the things that helped you become better at that? Well, as a matter of fact, I think it's not about selling. It's more about making contacts. helped you become better at that? Well, as a matter of fact, I think it's not about selling. It's more about making contacts, to get in contact with people, and to build up relationships. And because I didn't start at zero, I had already a background of storytelling, I had a background of entertaining formats, of ideas and stuff like that, so I had a little confidence regarding that. And the most important or the most difficult part was just to step into the door, just to meet a person who is responsible. As soon I did this, it was not that complicated to get into a nice conversation and to give

the other person a feeling of, well, this could be interesting because this is a new approach of telling stories. Yeah. From what it sounds like, you definitely went into it with a lot of experience and already a huge network of people that you already knew. So it wasn't as scary so much that side of it. It was more so just like taking the first initial steps, I guess, for you. But what have you done to kind of maintain more, maintain the relationships over the

years in a way that you know that potentially this could yield some work down the road? Did you do anything differently once you were out on your own versus when you were working at the company? Or what was your approach? Well, I don't know how other people were, to be honest, but I think it's always the same story. Like you said, I had some contacts and you know when you grow up and you're getting into your 30s or a little late 30s You know already a couple of people and people you studied per example with and who made in careers So there are some contacts in certain companies and you can ask the people so what you're doing there Is there a person who is in charge of marketing or of communication and stuff like that? So to to build minor steps into that.

So I think it's not only about having this relationship and keeping it on, but first of all to building it up is much more complicated. Really the first few, the first talk is like always, it's now the same thing, the same story. And we tried a lot of different things to get an approach to the companies. First I thought, well, it's much easier to sell any ideas to the corporate world because in Germany around this time we had maybe 15 or 20 TV stations who might be interested in some content. And I thought, okay, so then I took a closer look into the market and I saw there are at

least 500 companies who made more like 1 billion a year, 500, that's already a number, and 10,000 companies who made more than 50 million a year. So I thought, all right, that's a great market. It's much easier. The problem is nobody knew me. So we started from the beginning, and that's like I told you, we tried everything just with the possibilities we have to step into the market. For example, we made some mailings

about the invitations who looked like really great invitations for a great party. Because I think this is something I don't put into the trash immediately if I think, oh, that might be an invitation. And then we made some funny, funny text on that. Like we had a, how can I call that, a little paper on the so-called invitation

with a reflection so you can see your eyes. And down I wrote, can you still look into your own eyes when it comes to corporate videos and stuff like that so to to make something funny and to to dare something and they like well nice I like how you actually looked at all the companies in Germany and just basically picked all the ones that were above a certain amount of like, you know gross income for the year. That's actually Yeah, that's I've never I've never thought about I don't think a lot of us have thought about then that's pretty funny Carol you wanted to say something. Yeah, I was I was curious like with with With all those different strategies that you did earlier on

It was more so kind of like a lot of those strategies must have worked back then, but I don't know what would work nowadays. Like what have you done to kind of evolve your approach nowadays? Like what do you find that is the modern way to kind of maintain relationships or build new ones that works for you at least? Okay, again these are completely two different things to do. To maintain relationships, of course we have a CRM system, and we look for every contact we have to stay in contact at least twice a year. To give a ring or to make some mailings, to send them something, look, we made this movie, do you like it?

Or even better, to get into personal contact, of course. This is so keeping on the relationships. And regarding new contacts and new acquisitions, we probably, like you, we try everything regarding the whole portfolio of social media. We do a lot on LinkedIn. We do a lot on CEO. We do a lot on search engine advertising as well, just to make at least this funnel fruitful for us. And it's struggling like all the time, but sometimes somebody you catch the fish and then we have another contact.

They just got to be consistent with it because you never know again, like you got to use all the tools at your disposal when it comes to this industry, right? Like you got your SEO, you're advertising on different platforms, keeping up with people posting. You got to use everything because you never know where your future work will come from. That's true. That's true. And the good thing is you can use your own content. Content, I'm sorry. You can use your own content because when you make nice movies or nice films or snippets or whatever, you can post it yourself.

People get interested in your content line and might contact you. When I think back in the last 10 years, I think most of our new clients came by watching some of our contents. They were just interested, who made this? Who was responsible for that. And on the other hand, of course, we put a lot of our money, what we have into our own website that we can be found by keyboard advertising like recruiting video or image film or corporate video or stuff like that. And in Germany, my sense of the name's famous corporate video.

