This podcast revolves around the innovative capabilities of Coastal Creative, a multifaceted production studio that exemplifies the intersection of marketing and creative media. We, your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley, engage with Zach Moore, the president of Coastal Creative, to delve into the intricacies of their diverse offerings, which include state-of-the-art filming technologies and comprehensive production services. Zach recounts his journey from hospitality to establishing a prominent creative agency, highlighting the transformative power of marketing in connecting with audiences. Our discussion also encompasses the art of storytelling in marketing, emphasizing its paramount importance in crafting compelling narratives that resonate with target demographics. As we explore various projects and trends within the industry, we aim to provide our listeners with actionable insights and inspiration to enhance their marketing strategies.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• 00:07 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 03:24 - Exploring Coastal Creative's Unique Facilities
• 06:57 - The Rise of Card Trading: A New Hobby Takes Flight
• 13:20 - Creative Approaches to Marketing and Media
• 20:11 - Upcoming Events and Community Engagement

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The Aqua Talks podcast serves as an invaluable resource for marketers seeking innovative strategies.
• Listeners are encouraged to embrace creativity and storytelling in their marketing endeavors.
• Coastal Creative provides advanced production facilities that enhance the filmmaking process significantly.
• The importance of adapting to technological advancements in marketing and production cannot be overstated.
• Effective marketing requires a deep understanding of one's audience and responsive content creation.
• Engagement with local communities and businesses often yields the most rewarding marketing collaborations.

Welcome to Aqua Talks, where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.

Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.

Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.

Hi, and welcome back to Aqua Talks, the podcast for marketers. Whether you're getting started out or you are a pro within the industry, my name is Maddie Dudley.

I am the public relations director for Aqua marketing and communications and we are a podcast brought to you by Brensyste Technology. I am joined as always with my co host, Larry Aldrich.

Hello, I'm Larry Aldridge, President CEO Brentz's technology and Aquamarketing Communications.

Today we're here joined with Zach Moore at Coastal Creatives, the president at his lovely studio where we actually produce and video our podcast every month. And Zach, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, guys, thanks for coming in today. We appreciate it. Well, I mean, I started Coastal Creative about six, six and a half, seven years ago now.

Had a smaller studio for about a year right down central, and then took over this lovely space back at the height of COVID which was interesting and fun, but have been here almost six years now. In the space. Yeah.

Amazing. And you're president and founder, correct?

Yeah. So Whenever I turned 30, I moved to Florida, which I love, St. Pete.

I traveled in, I was out of stater from Mississippi, but I was looking for, you know, just kind of a 180 in life. I wanted to go back to school for film, wanted to kind of chase down some dreams I'd had for a long time. And my background was in hospitality.

So restaurants, bars, had opened up a few restaurants, a couple of small convenience stores as well adjacent to restaurants. But really hospitality for 15 years. I always had the dream of being a filmmaker.

And me and some buddies literally threw a dart at the map in Florida and landed on St. Pete. And we're looking for the Tampa Bay. From Tampa down, we kind of randomly selected some places and first on the list was St. Pete.

So we came down, checked it out, loved it, checked out spc. When I came down, they had a digital media program there.

So, you know, applied for school, got accepted, went down there, started going to class, worked odd jobs all over the city and just chased down being a filmmaker. And then that kind of morphed into starting a creative agency doing film production, marketing, digital media, social media.

Graphics, you name it, we did it. And that's snowballed into what we have today.

A little bit of a backstory. When we started the podcast. Part of starting the podcast was looking to see where we wanted to do our production.

So actually we all looked around a few different places. We came across Coastal Creative. We made a few phone calls, couple emails. We came and visited.

It's a huge building here that you can do different types of productions in the back room. You can do bigger productions, you travel. There's a lot that you do here. We like it here. We like coming here. You set the studio up perfect for us.

Yes.

I don't want to take too much of your thunder. So instead of me explaining a little bit about everything you got going on here, tell us a little bit more, you know, in depth, how your pitch.

Yeah, a little bit about the building and what you do here.

