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Scaling Food Brands With Story-Driven Video With Mitchel Dumlao

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Mitchel Dumlao

Mitchel Dumlao is the Founder and Executive Producer at Creative Haven, a video production and creative agency that helps brands grow through strategic, story-driven content. With more than 20 years of experience in film, content creation, and marketing, Mitchel has worked with brands including HBO, Sony, Spotify, and Colgate. Earlier in his career, he represented 40 clients across TV, film, animation, and comic books. Today, he helps food, beverage, and CPG companies build awareness and drive growth through strategic video content.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • [1:54] Mitchel Dumlao’s early entrepreneurial journey and the lessons that shaped his approach to business
  • [6:30] Turning a side YouTube channel into a profitable business
  • [10:00] How Mitchel approaches remote production, creative collaboration, and building strong teams
  • [14:47] What brands should consider when deciding which messages and content formats to prioritize
  • [18:50] Why strong hooks and ongoing testing matter for improving video performance
  • [26:32] Finding the right balance between authentic, lower-budget content and polished brand creative
  • [32:36] How Mitchel turns one production day into content for multiple platforms
  • [45:29] Why brands shouldn’t assume every creative professional also understands marketing strategy

In this episode…

Great video content can do more than make a food brand look polished. When it is built around the right story, audience, and message, it can support brand awareness, customer engagement, and long-term growth. So what does it take to turn food and beverage video marketing into a strategy that actually performs?

Mitchel Dumlao, a video production and content strategy expert with more than 20 years of experience, says it starts with understanding what your audience actually responds to. Brands should research their ideal customer, focus on the product benefits and pain points that matter most, test different hooks and formats, and use performance data to guide future creative. Mitchel also recommends mixing authentic content like UGC and founder videos with more polished brand storytelling, while planning shoots to create content for multiple channels at once. The result is a more efficient video strategy that helps food and beverage brands create content with a clear purpose behind it.

In this episode of The Missing Ingredient, CJ Bruce talks with Mitchel Dumlao, Founder and Executive Producer at Creative Haven, about scaling food brands with story-driven video. Mitchel shares how to create stronger hooks, balance authentic and polished content, and get more value from every shoot. He also discusses AI tools and building creative teams that understand marketing.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

  • “I think nowadays being genuine with your ads is very important.”
  • “They’re very proactive, and they know how to work with clients, and that’s what’s important to me.”
  • “How can we subtly put in the logo so it’s not in your face all the time?”
  • “You want to define who you are by how you put yourself out there.”
  • “Getting a team that has the marketing know-how and then also the creative expertise, it’s very unique.”

Action Steps:

  1. Research your ideal customer before creating content: Understanding what your audience watches, responds to, and cares about helps brands identify stronger hooks and messages that convert.
  2. Test multiple hooks instead of relying on one concept: Experimenting with different visual, verbal, and text-based hooks gives brands real performance data to guide future creative decisions.
  3. Show the product naturally in action: Integrating the product into authentic situations can build recognition without overwhelming viewers with logos or overly promotional branding.
  4. Multiply content from every production day: Planning shoots around multiple platforms, formats, and teams allows brands to create more useful assets from the same time and location.
  5. Combine creative expertise with marketing knowledge: Strong content requires people who understand both storytelling and performance, because not every creative is a marketer and not every marketer is a creator.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is sponsored by The Missing Ingredient, a food and beverage marketing agency that believes a better future starts with food. They partner with purpose-driven brands to drive growth through smart, results-focused marketing — without the “set it and forget it” approach. 

From brand awareness and paid media to content, influencer partnerships, and loyalty programs, they act as true strategic partners invested in your long-term success. 

To learn more about how they help food and beverage brands grow with impact, visit themissingingredient.com today.

Powered by Rise25 Podcast Production Company

Where to go next

Mitchel covers building content around the ideal customer and crafting hooks that stop the scroll. If that is the work in front of you, our team handles user-generated content and social media marketing for food and beverage brands.

Related episodes:

Full Transcript

Introduction and Guest Background

Intro: 00:01

Welcome to The Missing Ingredient podcast with CJ Bruce, where food and beverage founders, operators and experts share the real strategies behind building successful brands. Let’s jump into today’s show.

CJ Bruce: 00:15

Hey, I’m CJ Bruce and welcome to the show. This is the podcast where founders and leaders of high impact food and beverage brands who are serious about scaling. Each episode, I sit down with the people who power the food and beverage industry, brand operators, agencies, vendors, creators, and retailers to uncomplicate the strategies that take brands from early traction to serious scale.

This episode is sponsored by The Missing Ingredient, a food and beverage marketing agency with over a decade in the industry. We take a different approach, starting with your business goals, looking at the full picture and building a marketing strategy that actually ties back to growth from content and performance marketing, to influencer partnerships and AI powered workflows where an extension of your team, not just another vendor. Learn more at themissingingredient.com. 