So and sometimes someone finds us and said, all right, you might be interested in for pitch or something like that. Do you find that because you talk about posting content, especially content that you've created, do you find that it's good to treat your own company as if you are a client in a way? Because, you know, with clients, we always tell them, you know, video content's really powerful for you in terms of like, you're really getting yourself out there and whatnot. So have you, have you noticed that it also works for you? Like you guys create a lot of, like not just share stuff that you've done, but like content

created specifically for your company We did both Both ways and we had success with one Little film be produced ten years ago that was Out of a situation when we didn't have any client. So that was really one of the really, really hard hard phases of the year in 2014. And it was funny because in this year was the first time when we won the Deutsche Wirtschaftsfilmpreis. You can translate that into the German Business Film Prize, which is quite a high award.

And we won it in that year. And I was pretty sure now everybody is stepping into our door because we won this prize. We are really on the A list. But we weren't. People didn't react to that. So we felt like the German champions of doing corporate videos without having a client.

And then we said, OK, let's realize something on our own. And then we had the idea of creating a big corporate video with a little, little company, with a one man company, a fruit seller. And we put on the typical text and the typical wordings and phrases, you know, from corporate videos on this little tiny fruit seller. And that turned out to be a real, huge viral success because many German newspapers wrote about this little tiny film mentioning also our company, we won a lot of prizes and awards.

And afterwards, we've been for three years on position number one, page one in Google when you searched for image film. Nice. So that worked very well. You just mentioned like a hardship you had 10 years ago that prompted you to create that film. I'm just wondering like what were some of the other hardships you faced in growing your company to where it is now?

Well, there's so many faces who are really, really difficult. I think everybody knows that who has his own company that it's going up and down. When it is trade going up, who has this experience? I always wonder why. Probably some guys in Silicon Valley who have this experience building up a unicorn and getting rich like hell within a year.

I don't belong to this group. So for us, it's like all these typical waivers you probably know and every every four years something is coming up and then you have the feeling okay now it's getting difficult you have to react to the situation and you you know how to deal with it but at the end of the day you have to believe and what you have done already you know how to deal with it. But at the end of the day, you have to believe in what you have done already, you know that, and you know how the people react to you,

how the customers react to you. You have the references, and this makes you a little bit more self-confident, and that's a harder situation. And then you go through. And the last couple of years was always like that. Suddenly out of nothing there's a tsunami of clients coming up and you don't know how to deal with that because it's already too much.

But of course this is the nicer problem than to find clients. Yeah, when it comes to having a tsunami of clients coming in, there comes a new challenge, which is making sure that you have the right amount of manpower and people that are going to be able to help service all these new clients. Like we noticed that your team is now roughly 18, 20 people in size. Like, how did you go about expanding your team? Like, did you start off with just you and like a couple of people for a few years

or did you, or did it, or was it like a recent thing where you expanded your team? Well, first it was only myself. And after a couple of months, I had the first intern and also a lady who did a little bit for the finances and stuff like that for me. But she appeared maybe twice a week, so I don't count this into employee. And after three years, I had around four employees, something like that four colleagues and after the movie I told

you ten years ago we moved from seven to twelve within a couple of months because we had so many requests from from the industry. Yeah the interesting thing about you is that you're part of like I would say like the outlier of video production companies because to have like over 20 people almost 20 people Is very rare like usually a lot of companies Might be just you know solopreneurs might have a partner like you're all and I or they'll have maybe under five Employees that's kind of what we've seen with a majority of the guests that come on our show, but for you to grow to that size, that's that's really impressive.

I'm just wondering, like, like it's it's easy, I guess, like if the money's coming in, it's easy to hire people, but to keep them and develop the right relationships with your employees and everything is pretty hard. So I'm just wondering, how do you go about maintaining such a big team? Well, treat the people good. I think this is the main thing. It's always about relationship.

And I think modern coworking means to build up an atmosphere of trust. And at least you choose people who are mirroring yourself and your character and your personality a little bit. So for me, some values are really important like humor. Having fun. Don't take yourself too serious. Take your business serious and your work serious, but don't take yourself too serious. I don't like people who are just thinking about how great and how cool they are. This is the most boring thing. I like people with the confidence

of showing up with mistakes and with, you know, I couldn't do that. Openness, transparency, all these, I know these are all buzzwords, but at the end of the day, this is what it counts. It's like a friendship. You choose the people you like. This is the good thing about friendship,

you can choose the people. Your family you can choose, but the friendship you can choose. And also your coworkers. So you always look for talents who might match to the little strategy of your company, who might add some skills who are affordable and make sense at the end of the day.