Yeah, it's a cool space. It's about 30,000 square foot with a couple mezzanines as well, but we have effectively two sound stages.

We have an LED volume studio, which has a 45 foot by 20 foot LED volume, which, if you're not familiar with volumes, it's just basically a big screen with really high quality, dense pixels, and you can broadcast and create any sort of virtual background or environment and then film within it. So that's a really cool featurette of our space. It's housed within a 50 by 50 black box theater, essentially.

So we leverage that space for commercials, for film, for social media stuff, all kinds of really creative projects. And in its most basic component, it can be just a background where you put up an image or a video or whatever.

But in its most complex use case, you can actually do tracking and build unreal engine environments and have parallax digital camera movements and all kinds of crazy huge details which you probably have seen either in like the new Batman movie with Robert Pattinson, or it got made famous during Jon Favreau's Star wars series. He did, because he leveraged it quite a bit in that series. But we have that huge piece of technology in the building with all the bells and whistles.

But it's approachable, it's affordable.

And then outside of that, we have a standard sound system area, which we also use for events, for weddings, comedy shows, concerts, all kinds of stuff.

Of course, the podcast studio, which we're in right now, and then we have a bunch of flex spaces, large green rooms, a traditional cyclorama wall for photography and video shoots, and pretty much creative space.

We came in One day you were doing a large commercial for a restaurant.

Yes.

It's a big production. You had the whole. Your large room set up in the back. There was a lot of food. That's what caught my attention.

Yeah, yeah.

And it looked like pretty good production. So you have the capability of doing large commercials?

Yep. We do small to large. We do as much or as little as you need.

We can do your full production or we can plug into your marketing team and be just their video arm, whatever it may be. That restaurant Perkins was the company that was here that day. A big famous buffet chain and sit down restaurant.

But they were doing their new hamburger launch. And so we had like these big robot arms and slow motion, 600 frames a second.

You know, sandwich stacks getting blown up with air cannons and all kinds of fun stuff. So that was a large endeavor. But we also do small things for local mom and pops and we can kind of do it all in between.

One thing that comes to mind that was really fun that we shot here was a commercial for the Tampa Bay Rays. So we did all their. On espn. When you're watching the games, if you see the Rays commercials, those were shot here, which is a lot of fun.

Coastal Creative is three blocks from the stadium.

Four. Yep. Not too far away.

Walking distance.

Yeah.

Yeah. So something that I have also noticed that happens here. You said comedians, but you also have events and like concerts too.

Yeah, absolutely.

Ranging from really popular artists to up and coming, which I think is pretty cool. But you also didn't mention your card trading.

Yes, I have a card hobby as well. Yeah.

Yes. So please dive into this. What's the name of your card trading company? And they have a brick and mortar inside of Coastal. Coastal Creative here. Yeah.

So we try to keep it somewhat streamlined. But so Coastal Creative is the building and the business. And then within there I have our card shop, which is called Coastal Cards.

We also stream online, which is called moomed. So More Media is my company name. So that's how I started it. But we stream on whatnot and other platforms, doing auction styles as well.

But yeah, we have a pretty awesome card shop tucked away inside of Coastal.

Tell us more about the card trading industry. Yeah, I'm a complete novice, so tell me. Like I'm five.

Well, it's Pokemon, primarily. We do get into Magic and some Yu Gi. Oh. And other stuff like that one piece, but primarily Pokemon. It was my personal collection.

You know, when I was a kid, I collected and then I picked up the hobby again about five years ago.

Pretty aggressively filming I was out at a convention and I was filming for a client and I saw a Pokemon stand, talked to the guy for a minute and kind of got back into the interest. And I pulled one pack, I bought a pack from him and I pulled the big Chase card out of it, like out of that first one.

So it kind of got me hooked back into it again. I dug out all my old cards and got really kind of enthralled.

And then, you know, as I do with everything else, it's kind of moved quickly ahead without thinking too much about it. It's kind of wanted to go do it and tackle it. And yeah, it kind of developed into a really cool, awesome community card shop.