Now for today’s guest. Mitchel Dumlao is the Founder of Creative Haven, a video production and content strategy agency that helps brands grow through high performing, story driven content. With over 20 years of experience in film, digital marketing, and social media, he’s worked with global brands like HBO, Sony, Spotify, and Colgate to create content that drives real business results. Today, he specializes in helping food and beverage and CPG companies scale their brands through strategic video that converts attention into revenue. Welcome to the show, Mitchel.

Mitchel Dumlao: 01:27

Thanks for having me, CJ. I appreciate you inviting me.

From Teenage DJ to Entrepreneur

CJ Bruce: 01:30

Yeah. It’s so great to have you here. So we’re going to jump way into the past. And we’re going to go to your DJ roots. So this is again correct any of the research as I pull it in.

But I read that at 15 you borrowed money from your mom to start a DJ for DJ equipment to start a mobile DJ business. And just, you know, and you produce and you still produce music. If I understand that I do.

Mitchel Dumlao: 01:54

I love that you dug into that. Yeah. That’s like the beginning of my entrepreneurial background and journey. My. I was always a big fan of music when I was young.

And also hip hop culture. And I saw a DJ at a dance a just a high school dance party. And I thought it was a cool thing that he was doing. Everybody was having fun and he was playing music, that music that I loved. And so I started learning with VHS tapes, kind of dating myself here. 

 And this is in California. So it was a lot of house parties. And I told my mom that, you know, I wanted to borrow some money so I can start a DJ business. And then she thought she was never going to get that money back. But I actually took that money, bought some technique, 1200, some big, you know, pretty nice turntables, some records. 

 And my friends and I, we created a DJ crew and we started DJing high school parties, bar mitzvahs, Quinceaneras weddings. And I pay my mom back. It might have been $1,000, maybe 750. It was $1,000 because those turntables were expensive. And I paid her back. 

 And she always tells that story because it is kind of the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. And it really helped me with sales, that those were the days where I was so passionate about what I was doing. It was easier for me to sell what I was doing. And so I learned a lot about sales, a lot about marketing, a lot about customer service, and also creating a great product.

From Hollywood to Digital Content

CJ Bruce: 03:35

That’s awesome. I love it. So moving ahead a little bit into your, your Hollywood background, which actually we should, we share this in common of being, you know, surviving Hollywood alumni. So you, you know, and touch on an intro like you had, you know, very traditional Hollywood, traditional media, you know, those lines are getting blurred now. So you can talk a little bit about that transition from, you know, working in those types of environments into more digital forward and the CPG brands.

Mitchel Dumlao: 04:04

Yeah, I so in high school, I loved filmmaking. I love movies. My mom and dad used to take my brothers and I to the local VHS store, and we used to get VHS tapes and watch movies as a family. And I think that really stuck with me. And filmmaking, to me is a great way to bring people together.

And so I decided to major in film studies at UC Santa Barbara. And when I was there, we learned a lot about theory, but not really the production side or the business side of Hollywood. So when I graduated, I didn’t know what to do in Hollywood. I thought you just took your reel and you just shipped it around and shopped it around and pitched yourself and you got a directing gig. And, and that was that. 

 But I quickly found out that wasn’t the way to do it. So I ended up interning at The Weinstein Company and then Miramax. And then I started working for an executive who started his own company. He had a first look deal at focus. Focus pictures. 

 And I was a an assistant producer’s assistant. And this is where I learned a lot about the Hollywood system and the business of Hollywood, developing scripts, finding writers and directors, managing clients, trying to find out what was the trending scripts out there, what were the studios buying? And so I turned into sales. Once again, I just keep going into sales. So my whole, my, my, as an assistant, as an assistant, I think a lot of people out there know about this. 

 I just try to help my, my boss keep his schedule intact, get a lot of meetings, find new projects so he could pitch it to the studio. After that I started, I went to another job, became a another assistant, and I got promoted to become a literary manager and an executive creative executive, and I managed 40 clients in animation, feature films, TV and comic books. So I was taking a lot of the ideas that my clients had, developing them, packaging them at agencies, pitching them to studios or TV shows, trying to get my clients staffed on shows, showrunners selling shows. And I was all over the place. It was really a interesting experience. 

 I learned a lot about the way the, the way the, the art of the art of schmoozing, going around Hollywood, having drinks at night. I mean, people drinking whiskey in the middle of the day and having to come back to work just the Hollywood way. And it was a fun time. I was going around, I was traveling around the world, went to Cannes and went to Sundance and went to all these different film festivals to find clients, to find writers and directors to work with, and projects. But it got a little too stressful for me, and it was very toxic. 

 It wasn’t really the way I wanted to live. The Hollywood dream and the filmmaking dream and so on this side, I actually started a YouTube channel with my friends, and it was a channel that documented breakdancing again, big hip hop fan. That’s just my childhood. And then when I created this channel with my friends, we grew it to a point where, you know, we were a big channel and I was making more money at from that channel than and also with some video production gigs. Then my full time job, you know, and I realized, I think I would rather just quit and, you know, pursue my own business. 