And on the other hand, much more important, well, I'm repeating myself, is the personality. Who is the person behind that? So what do you find that works well for you to follow up on that? Is it like maybe doing a weekly get together with them, creating passion projects and getting everyone on board with that or helping them, like how do you help them grow essentially within your company and feel

like one strong team? Oh wow, that's a very good question. And I mean it. This is really a very good question. Because at the end of the day, on the one hand, people want projects. They want to develop themselves by projects. So you need the projects who are interesting, who are challenging, who are giving them an opportunity to grow. For example, sometimes we have international productions

in other countries like I told you before. And of course, to shoot, to make a shooting or production, I don't know, in Bulgaria or in Italy or even in the US or in South Africa or in South America is always a kind of a journey, a personal journey, which makes you grow. So of course, people love experiences like that because this makes you better. So this is one side, one aspect.

On the other hand, our people here, they meet at least, I don't know, twice a week to doing some personal stuff. They're many of, most of them are really friends. They go to together in the movie theater. They're making video games or stuff like that or they go, but they do sport together and stuff like that and they have the opportunity to do that as well because we support that And of course sometimes we we party a little bit, of course This is part of the game. I think it's really important nice When we were talking during our pre-interview, you mentioned that your niche as a company is humor, which is funny because for a German company, like the stereotype is very serious

people and everything. No humor. And you told me that you're niche. It really is a niche though if you think about it. Do you want to expand a little bit on that and kind of tell our audience a little bit about how you niched into humor? I can tell you how it came because I think it has a lot to do with my background. Like I told you, I grew up in the entertainment industry with sitcoms I bought for the television, but also in producing comedy shows and stuff like that. So laughing, having fun was already part of my storytelling. And when I get in contact with the corporate video

world, I realized that most of the stuff was really, really boring. I mean really boring. Sometimes produced with a lot of hell of money, but to be honest nobody was watching that because it was not interesting and it was not entertaining at all. There were no emotions. And I don't know how it came but at a very early point already I said, all right, let's make something a storytelling which is maybe humorous, which is funny, and is also supporting your message. And after a while it turned out very well. And meanwhile, there are many companies who are asking you exactly, as exactly for that.

They want really content with humor, content which is entertaining for the people, especially now because social media is so much growing. So of course that works very well. When it comes to suggesting this type of new content to corporate clients, it's very out of the norm for them when they start to hear about these things. Because anyone in our industry is always trying to find different ways to kind of make corporate videos a little bit more engaging, a little bit different. So not as dry as how they typically are.

Uh, and sometimes we find ourselves trying to pitch them on some new ideas and things like that, but then sometimes we're not sometimes, but a lot of the time corporate clients are kind of like, ah, that's a little too risky, or maybe they don't have as much time available to kind of help execute it properly, so they want to go for the safe, simple type content. Like, how do you go about pitching them on these kind of bold, humorous ideas?

Well, I know there's problem, of course. On the other hand, we have one advantage. We have already the references. We can show them some films who worked very well for our companies who ordered that. And they see that and say, I want something like that as well. So that's a big advantage. And on the other hand, well, at one point, we had to start with presenting humorous content and humorous storytelling. And I think when you make a presentation,

it's always very useful to show different ways to getting to the goal and different ways of storytelling. This is what we always do. When we go into a pitch, we show at least three ideas. One is more or less very conventional, conservative, you can call it. I don't know, talking people, they tell something about the story, which is absolutely fine because it's an authentic way and it's nice. And then we can come up with a really funny idea and we present this already with a ready-made script

and with a storyboard, even though they haven't asked for that, we do it. Because nothing is more convincing than conviction. And we tell them the story, and they start already to laugh while we are presenting it, which is a really big thing. And then it makes it easier. And still, you're absolutely right, Kirill. There might be some people who are afraid or not that courageous to present it to the people above them.

