How To Make Ads People Actually Want To Watch with Thierry Denis, Co-Founder @ OCKHAM

Tim Rowe (0:00): Have you ever seen a TV commercial that genuinely made you laugh out loud? Today's guest is an award winning expert who is trusted by some of the world's biggest brands to do just that. From Manscaped to Shady Ray's, Thierry Dennis and his team at Occam specialize in producing ads that get audiences to lean in, laugh, and take action. Learn about what it takes to make a spot that actually makes you laugh out loud while driving business results you can feel and measure. Welcome back to the State of Streaming podcast.

Tim Rowe (0:28): I'm your host, Tim Roe. And today, we're talking with Thierry Dennis about how to make a TV commercial that entertains and converts. Enjoy. Terry, we are looking forward to having a conversation today about what makes great creative. But first, can you tell us about who Occam is?

Tim Rowe (0:53): Who do you serve? What's the problem that you solve? And why is creative so important and often overlooked?

Thierry Dennis (0:59): Yeah. Absolutely. So, so I'm a commercial director. I'm the cofounder of Auchem. We're a boutique production company based in San Diego.

Thierry Dennis (1:07): Really just me and my longtime DP trying to do good work out there and and work with Brent to create things that, you know, people wanna watch and obviously turn into, you know, buying their product and their services. We specialize in a bit in comedy. I would say that's a that's a subgenre of of commercials that we're really good at. We've a bunch of work in that space for brands like Shady Ray's, Manscaped, Smart Acid, TSIA, GenX, all kinds of stuff. But at the end of the day, we're a full service production company, and we service a bunch of a bunch of different clients that may have different needs in terms of genre or come from different verticals.

Thierry Dennis (1:48): So we've produced video content for consumer electronics brand, fashion, finance, tech, pharma, casinos. I would say our clients are a mix of ad agencies, brand directs, the marketing director, marketing folks at a brand, or sometimes even other production companies would need a a director DP duo for, like, a specific campaign.

Unknown Speaker (2:09): Cool. So they're looking for a commercial. They want a commercial made that tells the story about their brand. Yeah. They could choose anyone.

Tim Rowe (2:18): I'm sure that there's lots of people. I've got a buddy with a video camera. He could make me a commercial. Why do brands and agencies choose to work not just with Aachem but with a commercial director? What's what what is the advantage of working with someone who specializes in directing commercials?

Thierry Dennis (2:35): I mean, a commercial typically is thirty seconds. Right? It's very, very, very short. And within those thirty seconds, you gotta grab the attention of someone, an audience that typically don't give a shit about it. You know?

Unknown Speaker (2:49): They don't care.

Unknown Speaker (2:49): They you

Unknown Speaker (2:50): thought they were watching something else.

Unknown Speaker (2:52): You interrupted me. You interrupted me.

Thierry Dennis (2:54): Right? So so it is, you know, it's a it's a hard proposition in the first place. Right? So I think the the the devil's in the details in terms of the the creative, I think in terms of the what you put on on on camera. Right?

Thierry Dennis (3:08): You have, again, very, very bit of a time to convey an entire world, characters, value prop for the brand, or value prop, or features for a product. Lots of lots of information, and you want, obviously, that audience to to sit down and watch it. Right? That's the goal and remember some of it and hopefully on the back and take action and, like, go buy that product, right, or that service. So I think where it's important to have commercial production company, commercial directs are people that really specialize in in that, specifically when you're talking in those really short form scripted content, is to have folks that really will pay attention to those fine details and put themselves in the shoes of the audience and make for ultimately creating something that that resonates.

Thierry Dennis (3:57): Right? And and and just to quick quickly go back to the comedy part, I mean, that's something that we specialize in, but that's something that I I I truly believe is one of the the most effective genre when it comes to that grasping that that attention from from the person that you've just interrupted. Right? If you can make some someone smile, you know, I'm not even saying, like, burst out laughing, but just smile at something, they're so much more likely to remember that spot and in turn the product, the brand, the service, the features, whatever it is that you're promoting.