 And that’s when I started working with a lot of brands to promote on my channel. And then that turned into working with brands to help them promote themselves on YouTube. This is back in the day where YouTube wasn’t as big as it was now. People really were skeptical about social media, about marketing on YouTube. And if it was even a pathway for a lot of brands to even post content that will get any conversions. 

 It was really just the Wild West. And so my job was to show people, you know, that you can post YouTube videos, different types of YouTube videos, and then turn into Instagram and then TikTok. And now here we are where I work with food and beverage companies really help them grow their companies and their brands through social media content, branded content, digital content and video.

CJ Bruce: 08:24

Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. We have I didn’t realize how many parallels we have in those early days because I went, I was in, yeah, I was in visual effects on the production side and then went into YouTube marketing as well. We were doing like YouTube SEO and viral video, really marketing and the yeah, like the, you know, late 2000, basically 2007, eight nine.

Mitchel Dumlao: 08:46

Were you a VFX artist?

CJ Bruce: 08:48

I was VFX assistant, so I was working, so I worked with artists and then I worked with the VFX supervisor. And so I basically did all the rough comps. So it was like the first stuff where like, we have an idea, like you kind of cobble this together and see if it would, if it would work, you know? And then I was like, if it worked ish in that environment, then it would go on to the proper artist to do that.

Mitchel Dumlao: 09:07

That would be before After Effects. Yeah.

Building Trust in Remote Video Production

CJ Bruce: 09:09

Right at the beginning of After Effects. Yeah. It was beginning After Effects and like the artist on the project was, you know, writing his own plugins and things. And it was, yeah, early, early days, but it was, it was fun. But then same thing got burned out, needed more work life balance, needed to work on projects that I was more passionate about.

Yeah. That’s cool. So moving into today, so you’re, you know, you’re obviously doing, like you said, a lot of content, creative content and production. And I think one of the interesting things that, you know, that you do is remote production. I mean, we’ve worked on projects together, I should say that we, you know, we work on the Sumo Citrus recipe content, which is awesome. 

 Did an awesome job there. And so I’m curious how, you know, how do you approach remote production, you know, with clients and building trust there. And, you know, obviously being on set and being able to see what’s happening is very different than, you know, when you’re working remotely. So how do you approach that?

Mitchel Dumlao: 10:00

So yeah, my, so my background, I know that I went to film school, then I started working in Hollywood. I wasn’t really a production person. I didn’t know how to use a camera. I didn’t know how to direct on set. I just didn’t know production.

So when I quit and had my production company and my YouTube channel, that’s when I had to learn production and I had to buy a camera, buy lenses, buy lights, buy microphones, and then really just create videos for brands by myself and then with crews. And why that’s very important is that I know the technical language of being in a production team and being on set, and also from soup to nuts, going from pre-production, even selling a video package and creating a pitch deck, and then creating a proposal and then a scope of work contract, and then going into pre-production, doing a location scout and storyboarding and then production design, and then going into and scripting and then going into production, and then everything that happens on production from directing and sound mixing, sound recording, lighting, and the producing side of that. And then there’s post-production editing and sound mixing and color correction. So knowing that whole pipeline allows me to find the right contractors and talent to staff on projects. And so when I work with clients remotely and I have to shoot something in New York, I have the experience and, and the taste and kind of the eye to hire the right talent and also talk with them and make sure that they’re the type of person that I would want to work to and I can trust. 

 So one thing I’ve learned, I think a lot of producers know this is that you can have the most talented person in the world, but they could be a complete asshole. It could also be flaky and it can be unreliable. And sometimes you can work with someone who is complete opposite. They’re not necessarily have, you know, a Cannes award winning ad or had a film in Sundance that won awards, but they have the technical expertise. They have a solid reel, and they are just very present on phone calls. 

 They’re very proactive and they know how to work with clients, and that’s what’s important to me. So that’s how I like to work with my remote teams, is that I have to build trust with the contractors, with the videographers, the editors, and everyone I work remotely. I have to build that trust first. I know it can be hit or miss. I have had very disastrous situations. 

 I’ve also had very fruitful relationships that have come out of production, remote productions. And I can always work with those people. And so when I do work with clients remotely, it always comes down to the creative brief and always and always the it’s the, the creative vision, the deliverables, the timeline, the deadlines, the goals, and then anything that goes that comes in between with scheduling. And once that’s really figured out from my end, I just, I’m like a mercenary. I’m just going to execute. 

 And when I execute, I want to have the best team around me because you’re your product, especially with, with video, it really dependent on your on a team. I’ve done things all by myself and it’s not great for my mental health and it’s also sloppy. I mean, I, you need a third person and fourth person, fifth person to look at the final product and tell you to remove something or edit something. And also you need different types of talent and creative input so that the final deliverable has multiple creative genius behind it. And I think that’s what would make a video from from Creative Haven. 

 So specialist, because I really do work with a lot of creative, really talented, creative people who I trust when we come in together, that their input and their opinions and their tastes will all mesh together to create a really great product. That’s how I like to work remotely, really. It’s just finding the right team.