But on the other hand, many decision makers are asking for more original and also humorous content. They don't wanna be bored anymore. So I think there's, at least in Europe, I don't know how it is in the US, you can tell me, there's really, the companies found out it makes no sense to transport our communication

in this conservative and fucking boring way because nobody will listen to it. Nobody wants to see it. So they are ready to make it and they are prepared to make it. And there's a lot of humor going on now in the industry. That's good for us. You know, humor is humor in one place and not in the other. So a lot of your companies, I'm assuming,

do business in multiple different places. So the content you create is gonna be shown elsewhere in the world. So how do you determine that your content is gonna be humorous? How do you determine it's gonna be be humorous, you know, how do you, how do you term it's going to be universally humorous? How is it possible that there are Hollywood productions who work everywhere? How is it possible that they are Hollywood production with Ben Stiller?

I know I love Ben Stiller. That's why just comedies worked all around the globe. And really you can call any continent, you can call any continent, you can call any country, it works. Because I think we as human people, we are not that different. Of course, there might be cultural differences. And of course, a person in Brazil,

it might be not laughing about a certain issue. And someone else in Bulgaria, not about this subject or this topic, this is possible. But at the end of the day, I think we have a need for hilarious content and we have a need for feeling nice because it's a kind of a positive energy who is coming up and look at children because we are all grown-up children, right? And children love to laugh. Children laugh much more than adults does. 300 times a day. How much are we laughing? Four times a day? I don't know. So we have that already in our genes and this is what I'm believing in and

when companies come up and say we don't know how the people in China will react on that video, I tell them show it to them. Try it out. If you like it, that's already very awful. Think about it. Produce always a movie you like to see on yourself. It's much more important and it turned out very well till now. yourself. It's much more important and it turned out very well till now. I want to focus a bit more on the market in Germany. You mentioned during our earlier call that employer branding seems to be like a very big trend over there. Do you want to expand a bit on that? Well I think employer branding is nothing more than a buzzword to honest, because I think since at least 20 years, there are already employer branding videos.

Employer branding means the following. The companies are realizing that the best person to transport the own message or the own brand is the employer. The employer is already part of the brand. And if an employer is convinced about the company and about the brand, he transports exactly the values who they want to have to transport it in their communication. So employer branding means that you use employers

maybe in front of the camera who are talking about that, who are showing their faces, who are convinced about that what they do and to have diverse effects. On the other hand, on the one hand, you do it for the recruiting because of course there's someone, I don't know, a guy you do it for the recruiting because of course there's someone, I don't know, a guy, a blue collar working on a machine and he loves to do that. He was there as a trainee or he is there as a trainee. He loved to do and he's talking about the atmosphere, about his colleagues and stuff

like that. This is easy content and the most important part, it's authentic. If it's true, I think it's gold. On the other hand, employer branding works also in the internal side because it's pushing the identity of the coworkers of a company who feel really proud about what they do when they feel, well, he's right. I have the same feelings. So that's more or less the idea behind employer branding.

And you're right. This is really one of the really growing parts of corporate communication. Employer branding is getting more and more important, especially now with social media, because now we have a new development, I don't know how it is in the U.S. or in Canada, with corporate influencers. So you're building up some persons within your company who do their own user-generated content, maybe supported by another company, but you use it for the communication.

Would you say like, with there being such a huge need for this type of corporate content and a lot of companies, they need such a vast different amount of content. How would you say the competitive market is in Germany for you in terms of like when you're pitching to a lot of clients? Because for example here in Toronto, there's hundreds of companies that are not only competing with each other, but also with a lot of ad agencies, which is like a whole ecosystem, another ecosystem. Like is it, would you say it's similar in Germany or are there a few bigger players that are present? Yeah, well I always say in Germany we use competitive markets. We call it high fish backing which means a pool of sharks. But I think regarding the corporate

video production it's a pool of piranhas because there are so many of them. And everybody who can just hold his camera up writes down on his website, I do image videos, for example. So there's much more competition on that. That's absolutely true. So you have to find a way to differentiate you from your competitors, in a way. And humor can be a way, size also. So it's not that bad to have a little bigger company,

because you asked before, how is it to have 20 employees? The companies, we work a lot for industry companies, or for mid-sized companies at least, they realize this gives them kind of a security. Okay, that there's a safe amount of people who will work on my project that might turn out very well. So, but you're right, it's very very competitive and that's why we always look to find niche who are attractive for us, or at least that customers come to us, per example.