Tim Rowe (4:28): You know, let's we'll look at an example. Let's look at an example from Manscaped. For folks that don't know about the Manscaped brand, can you give us, a high level who is Manscaped? What's it like working with Manscaped? What's their what's their kind of voice?

Tim Rowe (4:42): How do they how do they generally go about

Thierry Dennis (4:45): doing Absolutely. So Manscaped is a men's product company. They started off they're from San Diego. They're still based out of San Diego, but they've grown quite a bit since we we originally worked with them. They started out doing a shaver for men's privates.

Thierry Dennis (5:04): At the time, there's nothing, you know, I mean, the if you wanted to shave down there, you would just use, like, maybe, like, a head shaver or something or, like, a razor, and and they made a product that they advertised as being safer. Right? I mean, it's obviously fair. You don't wanna nick any any part of this this

Tim Rowe (5:20): So sensitive subject matter and and okay. So so so men's grooming, you know, personal hygiene product as it were, this is gonna be something we air on television. Right? It's gotta be family friendly while still getting the messaging across.

Unknown Speaker (5:36): Yeah. Let's let's take a look

Tim Rowe (5:37): at this one. We're gonna watch the whole commercial. It's forty four seconds. So if you're not watching or you're not listening to this on YouTube, you're probably gonna wanna check it out. We'll make sure to link to all the commercials close by so folks can watch it.

Unknown Speaker (5:50): But let's watch this manscaped spot, and then we can talk about it.

Unknown Speaker (5:55): Woah, buddy. Now this is nice. What is this? The Four Seasons? It's like the best boxes I ever hung out in.

Unknown Speaker (6:02): Check it out. I don't even see thigh or junk or nothing. It's like we're in our own special little place. Hello? Everything's so soft too.

Unknown Speaker (6:15): I could definitely get used to this. We could definitely get used to this.

Speaker 3 (6:20): The new boxers two point o from MANSCAPED featuring the super soft jewel pouch. Go to manscaped.com today and get your pair a pair.

Tim Rowe (6:36): There it is. Simple, fun, a a great on brand spot for Manscaped. It looked kinda simple. I don't wanna I don't wanna take away from how brilliant simple and how hard simple really is. But tell us about how that spot came to be.

Tim Rowe (6:51): Tell us about the execution. What did it take to actually make that spot?

Thierry Dennis (6:55): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we didn't write this one. We worked with the the folks at Manscaped to kinda refine it on the back end, but the original ID came from them.

Thierry Dennis (7:06): I mean, they've been in in general, like, if you don't know Manscapes advertising, go check it out because, I mean, throughout their entire history, they've you know, now, obviously, this is for boxers. They've gone into, like, a lot of other men's grooming products, but they're really good. They do awesome awesome what I think is awesome and super funny commercials in general. So this one was kinda early, and they they had a a fairly limited budget for this for this launch of those new boxers. And they come up with this idea of, like, yeah, how can we how can we talk about balls on television?

Thierry Dennis (7:38): Right? Because this is a broadcast spot. Right? Like, it aired on, like, you know, on cable without without saying the name while keeping it, you know, family friendly and whatnot, and came up with this idea of personalizing them. Right?

Thierry Dennis (7:51): And so they came to us with with that ID that was that had a script, but that, you know, again, we we helped refine to really fit into that thirty second and make it as as funny as it could be. I would say the ex yeah. The execution, it was it was fairly simple. It was a very simple shoot. It was actually part of we we did two commercials at the time.

Thierry Dennis (8:09): The other one that you can see on our website called History of Undie was a lot more complex when it comes to execution. This one, we shot in half a day, I think, in the in the studio. And, you know, it was all about all about the talents, I would say. Those two guys, really, that's where we spent, I think, the most focus and the most energy and time in, you know, in finding those guys. Two guys that, you know, look similar, can have that kind of synergy of their their brothers or twins without, you know, actually finding Back in here together.

Thierry Dennis (8:41): Sure. Yeah. And yeah. But but the the shoot was pretty simple. We we we wrapped them into this, like, fabric so that they would they would, like, be squished together and they could move, you know.