Creating Content Around the Ideal Customer

CJ Bruce: 14:08

Yeah. That’s great. And it’s yeah, you said can’t do it alone and you get the right people, you know, in the group and get good feedback and, you know, all that leads to better end product. I think that’s a great insight. So moving into some specifics on, on content.

So when you know a brand, oftentimes when we face those brands come to us and they’ve got, you know, our product has these ten benefits or there’s all these great things about it. And so when you’re thinking about, you know, obviously you can’t communicate all of that in one video, let alone even a series of videos. So how do you help brands like prioritize? What are the right things to communicate and how does that then come to life in video content.

Mitchel Dumlao: 14:47

Yeah. So I do a lot of research online and a lot of it is competitor research and trending research. So it’s finding what the platforms they want to upload to, what are they, what are they posting? Is it YouTube? Is it TikTok?

Is it Instagram? And then figuring out what in their vertical, what is trending at that moment? Is it UGC content? Is it recipe videos or is it testimonials and case studies? And when I start looking at these videos and I start seeing a lot of the trending topics, you know, I do a lot of research online and yes, I do use AI, which we’ll talk about later, but it’s just more of a thinking buddy. 

 And so when we get to that point, I really just look at the different types of features and benefits that the brand has, and then also their target audience and their ICP, what is their ICP truly Really to engage with online because you can have multiple features and benefits, but sometimes only one really works with a certain ICP, and it’s finding out what that hook is, what those pain points are, what those solutions are. It really helps the content convert because you can have a beautiful, flashy video. I think we all know this now nowadays because with Super Bowl ads, I think it’s more about just the prestige of being a Super Bowl ad than conversions. You can get a better conversion with UGC video or with a behind the scenes look into how the product is made, or a cell phone video at an event and somebody giving a live testimonial. It’s really all about what the target audience and ICP really want and what they really respond to, and that takes a lot of research and also looking at past performance. 

 So if the brand is already established, we can work with our marketing team to figure out what has been successful in the past with your brand. And that can actually be on all different channels on newsletters. It could be on online, on certain landing pages. Well, what have you found on certain language has been very helpful. What ad copy have you used before has been converted high converting for you? 

 And how can we translate that into video? And video is very interesting nowadays because it’s just ubiquitous, ubiquitous with a lot of people’s social media consumption. So you really have to work on that hook. And the hook is so important nowadays that the first five seconds, three seconds, two seconds have to be so engaging. And that engaging hook can be either a visual hook or a verbal hook, an audio hook and the audio hook. 

 I’ve, I’ve, I like watching YouTube ads. I don’t actually turn off the ad blocker because it’s just a great resource for me. And I’ve seen some great ones out there and they, they hook me. I’ve, I’ve actually had a lot of Instagram ads shown to me for months and then finally hooked me. And I realized why. 

 And it’s because I just as an ICP for them, that very moment, I saw an ad that really I responded to. And that’s the same way that you have to think about it, is that how can your how does your ICP scroll? What’s their doom scroll? You know, you know, watch list. What are they watching? 

 What are they, what are they, what are they looking at? And that’s kind of very important when you think about content and creating content.

Crafting Hooks That Stop the Scroll

CJ Bruce: 18:15

Love it. Yeah. So the people who don’t know ICP is ideal customer profile. So really like all the details about, you know, who is this person who you want to buy your product. There’s a few threads that you just brought in that I want to, I want to pick up on, I think, right?

Because we ended on it. Let’s go straight into hooks. So I want to dig double click on that a little bit. Like as you’re thinking about hooks are there, you know, are there patterns that you see that work or is it really you’re coming up with different hooks every time and maybe even going dig a little bit into that, like, you know, audio versus, you know, video hooks or I mean, how do you hook people in those first few seconds?

Mitchel Dumlao: 18:50

Yeah, I mean, I, I’ll tell you about just some of the ads that hooked me. Sometimes it’s a very disruptive statement. Like I just fired my agency and someone and then they say, what? Oh, the reason why. Why is that?

Oh yeah, because I do everything now with with this AI product or. You don’t have to pay us anything. We’re going to guarantee you’re going to get $1 million in sales. Right now when you watch this video, you know, those are, I can say sometimes that those are like clickbait ish, but if those products and those brands can really stand by that content or that or that statement, then I feel like it’s very, it’s just almost overexaggerated. It’s just a, you know, a much more prettied up A statement on what they can provide, and I. 

 I honestly feel that hooks. There’s different types of hooks. There’s the question hook of like, you know, how do you feel about are you still working out every single day hoping to lose weight? This new product was great because it helped me lose weight in two days, stuff like that. I think like the question hook is very important because it’s an open loop, disrupting statements like you don’t need to, you don’t need to eat fruit to lose weight. 