I'm talking too much, I'm sorry. But many companies, smaller companies, they are seizing projects in the B2C sector. They're, we want to do something for this, for this food or for this supermarket or I don't know for what, for this car, because that's so close to them. We look always for business to business companies because their business is much more complicated. It's much harder to understand

and they have at the end much more need of communication. So it's harder to go into that and it's more stressful. You do have to do a lot of research and understanding work, but at the end of the day it turns out very well. So there's a lot of competition there from what you're saying. Like, how do you go about navigating that competition? Cause a lot of the times it might come down to pricing and you know, being a bigger company, you have obviously more overhead. So your quotes are gonna be a lot higher.

So how do you overcome that challenge? Well, pricing is always a topic. At the end of the day, make it very easy for us. I never would take over a job where I don't feel comfortable with. And I tell our clients, don't take any offer from us you don't feel comfortable with.

I think a good business is always a business where both parties feel absolutely fine with. So as soon as one side just doesn't feel comfortable, like I said before, it makes no sense because this will go through the whole project. All the time you will think, oh, they don't give up the money we deserve. Or the company thinks, oh, they're taking too much money. That makes no sense. This is not a basic for a good business. I think money is important.

It's absolutely fine to be clear. And taking this under consideration because he asked for example by a pitch which is maybe only based on pricing, we step out immediately because this is not the way we want to convince our people. We convince our clients by the story, by the concept, by that what we wanna do and what we think is the right solution

and not what is the perfect price. So it has to fit together. Nothing else makes sense. Yeah, because it shows where their focus is immediately before you even jump into the project. Like a lot of the time, a lot of really good client projects come in when they have like they want to ask for some ideas,

you pitch some ideas, you're kind of like working on the creative a little bit. And then once you've set on like some kind of vision, then you kind of get into the weeds of what the cost is because then, you know, their focus is more so on the content itself. If the only conversation you're having with elite is, okay, how much is this gonna cost?

Then it's, then you're working backwards at that point. It is a race to the bottom You're working backwards. It's like oh if you only have X Y & Z to invest in the video This is all we can do and then when you come up with an idea based on that budget It's not gonna be as enticing so it's just a lose-lose a lot of the time, but 100% agree 100% agree and the other the other example is that a client comes up who has already a briefing and an idea

and a whole storyboard and stuff like that, which might be not that creative, but you take a look to that and then you see the number they wanna do it with this project. And I say, okay, so you want a Ferrari, but you pay a fiat to to be your hometown Dario so it makes no sense at all it really is my hometown we um I was telling him earlier how like my

grandparents used to live right across from the old factory that they then turned into a mall so good reference with the Fiat one. You know. I used to drive Fiat by the way. Yeah. I live in Vaughan now so I see quite a few of them driving around. Another part of Italy now. You guys, you were showing me a lot of awards when we first chatted. So, and I remember telling you, because you asked if we applied to any award shows and everything.

I said, no, I don't really believe in it. But you were telling me very adamantly, it's very important to do. So talk a little bit about that. Sure. It came up very early. I think after three years, we had our first corporate production, which was quite a nice thing. It was original, and my DOP told me,

hey, you have to put it into an award. And I had no idea. I didn't even know that there are awards about that. So I made some research, and I found out, okay, there's a corporate video award, so I'm gonna participate to that competition. And we won, so that was our first prize. And our customer around that time,

he was totally flattered. He said, oh my, this is great. I never won anything in my life. And now it was really, then I realized, oh my God, this is really pushing them this this is really giving impact to the relationship you have with your clients Kirill you asked before how do you connect with your with your clients and one of the best thing is to get an award for the movie you made for them because they feel really

honored in a way and they get a huge reputation within the company when they show up with an award. This is really something special for them and that's why for my opinion of course is always a kind of a strategy as soon as we make a film which has the potential to win in a certain competition, we send it into that, because it has a lot of positive effects when we win, of course. At least we have to go to the shortlist, because we can communicate that all the time. We do that on social media, look at that, we are on the short list of the Khan Corporate Award, our unboxing videos when we receive the award, when we go to the award show, we make pictures like crazy and we're filming like crazy, and we're inviting our

customers as well to participate, to come with us. So there are a lot of positive effects on that and I really like to do it. It's not that important to win because we won already so much, but to have the feeling. And it's also for, you know, for my co-workers, it's very special. Most of the people are young, really young people between 20 and 25. And they're starting with their career. And they are part of a production who won something, I don't know, at the New York Festival, for example. This is really giving them a great feeling. So there are a lot of positive effects. And that's why I strongly believe into the effect of winning an award.