We do shows all over the state, we do pop ups, we do the conventions and then we stream online. But we've hired like seven full time employees. We're doing streaming every night. We love working with the local community.

And a cool part about it is we see seasonally how much traffic increases here with travelers. So it's a really cool thing. I had never noticed with any other part of my business because we're not seasonal specific, it's more like year round.

But the card shop is very much peaks and valleys between vacationers.

So we're marketers, we specialize in tourism and destination travel. We specialize in federal and state marketing. And you touch on a lot of the travel aspect of it. So from a travel standpoint with your.

We talked about the card, the travel for Pokemon cards. That's a huge industry also. Plus coastal creatives. As a production company, you travel also to do productions.

Do you want to touch on that a little bit?

Sure, yeah, I'd love to. I mean, we travel.

I've been to Alberta and all over Canada a couple times into South America, but primarily anywhere in the United States or Canada is easy for us to get it out of. But we film all over the country. We travel to Las Vegas, New York, Dallas, and we do either corporate filmings or commercials or event coverage.

We can also bring a lot of that stuff back here with us.

So we do some travel stuff for destinations and you know, basically we'll go film somewhere that might be difficult to have a whole crew come in or a talent and everybody.

And we'll just capture what we call plates or vignettes of the landscape or what would you call them, like large buildings or landscapes or destinations, whatever, those kind of things.

And we bring them back here onto the LED wall so we can get a really clean, high resolution video of it, then bring it back Here, display it and then film in front of it so it looks like you're there. So it eliminates a lot of the restrictions and the process of having to film on site.

You can get controlled environment here and bring it back with you. So we kind of mix everything, all of our elements together in our productions.

Usually we bring up trends a little earlier in the episode, but we just started flowing, so I just let it go. So when it comes to film production or podcasts, what are some of the trends that you're seeing in this industry? Or even cards? The training?

Sure. I mean, look, cards is really comprehensive because there's lots of media involved with cards.

There's lots of streamers, tons of video content, lots of trends that happen very quickly.

And so we, we try to keep up with it as best we can, but we, we've seen that individual creators are getting so sophisticated and so quick, and so they're leveraging all these technologies to help them create content that fits the niche of their clientele. So it's not getting larger, it's getting more segmented, if anything, but it's getting more streamlined within those niches.

So if somebody knows that their clientele likes the way that ASMR sounds with ripping up card packs and showing them on camera, they drill down, that get really good at that, using AI tools and technologies to enhance that following, and they just chase it down.

And same thing's true across our other clients, but they're not as quick in the business sector to kind of jump on the trends because they're larger companies or there's more people involved. So you definitely see it a faster trend chasing in the smaller Pokemon world because everybody's dependent upon that to make money.

And then in the business segment, when we're doing filming for podcasts or commercials or anything, there's a creative director, there's marketing teams, there's a lot of people involved, budgets that can make it more difficult to be as nimble as just an individual. So it's fun to watch those two worlds kind of mash together and see what comes out of it.

But in the commercial sector, what I've seen trending is definitely people who are more interested in technology now. Like the LED wall can kind of be a little bit intimidating to somebody who's never used it before.

But once I show it to them and get a use case or give them examples, their eyes light up and their brains go crazy and they're able. All these ideas kind of percolate. And so that's been some of the Trends I've seen in the video space.

I'm curious about maybe a common mistake. Not any specific brands, but a common mistake that you see made by marketers or people that you work with.

Okay, common mistake. I'm trying to think if there's like a solid mistake. I do see a lot of people that when they're mapping out their marketing, not out of.

I wouldn't say it's a mistake necessarily, but they're just so used to the way things have been for so long that there is definitely like a push and pull and getting people to understand like how much you can accomplish in one day in a studio environment with all the technology we have and the possibilities of it. So they might think it's a seven day shoot, we can get done in three days.

And so there sometimes is a lot of back and forth on just vision boarding and what's possible.

And then other mistakes I see marketing people make is definitely trying to chase down comps like they'll give us, hey, we like this person, what they do.