 You can or you can eat. I ate pizza 30 for 30 days and I still gained £20 of muscle. And it’s because I took the supplement with it. So like just disrupting statements, questions. And then when it comes to the visual, a lot of the visual stuff that I’ve seen lately, you know, you could just be like dumb things of things on fire or a really cool On gadget like if you see a product on TikTok that looks like it has string, it’s a piece of string coming out of the wrist like you’re a Spider-Man and you’re like, wow, that looks pretty cool. 

 And sometimes this the. I would say just displaying the product in full form is a great way to hook people. I think that I’ve also seen a lot, a lot of Asmr hooks on TikTok that get me, to be honest, a little power washing videos, cleaning products, this this is what I’ve seen is I’m gonna give you my own reactions. But these are also like viral products are getting huge because I think they know again, they know their ICP, they know what will hook them. And it’s also a lot of trial and error. 

 This is not just one ad for one campaign. They’re they’re doing a ten, 20, 30 hooks sometimes. And I think now, because of using Figma or even some AI products, or even with like CapCut Opus, you’re able to create hooks instantly and like 20 or 30 hooks throw it out there in a campaign. And I also, I’ve done this before where you just put black text on a white background. And then these can be several hooks, just text hooks, and you can just test that on meta and then see what will actually get the most clicks, most conversions. 

 And you realize, okay, that’s just text on white, on white. Let me test that out with a visual. Let me test that out with actual full design graphics. Let me try this with audio. And so I’m, again, I think that hooks depend on your ICP. 

 And I think there’s a lot of trial and error. And you had to try a lot, 30 days or 15 days however you want to, how much budget you want to put behind it, and then use that data to actually influence what you want to do.

Integrating Branding Without Losing Attention

CJ Bruce: 22:36

That’s awesome. Yeah, a lot, a lot of great nuggets in there. Another question in this is balancing is something we run into, right? A brand wants to have their logo or their product like early on in the video, because everybody skips the, you know, skips the beginning of the video. So how do you, you know, maybe it just comes out in the data like you’re saying, but how do you, how do you, you know, educate brands about, you know, where and when, like their branding and brand actually, or products are actually showing up in the video.

Mitchel Dumlao: 23:01

Yeah. I remember there was a time when the intro card, a lot of brands wanted to have their title card with their branded logo, their logo and their, and their, the name of the, the name of the video was what people were going to see. And then you start seeing the retention kind of fall off. Everybody stops watching when there’s a lot of text on screen in the very beginning. With a, with no video or no face or nothing going on.

And so it just comes back to data. I think it’s just showing brands what the trends are and what the data is out there about how people consume videos nowadays and with branding and logo usage, it all comes down to. Subtleness I think. How can we subtly put in the logo so it’s not in your face all the time? I know that brand awareness and brand recognition and recall is very important. 

 You want someone to look at a logo and then remember that logo. So they went, they go to a store, they see it on the shelf. They buy that. There’s a lot of ways to put the product into the video that doesn’t necessarily have a graphic logo. If it’s a again, UGC video or just a day in the life video, it’s somebody taking it out of a fridge in Costco, picking, using a hand, picking it out of the of the shelf and then bringing it home. 

 Unboxing. We don’t need a graphic watermark on the video all the time. You can just see the product in action. I think that’s more important. How can we see the product in action? 

 And how is that logo somewhere somehow integrated in that flow. And then of course, there’s the ending end card CTA and maybe just putting it there. And I know this because I, I work with a production company where we’re doing Amazon ring commercials. And there was always, you know, we need to have the product always in there. But it wasn’t like the logo was all over the place. 

 It’s just the product, you know, how can we just promote the product? And then the ring logo can be at the end because I think that the again, people just want to see the product in action. Do people want to see the product, somebody interacting with the product and see that it’s real? I think nowadays being genuine with your ads is very important, and I think that’s why UGC and social media is very important. And influencer marketing is very important nowadays because there’s a people don’t want to see another Super Bowl ad. 

 They don’t think that’s genuine enough. Then somebody from that they’ve seen next door. Yeah. Using the product and just happening to capture it on their cell phone and post it online.

CJ Bruce: 25:46

Yeah, that’s a great transition into talking about premium versus value or maybe name versus, but just like the, you know, the, the spectrum of premium and value in, in content. And the thing about that, both in terms of the type of content. So you mentioned UGC a few times, right? We think about like, you know, creator content. So.

UGC even that is, I think blurry because sometimes it’s true. UGC of a customer actually posting a video with the product or you’re getting, you know, a smaller creator to make UGC style videos for your, your product all the way up to, you know, Super Bowl production. So how do you think about, you know, that that range and you know, where like, where do those different types of content live or perform the best and what’s the right balance? Or how should food brands specifically be thinking about that?

Using Content Data to Shape Brand Creative

Mitchel Dumlao: 26:32

Yeah, I think about that a lot because there is a lot of these companies that I pitched that have don’t have as much revenue to invest in a 500 $0 video, a $100,000 video. And at the same time, there are some companies out there who do want to invest in the lower budget videos, the UGC content or whatnot, but they want to use high production cameras and actors and models to make it seem as if it’s UGC, but it has a high production budget behind it, and it all just depends on, I think, the where the brand is in its journey. I think that, you know, in the beginning as a startup, I don’t think you really need a very a lot of high quality videos. I think a founder video is good. I think a really some solid high quality product videos, explainer videos, possibly.