Yeah, because you're giving them, you're giving not only your team more value, but you're also giving your clients more value further than just simply completing and delivering the project. And I guess one subtle thing that it also does as a huge benefit is that it kind of puts you together as a team in their minds as well a lot a lot more it's like hey we're gonna win this award together it's not like just you as the production

company is winning it or anything like that it's like you're winning it collectively through your collaboration with the client so I can see I could see more value definitely in the awards process for sure but um I guess it just is a matter of like with where do you apply for these, right? Because Dario and I have seen so many different ones over the years and a lot of them request huge payments to submit videos for awards and things like that, which kind of is why we were kind of like stepping back from it. But I guess it's just a matter of like finding ones that work for you. Right. I can recommend for you the U S international award.

Uh, this, this is a, uh, an award who exists now for, I don't know, for 50 years or something like that, and they have a new owner, the owners from Europe. I don't know this guy. And he started with the new one that the relaunch of the award two years ago. It's US International Award is the name. And the amount is affordable to participate in certain categories. So that might be a start as a recommendation.

And I tell you, I tell you for the client, it's not that important which kind of award it is. You know, an award is an award. I don't know, is it the Beijing Crying Monkey Award? I don't know. But at the end of the day, they say, well, we won. We won something.

A jury decided our movie to be among the best. And that's always a signature so I'm sure I'm not really into the competitions in the US we won once at the Houston corporate video film festival I guess there's one you mentioned the cans I didn't even know this was a thing but cans also has like yes exactly Exactly is that kind of corporate video award? great competition and they really Take a look on the website from them and you will see fantastic movies

So this is really inspiring as well to see the winners is really a cool thing about this as well You know, you've been running your company for over 20 years. How did, and again, I had this thought over the weekend in terms of like, what legacy do I wanna keep, wanna develop for our company? Like, what's our vision gonna be long-term? So I guess it's a two-parter question

and we can split it up, but I guess first part would be, do you feel satisfied with the legacy you've created with your company? And then the follow up to that will be like, how do you maintain like a future forward vision for your company being so developed? Well, to be honest, if I were to tell you now I had this plan 20 years ago, or this strategy, this is going to happen, that would be a complete lie. My nose would grow like that. So as a matter of fact, it just happened. Many things just happened. We just went into this business and it turned out to be well.

And we had some success in that. But there was no strategy behind it. After a while, we realized, OK, this is a market. There might be an opportunity. And with the kind of storytelling and the kind of way we treat the people, maybe this might be interesting for the market. I still believe in that.

Right now it has changed because 20 years is quite a while and of course you think about what is going to happen now, what is going to happen next and of course I have some dreams I don't want to call it vision because a vision is much more concrete than a dream of course I would love to have an international network for example a little tiny office in New York or in Vienna or in Paris or stuff like that. That sounds just nice, but it's only a dream. Right now, we have the vision of developing ourselves. But the main vision is for the companies, not for us. That's why I think a good vision is always

a vision which is deserving your clients and not yourself. And our vision is we call it we make companies being friends which is a vision because companies are never friends like that but that's why it's a vision but it shows the way to what we like to do to make companies and brands approachable, human in a way. So this is really guiding us at the North Star, if you want so. And on the other hand, of course, I have the ambition together with my partners and with my co-workers to grow and to develop, because this is maybe the most important thing. Never be free, be in

freeze. You have to go ahead. You have to, something has to move, something has to develop because when you develop yourself, your business develop will develop as well. Nice. I'm good on my end, Karel. Yeah, that's a very powerful note to end it off on. I'm good on my end, Karel. Yeah, that's a very powerful note to end it off on. I guess the biggest takeaway is like, find your North Star and stick to it. That's a good baseline, right? Thank you. Okay. Well, yeah, let's end it off there.

So guys, if you want to find Al Dente Entertainment, I'm looking right here on Instagram. It's at Al Dente Entertainment, which is good that you managed to secure the username on TikTok. You guys are also Al Dente Entertainment. That's good. Sometimes you find some companies like they they missed out on it. So they got to add like another thing to it or whatnot and then website is al dente So i don't have my glasses here dash entertainment.com

And uh, yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show peter. It was a pleasure guys Thanks for listening to this episode of Creative Scrap Coffee. Please make sure to follow and engage with us on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and your favorite podcast app. Creative Scrap Coffee is created by Laps Productions, a video production company based in Toronto, Canada. Creative Scrap Coffee is also sponsored by... My name is Mehran. Welcome to Canada Film Equipment. We are a boutique rental house based in Toronto.

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