Unknown Speaker (8:54): And then So they're, like,

Unknown Speaker (8:55): actually in this thing together?

Thierry Dennis (8:57): They're actually in this thing together. Right? That's kinda wrapping them and keeping them tight. Because otherwise, you know, they would not match movements, you know, and I think that was like one of those little details that make it feel more real that sells the ID, right? Is that they needs to be kinda like in this cocoon, right?

Thierry Dennis (9:14): They were just standing and we just made sure that they would move kinda like sway together and move together and then deliver the lines and then we flip the, you know, we flip the image in post, right, and that gives you this idea of but I think I think what what, again, what sells the idea is those little tiny details of, like, the movement, the the look of the character that wrap around them, and and then it's just script. Right? It's just good script writing, good dialogues that lets you understand, oh, yeah, this is this is what it is. And and I think that realization is, the the the the funny part. Right?

Thierry Dennis (9:48): This is where people kind of start really paying attention.

Tim Rowe (9:52): I think that's a good reminder too. Right? Like, it it's it's not the data. It's not the technology. It's a simple idea with high attention to detail, a willingness to probably, right, break that fourth wall, kinda say the quiet part out loud a little bit, like, hey.

Tim Rowe (10:10): We're just gonna poke fun at this thing. That that that is not something that you can do with an AI prompt. That's not something that is easily duplicatable, and it takes a sense of knowing. It takes knowing when to push, knowing when to pull. Let's look at another one.

Tim Rowe (10:26): Let's let's look at this one from Shady Ray's. What I love about this one was how scrappy the team was in actually executing this because when we watched the spot I mean, it looks like a Hollywood production, but you've got a cool story about how it came together. Let's watch this one.

Unknown Speaker (10:40): Fifty five percent of Americans lose or break their sunglasses every year. At Shady Ray's, we decided to do something about it. So we created the Shady Ray's replacement department.

Unknown Speaker (10:53): When someone loses or breaks their sunglasses, we make it right fast. Ma'am, we have a developing situation involving a zip line. Lock in, people. This is what we're here for.

Unknown Speaker (11:08): Shady Ray's eyewear that has your back.

Unknown Speaker (11:11): Alright. Shady Ray's sunglasses. That's a fun spot. Kind of poking fun. Lost my sunglasses.

Unknown Speaker (11:17): I wish that I had the Shady Ray's sunglasses. Right.

Unknown Speaker (11:19): You wanna agent right behind

Unknown Speaker (11:21): you that Right. Pops right So, like, obviously, an idea, a concept that we could probably all relate to. How did this one come to be?

Thierry Dennis (11:29): It's the same thing. We didn't write this one. It was Shady Race came to us, which they were referred to us by by a friend of mine. And they came to us with with the concept that was written by a creative director, really awesome creative director named Sean Cunningham out of Atlanta, who has his own, like, little shop these days. And, you know, they came to us like, okay, this is the idea.

Thierry Dennis (11:49): This is the script. Let's execute this in a way that is appealing to the audience. Right? And my first thought in seeing that this brief was like, yeah, it is a spy comedy Hollywood movie. Let's make it let's make it feel like that.

Thierry Dennis (12:01): Right? And and that story that you you were referring to is about the the control the control room. Right? We put a lot of time and effort in making sure that control room looked apart. And if you think about it, and if you look closely, if you rewatch, you'll see that it it no control room in the universe probably looks like this.

Thierry Dennis (12:21): Right? Like, there's things that just wouldn't like, the servers in the back, they wouldn't be there. You should have a room dedicated to it. There's, like, things in this the the the maps don't visually don't make sense, but it all works because it appeals to anyone's reference material when it comes to, like, sci fi movies or CIA movies or James Bond movies. Right?

Thierry Dennis (12:44): And it's playing on those tropes, right, which is which is something that you can do a lot with comedy, which is something I absolutely love doing with comedy. Like, play on those tropes and those those reference that people have, whether or not they are, like, avid cinema goers or really have a a strong knowledge base in in movies that you have you know, everybody has seen enough movies that they have those kinda, like, subconscious reference. So, you know, there's a lot in this one and the way we shot it, the way we approach each parts of the story, and, like, again, playing on those tropes. Right? I mean, I described this one these days as, like, it's like this it's like Spy Kids meet James Bond, the spy comedy.