And then How to videos, how to use it, how to, how to actually engage with the product or interact with the product. And other than that, feeding the beast to feed the beast or feed the, the social media feed, it’s usually cell phone content. And this is when you start getting into I like to do is one day productions that produce 30 pieces of content. I’m all about the content multiplying a strategy of let’s. When I talk to a client, it’s figuring out what their goals are and then what the platform platforms want to upload to. 

 And then what is their capacity of posting? Do they have a social media team? Is it a small team? Are they able to post this much? And so it’s the cadence of posting for organic and also on paid, and then seeing how much they can afford and how much they need in order for them to feed the beast. 

 I think nowadays there is, as a startup brand or a new brand, you want that brand awareness. And that brand awareness comes from a lot of content. And the content has to also be meaningful, I think. You can post content every single day, but if it doesn’t mean anything or it doesn’t really like attract your ICP or engage with your target audience, then it’s just meaningless. But again, this is where you really find the data that’s going to actually help you influence and create other content. 

 So if you put up an organic content every single day, it can be an influencer that you pay or your, your in-house team doing content inside of the office or yourself, filming yourself, creating the product, and you start posting it online, come up with a content strategy. 2 or 3 months down the line, you’re going to see which one of those videos actually have a lot of engagement, which one has the most views, which one has become viral? That’s going to help you create the high pieces of content, the better pieces of content, the, the branded pieces of content, the the ad spots, the promos, the milestone. I mean, the tentpole content you’re gonna invest in for Black Friday and for Christmas season, because now you have three months of data, three months of content, you’ve tested organically and you’ve seen which had the most clicks, had the most views, had the most conversions, and you’re is easier for you to create a, to have those decisions. Now, when it comes to, let’s say, an SME, a company that’s making a lot of money. 

 I think that having a, a series of videos that make it look, make your brand look much more prestigious in a way, or cleaner is a great way for brand recognition and awareness. Because I think at that point, you’ve already created so much brand awareness with your own cell phone. UGC you know, low budget content you don’t want. Like it’s the whole saying like you don’t want the world to dictate who you are or define who you are. You want to define who you are by the how you put yourself out there. 

 And that’s how I feel with a lot of these brands out there. You don’t want all these different influencers and UGC creators and your in-house team, or just people who aren’t really connected with the brand to be dictating how your brand should be presented to the world. So a high quality, high production value piece of content is going to help you define that. I remember just seeing. Like commercials for brands that I never thought would actually start promoting, like Fiverr or Upwork. 

 And I don’t know, I was on these platforms many moons ago and I thought these were just, you know, flash in the pan websites that would never, ever get traction. And they were just hiring, you know, cheaper freelancers. And then as as I start looking at TV, especially on, on, on streaming platforms, they’re promoting themselves with these high quality videos. And same thing with Vrbo. I remember Vrbo way back in the day. 

 That was very much a, you know, before Airbnb, it was, it was it was a very small website as it grew in popularity. Then it started to create these commercials and we want to watch these commercials. Then you see the aesthetic difference it has with Airbnb, with booking.com, with different types of other competitors. So that’s one of my thoughts are about splitting the, the budget between high quality and well, I won’t say high quality, but higher budget and lower budget content.

Producing 30 Pieces of Content in One Day

CJ Bruce: 32:20

I want to pick up on something you talked about in, you know, producing 30 assets in one day. And so how how do you approach that? How do you plan for that? How do you get that volume of content and what type of content are you producing in a day like that?

Mitchel Dumlao: 32:36

Yeah. So again, it comes down to the creative brief and also the deliverables. But actually before that, it’s just the goals of the, of the, of the content of the campaign. And then knowing the target audience and then knowing the ICP and then figuring out the type of videos we need to create to, to execute the goals or get the goals that they want. And so once we figure that all out, what I do is that I have a whole content strategy in place.

That content strategy lists out the platforms that we’re uploading to YouTube for long form. And then for the ads, we have Instagram and, and meta, and then we have TikTok content, and then we have YouTube shorts. And then how do we and then we have e-commerce and Amazon. So then how do we split the day up so that we could create content for each one of those channels? And sometimes you can just re-edit a video and that footage, same footage, same video, re-edited can be used in different different platforms. 

 So the way that I really like to plan days where we have multiple videos that come out that day is that we think about the hero videos first or the most important videos that the client wants. Is it a recipe video? Is it a testimonial and case study video? Is it a promo promo ad? And then from there I like to then be creative and figure out what can we clip from that from these scenes to create new ads and new pieces of content? 

 And then also, what can we shoot on that day that would also compliment the brand? And also we could use as other pieces of content. And I always feel that because again, my background is a videographer. I’ve been on these sets and I’ve shoot these every once in a while. I just know that I can complete a lot of things in a short amount of time on there. 