We want to do that, say, well, we can definitely aim towards pulling out the components that work with this, but your story so has to be the front and center component of all the. Yeah, so storytelling is still the primary function of good marketing.

I mean that's an argument as old as time. Like is there. Has there ever been an original thought?

Right.

How in the creativity element of it all, like how would you suggest people to approach marketing or like a campaign otherwise than. Rather than looking at competitors and then developing from there?

Well, I mean looking at competitors is great. It happens all the time where I'll be working on a project or I'll be.

Our company will kind of latch or be folded into a marketing team as one component. And I learned so much in those moments because they'll do something small that I never thought have seen before.

They'll have a process or procedure or piece of technology. And I'll definitely adapt those things. I'll tell them, hey, this is great, can I do that? So definitely want to comp it out and look at it.

But the best way to do it is to focus on what your story is, who you're trying to target, and how you want to bridge those two worlds together. And don't be afraid to take risks.

Don't be afraid to try something a little bit different or a little bit more creative than you might otherwise be comfortable doing. And that's always been a kind of a magic sauce for us with video.

Content becoming so important now and marketing like it's everything almost is going to video content.

Are you seeing a lot of creativity out of there, out there, or you just 100% a lot of different something, you know, different trends or things that are changing? Mostly, yeah.

We had a guy last week, came in, he's actually older fellow, he's probably in his late 80s. And the way he presented his concept to me was, hey, look, I'm leaving my legacy behind.

I want to develop this, my last video series to kind of be my obituary. And I want this to be sort of how I leave it off.

And he goes, oh, my gosh.

Yeah. His family's very heavily into broadcasting and into media.

He's had some very successful siblings that have done like big things in Hollywood and all over the country. And he's a teacher, so he's like, you know, he's taught his whole life.

He had a very eclectic and kind of creative mom that helped him, like vision board all this stuff when he was younger and he was in media forever, but it was like local small channel stuff, like public access kind of style.

Okay.

And now in his, you know, last stages of life, he's like, I want to make this thing super sharp, 4k creative. I'm using the LED wall. I want to have chirons and sots and, you know, a full production. And oh my gosh, he's very pragmatic too.

He's like, you know, I get tired after three hours of filming. I have three hour window in me. I can do that much per day.

So it's really cool to see how that creativity is still flowing through him even as he sunsets, you know, has a vision for it. But that's an extreme example of it. But then the other parts are going to be lots of.

Lots of creative individuals come in and they use the space and all kinds of ways I never would have thought of. So.

Wow, that makes me want to cry.

It's really sweet. It's fun. We're working with them now.

Makes sense. But yeah, yeah, that's not ready for that yet.

No, it's very practical. Can I book you ahead of time?

20, 30 years? Yeah, yeah, send me an email.

There's another guy, he's a local influencer.

He does a lot of concept videos where he'll pull like out of two bowls, where he'll say, okay, what if I took this brand and mixed it with a scary movie? That kind of thing.

Oh, nice.

And so he will film here sometimes when he has larger brand deals or just bigger ideas.

Oh, cool.

And we just Did a concept with him where it was like a jungle scene behind a living room that fell away. And we were able to create that in a single day for him with LED wall and some foam boards and plants. It looks incredible.

It looks like we're in Jurassic Park.

Are you crafting a lot?

Not me personally. Well, I have, yes. It's intermittent, but we're so busy with, like, the.

The production side of things that we have people that come in and kind of help with that part of it.

Very cool.

You have a bar kind of going in your hallway towards the back.

Yes.

Big room.

Yes. How does that. What.

So are they parties that incorporate the bar that podcast, or is it. How's that, like, what is that part of the commercials that you do when.

You'Re producing a wedding here? We do.

We do a lot of weddings. Yeah.

Okay.

We do a lot of weddings. We probably do like 15 weddings a year. I'd say somewhere in that ballpark.

But with the bar stuff, I mean, you know, they're welcome to have it when they're filming. They typically will have as an after party part of it.

But yeah, I mean, we have lots of different corporate events that'll have their corporate meetings and then they'll use the LED walls like displays, and then at the end of the night, they'll have a after party and that's when the bar kind of kicks off, when we start serving up beer and wine. Yeah.