Thierry Dennis (13:21): Spy right? And that so that was that's the the original ID. But, yeah, the the that that story with the with the control room. So we had a very a fairly limited budget for this. They're not a giant brand.

Thierry Dennis (13:34): They I think they make great sunglasses, but they're not a giant brand. So they didn't have a ton of money, but they have a cool concept. And our one thing, you know, at Occam, our philosophy has always been like, especially when we have we were brought great ideas, let's push this and try to make something that looks really cool because one, it's fun, and two, you know, I mean, it it works for a portfolio piece later, and then we can talk about it on a podcast. Right? So we try always to kinda, like, put as much money possible or as much thoughts in what's gonna go on screen.

Thierry Dennis (14:06): And so that control room was a a regular conference room in a modern Downtown San Diego building that you could rent for a fee and that we dressed. Right? There was an empty space, but it had those big windows that were nightly because we could, like, push light from outside. It had this big wall. So if you look at it closely, the the the whole wall of monitor that the characters are looking towards, this is all CG.

Thierry Dennis (14:33): So it was green screen. Right? And we did that in post. Everything else in the room is is practical. So, you know, we just lined up a bunch of a bunch of tables, put a bunch of monitors on them.

Thierry Dennis (14:43): There's looping images with, like, Bondish sci fi looking maps on it. Right? They're like just like, just videos that are playing

Unknown Speaker (14:52): Like, just just computers we had, tables we had, videos that we found on the Internet.

Unknown Speaker (14:58): Well, we may, you know, take Oh, good. Tables, they

Unknown Speaker (15:00): were part of it. Okay.

Thierry Dennis (15:02): Computer we brought, but it's just it's not, you know, they don't work. Right? It's like a looping video on a monitor. Right? What is in the model we made ourselves, we made the the loops to have consistency and have, like, a look with that blue lights, you know, coming pushing through.

Thierry Dennis (15:16): The the server racks in the back, I was very, very happy with that. It was a you know, I wanted server racks in the back because that gives depth to the to the the scene. And again, subconsciously, it just puts you in a space of like, oh, okay. It's a control room. Right?

Thierry Dennis (15:31): Like, it sells the ID within a very short span of time. I mean, you have, like, maybe less than ten seconds in that control room. And yet, I'm sure that if you ask your audience after the fact, you know, they'll explain what happened. They can give you a sense of who the characters are, you know, what kind of space it is. Right?

Thierry Dennis (15:48): So that's all little details in the background that you may not even read just register in on the first watch, but that your brain does register. So that server rack, our director was like, yeah, we can get a server rack, but we would have to, like, go to a prop house in LA. It's gonna cost a lot of money to rent it, plus we gotta send somebody a truck and whatever and bring in and bring back the big complex thing. And we didn't have enough for in the budgets. And she she's she's awesome at finding some some creative ways to make something work.

Thierry Dennis (16:20): She found the cage for the server rack on Facebook marketplace for, like, $500 or something. No servers in there. Right? Just the cage. And so she bought and the guy could deliver to our set.

Thierry Dennis (16:31): So it was perfect. Like, take out all the logistical thing that, you know, are annoying. And then she put foam board, black foam board inside those cage, pierced holes in them, maybe like a 100 holes. I don't know. A lot of holes.

Thierry Dennis (16:45): And puts little small LED lights in there controlled by, you know, little controller. It blinks, and it gives you the idea. And it's quick enough that, you know, nobody would never know that it's not a real server rack. But it's actually even better, because a real server rack will probably not blink enough that you would notice it, you That's a valid point. You know?

Unknown Speaker (17:06): It's just so great.

Unknown Speaker (17:07): It's just a moment in a in a in a passing thirty second commercial.

Thierry Dennis (17:12): Exactly. But it's important because, again, I think you and that's, you know, to circle back to, like, paying attention to those details. Those details are what is going to place the the scene and the commercial within a particular space and environment, and that's that tells the story almost not as much, but you know, that tells the big part of the story. Right? To sell the the ID, and that's what makes it, you know, that's part of what makes it memorable for the for your audience.