 I’ve been on sets, I think because you’re VFX old Hollywood traditional way. You’ve got the 30 person teams you had to reset. It would take like two hours to reset a camera and lights, and you can have like two scenes in one day. And so I, I know how to avoid that by finding a location where we could split up the, the shooting so that we could have multiple teams shooting at one time. Like I’ve, I’ve, I’ve produced shoots where I’ve had a photographer in one room capturing content. 

 Then I have a, someone with a cell phone outside with a model, capturing social media content with the product and then indoors, we have a recipe video going on And that way, you know, we really utilize the time and the location. So that we could create as much content as possible. And again, this is a conversation we have with a client beforehand of, you know, are these pieces of content something that’s going to work for you? And I don’t want to capture this. And they say no. 

 And so it’s a big pitch of saying, of course, figuring out what they really need. So what do you really want? Okay. You want the, the recipe video? You want this ad? 

 Great. I think during that time we’re going to be at this location. We can use this room for photography. We can use the outside with a, an influencer. And then we could have two teams going at one time. 

 Then you’re going to have 30 pieces of content that you could post online. And at the same time, you can use the photography for e-commerce. You can use it for thumbnails, or you can use it for brochures, whatever works for you. And so again, just being really creative with the location, with the crew and then talking with the client, of course, at first to see if they have the capacity for it and if they actually can do something with that, with those with that 30, with those 30 pieces of content. Because sometimes I do deliver actually more than enough times where I’ve delivered a lot of content and I go online, they don’t use half of it. 

 And I understand because sometimes there is a cadence that you’re already used to, and then you don’t want to have stale content or old content with different branding or, you know, a different hook or different pain point they’re trying to, to try to touch on. So yeah, that’s, that’s my strategy.

Where AI Fits Into Creative Production

CJ Bruce: 37:03

Nice. Yeah, that’s very cool. I love the, I love the efficiency in that and like having multiple things happening at once and different types and formats and different, you know, we just talked about the kind of like higher or lower production quality and being able to do that at the same time is a really smart approach. So I want to shift into talking about AI. So AI obviously is affecting all the things for everybody in many different ways.

And, you know, we see these AI creative tools you touched on a little bit earlier, but how are you? How are they affecting your work and how are you integrating it? And I guess specifically to where, where are you seeing it, you know, being helpful in working for you and maybe where is it, you know, overhyped or you don’t think it has a place?

Mitchel Dumlao: 37:45

Yeah. So I’ve, I’ve been working with generative AI and video for I think three years now since 2023. And it’s, it’s gone. It’s come a long way. I think that the amount of content out there that is quote unquote AI slop is easy to pick up, though there are some content out there that I’ve seen that can pass for real video shoot.

And what has been useful for me is a platform called Higgsfield. And I think a lot of people would know about this platform by now, but you can utilize multiple models to create videos to create images that are super computer where they’ve used Claude to help you create different types of ads. You can have an AI director, you can have a clone of yourself, you can clone other people. So it’s a great platform to really practice and create content. Although I know from now from nowadays and doing a lot of research and hearing from the news that people are getting turned off by AI and AI videos, that it’s a kind of a careful balance. 

 I think that AI can be great for creating, you know, scenes that you haven’t been able to capture or creating very fantastical visual effects scenes that you don’t have the budget for. But there is a big, huge push on UGC content created by Higgsfield. And the reason why is that you can just upload someone’s brand deck their URL and it will automatically create a CPG video. It can pass for some people, but there is you can just tell there’s a lot of artifacts and just it just doesn’t make sense. Some of the videos that come out of it, although in the hands of the right person, like I’ve done a few of my own, you can create some very meaningful ads and you can create actually some believable content. 

 And so I personally have been using AI with cloud code and creating systems on my back end to optimize my business. Everything from proposal creation, using cloud code skills like front end skill, and impeccable. I’m doing a whole video series on this on my YouTube channel. And so if you if everybody wants to take a look, it’s youtube.com at Mitchel Dumlao and I go through all the different tools that I’ve been using. That’s been very helpful for my agency, my company, and also the tools for any company who wants to create content or market their products without a huge budget, but using AI, cloud code and Higgsfield to create the content for them in an efficient and effective way. 

 And I think that when it comes to the content itself, AI generated content is fun to look at to promote a product that’s still I still think you need the human touch, but AI, when it comes to operations, pitching, and the back end of a lot of companies, I think it’s really useful. I think that you can do a lot of work with Claude to create a pitch deck creating skill. You can have a idea generator for your clients. You can have an invoice tracker, vendor tracker. You can also have a skill that edits videos and creates motion graphics, and promotes your video on all these different platforms with API An MCP connections. 

 So there’s a lot of great opportunity there for the back end, for businesses and for creators and also for idea generation. I think as a creative, using AI for idea generation to overcome writer’s block is very helpful because when I speak to multiple clients and they want to hear some ideas, I could, I already trained my model on my cloud on how to come up with ideas that are that I like. And so I’m able to come up with a lot of fast ideas. I can, I can improve in my voice so I can pitch to potential clients and also use for myself. And that’s where I’ve seen AI has been very helpful. 