I'm thinking we're going to do something a little bigger for our 50th episode.

Oh, nice.

Oh, what is that?

I don't know. What number episode.

Are we already on?

50.

Let's go get a drink.

I think we're somewhere to 30.

Get the martinis out.

Okay.

Yeah, we might be in the 30 somewhere.

Maybe. Yeah. I've been trying to get a chef on the podcast, a friend of mine, so we can do like a visual, set up, something cool.

And I know you guys would be able to support something like that. So it's just amazing what you've created here. This is really like such a pillar of the community.

I'm a local and there've been so many amazing, artistic, beautiful things that have happened in the community because of Coastal Creative.

Thank you so much. Yeah.

What would you say is your favorite event or maybe the event or campaign or project that you've worked on? Give me a couple. Other than that you're most proud of.

Other than Aqua Talks, of course. Other than this, I really do love. Yeah. Because these are fun. They're.

We get to see those clients over and over again, which is you get to develop a relationship and kind of learn their quirks and their nuances. But outside of this kind of stuff, I really do enjoy comedy quite a bit. We've slowed down over the summer.

We picked back up this time of year typically, but I got to work with some really big names in comedy for specials. So we filmed three specials here so far, which has been fun. We filmed Bobby Kelly special a few years ago, which was a lot of learning.

That was our first major special we had done, but it was. It was cool. It was awesome. The Tampa Bay Rays, of course, has been amazing client of ours, and we've got to know them very well.

We do their esports tournament every year as well.

So, like, they have their big LED wall tournament where they have the players come in and they're playing and broadcasting it to, you know, a couple hundred thousand people across the nation, which is cool. You know, feather in our cap definitely is the raise. And then, of course, Google, we did a large project with them for their C suite level.

So that was fun.

But really the local stuff's the best because you get to work with local small businesses that need content or need commercials or marketing materials. We're able to provide that with them.

And that's always fun to see it kind of percolate and result into whatever it is recruiting or sales or whatever.

Well, Coastal creative, I mean, I've had friends come to a New Year's party here, and we record our podcast here, so they can do anything.

And we're here regularly.

Yeah, we are. We love it.

Well, we're thankful for you guys being here, and we love doing this kind of stuff. So thank you all for.

Thank you for being a part of this and working with us in it. And we look to do bigger, better things, and we're pretty excited and be on the lookout.

We're going to do some Pokemon shows here pretty soon, too, so. Okay. Big, you know, marketing events for that, too.

Okay. What are the dates?

We don't. We're kind of determining based off the calendar of all the other big events because there's so many of them that happen in Tampa Bay.

We have to, like, be careful about not competing with others.

Okay. I'm sure it'll be great. There's constantly people in here. It's crazy.

We're filming and, I don't know, like, 50 people in the hours that we're here come in and are buying Pokemon cards. I had no idea. I maybe should invest. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I'll get you guys some starter packs. We get y' all going.

Oh, so everyone else that wants to come here and do podcasts, you just can't have our awards. We work really hard for those. And we got three big walls full of them back in our office. You got to put something else back there.

Yes, but Zach and his team are here.

Like a fish tank or something.

Oh, yeah, fish tank. That sounds reasonable. Can you guys do fish tanks?

We can. LED wall.

Oh, perfect. Yeah. Aqual Aqua. We should have one too. Yeah, yeah. Idea for the future.

Well, as you heard, Zach and his team can do just about everything at Coastal Creative. And we're really appreciative of you joining us on the podcast today, getting out from behind the camera.

If you want to learn more about Coastal Creative or Zach, please go to aquatacs.com and you can find more about Zach there and studio. We also have info on Aquatox and our company, Aqua. There.

You'Ve been listening to Aqua Talks, where marketing innovation takes center stage with bold ideas and actionable insights. Ready to take your strategies to the next level?

Visit aquataks.com to book your free consultation and explore resources that empower you to thrive in today's fast paced marketing world. Until next time, stay bold, stay inspired, stay imaginative.