Tim Rowe (17:42): Love it. There's also a small detail I just picked up on before we started to press record. The mug The mug of the world's best deputy director. It looks like that's a world's best mug, and you just printed out deputy director a little strips of paper and put it on the mug. Is that Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (18:00): Is that is that right? Am I seeing that right?

Thierry Dennis (18:02): And you you saw that right. Yeah. Yeah. Again, a little details, the characters, the way I envisioned that you know, that that type of stuff isn't was not necessarily part of the script, but the way I and the the way I envisioned those two characters, the the director of the control room, the lady, and then this guy. Again, playing on tropes.

Thierry Dennis (18:20): Right? Like, the kind of stern lady that is at the helm and is not laughing is more like boom boom boom, this is what we're gonna do. You've seen those characters in, like, spy movies and CIA movies, whatnot. So that's how I briefed the the talents. That's the type of talent I looked for and that's how, you know, she's dressed in that type of character.

Thierry Dennis (18:37): Again, you're playing on those tropes. For the deputy director, because we're doing comedy and not something serious, I wanted to play them another trope of, like, hey, you have you you know, this this guy that is, like, a little subservient, doesn't really know, is really willing to do a great job, but he doesn't do it well, you know, and and that mug was kinda part of, like, selling I mean, the the the actor himself, as demeanor, sells it. His look sells it. The mug was part of it. The mug was actually not my personal ID.

Thierry Dennis (19:07): I feel bad because if the the person that had this ID here here's this, maybe they, you know, don't know that I thanked them. It was from a we did a casting. Right? And when we do a casting, we do people town sell send us self tapes. So typically, you have a brief.

Thierry Dennis (19:21): So I'll explain, hey, this is what we're looking for. This is the kind of talent. Those are the lines. Right? And they record themselves to doing the thing, and then and then we do a callback and and talk to them, and then eventually, we pick the who's gonna be on camera.

Thierry Dennis (19:34): And so it was a a talent that was auditioning for this for this role, not the one that we picked, another one, that came up that did that on an audition. I was like, this is brilliant, because it really visually reinforced the character. Right? In a way that is very subtle, but, you know, if you see it, you see it and it's fine. If you don't see it, it doesn't doesn't do anything.

Thierry Dennis (19:54): And so when we were on set, it's like, hey, I this other guy did this. I think it's great here. But, yeah, again, low details that that that talks to your subconscious is what's important in a thirty second spot.

Tim Rowe (20:07): I think it's a great lesson for us already. Let's look at one more. Let's look at this this spot from smart asset. This one's a little bit more technical, and I think you actually dug up someone's backyard to do this one.

Unknown Speaker (20:19): Build the pool yourself. What could go wrong?

Unknown Speaker (20:21): Some things are better left to a professional.

Unknown Speaker (20:23): It dried so fast.

Unknown Speaker (20:25): Like when it comes to finding financial advisers. Mom. So leave it to Smart Asset to find them for you. Take the free quiz at smartasset.com, then you'll be matched with up to three vetted fiduciary financial advisers. To get started, take the adviser match quiz now at smartasset.com.

Unknown Speaker (20:46): Terrific. Alright.

Tim Rowe (20:49): So it looks like looks like we've got a homeowner who's maybe trying to put in his own backyard pool and things go terribly awry. Tell us about that spot.

Thierry Dennis (20:58): Absolutely. So this one first as a a bit of a special place in my heart because the little girl is my daughter. Oh, amazing. Yeah. So and it was really fun to to shoot with her.

Thierry Dennis (21:10): She's, like, literally the most professional kid I've ever worked with or

Unknown Speaker (21:15): That's you know,

Thierry Dennis (21:16): she was awesome. She really it was a trooper because it was really hot the day we shot. And so and she was, you know, because we have coverage, we shot an entire day with with her standing in that place and saying mom over and over and over and over and over again, and she did amazing. The the agency came to us with, like, with this idea of, like, this guy, this DIY backyard thing. And it was this one was definitely a logistically quite a big challenge.