 It’s really just the optimization of pipelines, the creating the ads themselves. It’s fun. It’s, it’s, I think it’s a, it’s a really fun way to represent your brand. You can have some fun, you know, you could put certain celebrities in your in your videos or in your in your photos. I think you could probably use it for Canva and for design. 

 I think that, you know, at least for design or Canva AI, you can create some great designs. Great for Vo ElevenLabs if you want, like a voiceover or a just someone talking about your product, you don’t see them. You can use that. I’ve used, I use hey Jen for cloning myself and having an AI avatar. I think it still turns a lot of people off with AI avatars, but I think you need to just know how and when to use it. 

 I think for explainer videos for tech companies, it could work. But having a AI. HeyGen avatar trying to promote your CPG company might not work as well. And, and then when it comes to Higgsfield using video or Kling or Seedance or Sora. I think that if you are a talented editor or you work with a really good AI creator who also has a background in filmmaking and editing and visual effects, you can create some amazing content. 

 But I think nowadays people still want genuine content from real people.

CJ Bruce: 43:42

Yeah. It’s awesome. You know how deep you were in the back end stuff? We do a ton of ton of that back end workflows, and we will need a follow up episode where we can, we can nerd out.

Mitchel Dumlao: 43:51

Oh, please. No, I, I am obsessed. I have a second brain with Obsidian and Hermes Agent. And I talk to my Claude every single hour like a crazy person. Reminds me of the movie her, and I think I’m getting hooked too much and I need to stop.

CJ Bruce: 44:08

All right, well, it sounds like we’re on the same page there. Yeah. So I’ve got one last question before we wrap up. But before I ask that, I want to point people to where they can connect with you. So you just mentioned your YouTube channel, but then your website, the thecreativehaven.com.

Is there anywhere else that you recommend people go to connect with you or the work you’re doing?

Mitchel Dumlao: 44:27

Yeah, for sure. If you can go to thecreativehaven.com, you can also go to my website, which is mitcheldumlao.com, and then YouTube channel. I have a lot of content coming out, and right now that is going to help you scale your business or your creative workflow with AI. And I don’t want to make it so that it replaces real people. It really just improves the workflow of, of your creative team.

And that’s going to be on youtube.com/@MitchelDumlao and then it’ll be MitchelDumlao on Instagram and then LinkedIn as well. So for the folks who are LinkedIn people, you can connect with me there. But honestly, those are all the platforms and I’m always open to helping folks. So just send me an email or a DM.

Hiring Creatives Who Understand Marketing

CJ Bruce: 45:11

Awesome. Appreciate it. Mitchel. Yeah. So the last question is around mistakes.

So I’m curious if you have any, you know, mistakes you can share that brands often make when they’re looking to either hire, you know, creative people or creative ops internally working with freelancers or working with agencies. What are some of those common mistakes that you see brands make?

Mitchel Dumlao: 45:29

Nice. I like that question. I think when brands hire a creative person and then try to put them into marketing at the same time, so someone who has a background of filmmaking or design or arts, they aren’t marketers all the time. And you there’s that’s very much a hybrid role nowadays. The social media marketing and marketing in general, and content creation has blurred the lines between artistry and creative and marketing.

And the reason why I say that is that sometimes I work with brands who have an in-house team, and they do have an in-house creative team. They do have people who make the content. But I want to talk to this. These people, they, they’re just filmmakers. They’re just videographers. 

 And they, they don’t understand sometimes about hooks. They don’t understand about the amount of content they have to create the variations. To be honest, sometimes they’re bored, you know, they don’t want to create marketing content, add content, branded content, or internal recruitment videos or explainer videos. I mean, these are artists. And so getting a team that has the marketing know how and then also the creative expertise, it’s very unique. 

 I think there is there is a new generation that has that expertise because they’ve been on the phone, they’ve been creating content, consuming content. And now to them, like content is marketing. Like you are marketing yourself and you create content that’s very important. You know, it’s just really finding the right creative person that also is a marketing person. But, and if you just find a creative person, find a separate marketing person. 

 And when you bring in these videographers and these photographers understand that they are creatives and that they do need some sort of creative output to keep them on the job. So it’s a more of a leadership thing and finding the right creative lead to lead that team. But just making sure that you know that not all creative people are marketers and not all, not all marketers are creators.

CJ Bruce: 47:48

Oh, it’s awesome. Great, great nugget to end on. All right. We’ve been talking to Mitchel Dumlao, executive producer at Creative Haven. Be sure to check him out at thecreativehaven.com. And Mitchel Dumlao on, on all the things. Mitchel, thanks so much for being on the show.

Mitchel Dumlao: 48:00

Thanks for having me, CJ.

Outro: 48:03

Thanks for listening to The Missing Ingredient podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.