Thierry Dennis (21:44): Right? Because there's a hole in the ground, and it needs to feel like the like the guy dug it himself. Right? So originally, we went to we thought, okay, well, we're gonna we're gonna approach pool builders, like actual pool builders and our location manager, and and asked them, hey. Do you have a pool at that stage of construction and over a weekend or something?

Thierry Dennis (22:06): Can we use it to shoot? And then we'll pay you some some money for that. Turned out to be complicated because pools come, like, one, there's liability. Two, it's not the right size. And the creative director from the admins, he had a very specific shape of a pool in mind.

Thierry Dennis (22:24): And again, you within, like, half a second, you need to understand that it's a pool, but also that the guy dug it himself, and that's why he's stuck. Right? Which is which is it means that you need to be have a very specific shape, a very specific look to the to that wide shot. Right? And so we're kinda struggling in finding where how we could do that, and I was on a different shoot with my stylist.

Thierry Dennis (22:48): I was chitchatting, and she tells me, hey, oh, you know, me and my husband are building a or or making a pool in our backyard. I'm like, no.

Unknown Speaker (22:57): No way now. No way.

Unknown Speaker (22:59): Tell me more.

Thierry Dennis (23:00): No. Tell me more. I have this this project coming up that she was going to be the stylist for anyway. And, hey, do you mind if we if we use your backyard since you're already gonna make a hole in it? You know, can we just make a hole?

Thierry Dennis (23:14): And it turned out really, really great because, I mean, one, we had a location then. She said yes. Two, we could now make the hole, because it was our backyard. We could make the hole exactly the way the creative director wanted. So, you know, I was with him on the phone, and we, like, drew exactly from the right, from that wide shot perspective.

Thierry Dennis (23:34): This is exactly the the space it's gotta take. This is where the guy's gonna be, you know, exactly the the shape. Turns out her husband is is is used to be in construction, and he decided that he was gonna dig it himself with, like, a with a bobcat, not with a a shovel. Right? But he had a great time, you know, as, like, if if you feel like a little kid just, like, driving his bobcat and dying in the pool.

Thierry Dennis (23:59): So everybody was happy at the end of the I mean, you know, we paid them for that, but we we we probably save money in comparison to, like, the, you know, what it would have cost to do it differently. So, yeah, it's a it's a great it's a great one. Fun one to do. Logistically, it was challenging, but in a good way.

Tim Rowe (24:15): I think that through all of these, there's there's the theme of the details. It's all in the details.

Unknown Speaker (24:22): Looking

Tim Rowe (24:23): toward those tropes, looking to create almost the stereotypical fever dream. Right? Like, what are the things that we know the audience believes to be true, and how do we bring those elements into this environment where we have thirty seconds to cut through the clutter, where we want to be appealing, not interruptive. We wanna be additive to the content viewing experience and create this lasting memorable brand moment. Terry, this has been a great conversation.

Tim Rowe (24:49): If folks wanna learn more about Occam, they wanna connect with you, they wanna get in touch. How should they do that? Where should they go?

Thierry Dennis (24:56): Email, feel free to put my email there or just go on the web side. There's a there's a contact form. There's a there's an email there as well. Yeah. Just reach out.

Thierry Dennis (25:05): And I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, I don't know, wherever,

Unknown Speaker (25:10): you know. We'll make all that easy

Thierry Dennis (25:12): to find. The name. Yeah. Aachen San Diego video production. You'll find us very easily on Google.

Unknown Speaker (25:17): Takim.tv. We'll make sure to link to everything close by. We'll have your LinkedIn. We'll have your email. We'll have the website.

Tim Rowe (25:23): You will be easy to find after this conversation.

Unknown Speaker (25:27): Terry Awesome.

Unknown Speaker (25:28): Much for being here.

Unknown Speaker (25:29): It was a pleasure. Thank you so much, Tim.

Unknown Speaker (25:31): Absolutely. And if you found this conversation to be helpful, please share with a colleague or a client. Start a conversation today. Until next time, we'll see you.