Why the Traditional Marketing Playbook is Dead (And How AI Changes Everything)

In this episode, I talk about the biggest shift in marketing since the dawn of the internet: the move from social media to interest media. I encourage you to throw away your subjective opinions and outdated Madison Avenue metrics and start focusing on where the actual attention is. I also discuss why volume is the only way to stay relevant and why you shouldn't be scared of AI taking your job-you should be scared of not knowing how to use it. You’ll learn about:The Power of Organic Social MediaHow AI Algorithms Create ReachDay Trading Attention on Threads and FacebookWhy Strategy Requires a Volume MindsetHow to Adapt to Profound Technological Shifts

• 0:00Speaker 00

  In life, every one of us finds what we're looking for. When I tell you, the thing I despise the most is when I am encountered with pessimism and cynicism. It breaks my little soul. Because people try to say they keep it real. You know how people are like, "I'm just keeping it real." I'm like, "Yes, you're keeping it real negative." This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Well, hello. Hello, you wonderful people. Welcome to the virtual campus. And look who's in the house! We have the remarkable, the one and only, the legend that is Gary Vee. So, welcome Gary. Thank you so much for joining us.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  You are very sweet. I do not accept legend. I only give that to my mother. But otherwise, it's great to see everybody. I'm gonna be very active in the chat. So, I already asked everybody where they're from. I'm very fired up as normal. Because if your family's healthy and you're healthy, what's there not to be fired up about? Regardless of your business or life headaches. So, I'm in good spirits and it's always lovely to be with you and I'm thrilled to be here.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we're absolutely thrilled to have you. And so, those of you in the room who don't know, VaynerX have become a global partner of the Marketing Academy and we are loving their team. They're supporting the alumni programs all over the world. All of our alumni programs all over the world. We're doing a shit ton of stuff together. It's all really, really cool. And next week, Gary's hosting our graduation party in the US, which should be fabulous, in Manhattan. In a private members club, as only Gary Vee do, right? So, we're thrilled about it. And today is really a Q&A. So, I've got some questions.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  In fact, I've got a lot of questions, but it's not about me. So, to all of you in the room, get your questions in. And when you look on the Q&A, you can see the questions and you can vote on them. So, if we get a load of questions, which I think is likely, just vote on the ones that are really resonating with you, that we really want Gary to answer. And I'll ask for some of those. I will just do for some people in the room that might be a bit sensitive and have not logged on to a virtual campus event before, there's likely to be a lot of swearing. Right? He's gonna say fuck a number of times, I guarantee it. So, if you've got kids behind you and you've got the sound on, put your speakers in, put your earphones in. They're not asking you what a wanker is or whatever. Right, okay Gary, let's start with you then.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Let's start with your, let's start with your earlier life, right? I'm quite keen, we're always quite keen whenever we get, yes, yes, please. Such as yourself, to just unpeel a little bit about where you've come from. I would love for you to tell us a few learnings that you, you got early on in your life and career. The things that your upbringing taught you that boardroom, corporate boardrooms just wouldn't. Give us a few of those.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  Um, well, first of all, on the record, you know, corporate boardrooms teach very little. That's interesting. Next, um, I was born in the Soviet Union and that was a great blessing because my timing was impeccable. If I was born in 1920, or 30, or 40, or 50, or 60, my life would be very different. But I was born in 1975 and I was very fortunate that some Soviets were able to get out of that atrocious country. Just to remind everyone, I see a lot of people from the UK and the US. I think a lot of people don't know their history very well. The Soviet Union, when I was born there, is more similar to North Korea than it is to Iran.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  Meaning, in Iran, if you live there right now, you can actually leave. You can go to Turkey, you can go to Canada, you can leave right now. But if you're born in North Korea today, you're not allowed to leave. When I was born in the Soviet Union, you were not allowed to leave. There was no passport. So I was born in the jail, uh, to the world's greatest mother, who just celebrated her birthday three days ago. Happy birthday, mom. And, and that is really the story of my life. I immigrated to America when I was four. I...

• 4:11Speaker 00

  We grew up very poor. You know, I lived in a studio apartment with five or six family members, depending on who was coming through at the time. And so, we really struggled. My dad got a job as a stock boy in a liquor store. Eventually, became the manager of that liquor store. And so, we moved to Edison, New Jersey. And I grew up in the streets of Edison, New Jersey, which was lower-middle-class New Jersey in the 80s. So, you know, very like humble stuff, right? Like, I had parents, friends' parents, who wore the same clothes every day. That's the kind of neighborhood I grew up in. We played a lot of sports. We got into a lot of fights. And I started to become a marketer when I was six. And I say this very specifically, seven. When I was seven, I started my first lemonade stand.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  And instead of like standing behind the lemonade stand, I would make signs and hang them all over the different trees and poles. And this is true, Shaolin. I literally would sit and watch cars drive by to try to figure out what pole or tree to put the sign on.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  Now, I didn't think I was a marketer then. I'd never heard, I obviously didn't know the word. In fact, I don't think I had the aha of the story that I just told until I was probably into my late 30s. But, you know, I think some people are born into things, whether it's singing, or dancing, or playing sports. I was born into being a marketer. I would argue everything I learned as a child. You know, at the lemonade stands, at the trading card conventions I went to when I was 11 and 12. And then, I really learned a lot growing up in retail. My father eventually opened a small liquor store in New Jersey that I grew up in, and I worked there. And it all led to me launching the first e-commerce wine business,

• 5:58Speaker 00

  one of the first five e-commerce wine businesses in America in 1996. This is a plaque about my family business. And grew my dad's business from a three to a $65 million revenue business in my early 20s on the back of email marketing, e-commerce, and Google AdWords. And that's what really got me into the mindset of like underpriced and overpriced attention. I think you know this about me. I'm not a modern social media guy. I'm not anti-traditional marketing. I'm anti-wasting good money on bad marketing. I'm anti-spending money on ideology versus practicality.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  I'm against making marketing for awards and fake corporate boardroom reports versus the consumer.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  And for context of this room, in 2009, I started VaynerMedia. Then I wrote this book, Crush It!, which kind of said the internet's gonna matter. And in 2000, I was really running the wine business and the agency from 2009 to 11. My brother was my co-founder. He was running it day-to-day with me. But in 2011, I really jumped on board. The business was doing a million dollars in revenue at that point. And I grew this business from a one-million to a $400-million revenue agency. I think we're one of the largest, if not the largest, independent agency in the world now. We're a lot bigger than everyone in this call realizes.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  We have 2,000-plus employees. And we have a very substantial competitive advantage, which is, we are not audacious.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  You are not audacious.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  We are not audacious. And here, I might be confident.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  No!

• 7:55Speaker 00

  But...

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Surely you're shrinking violet.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  No, I am incredibly expressive. I like, I have the gift of gab. But Daisy, who ran the UK for me, is in this chat. And she's now on to an incredible marketing career. I'm sure she's asked about me, because she worked for me for a long time, and now doesn't. And I'm sure she has lots of things to say about me. But, back to my mother. For all I am, deep down, I'm a nice boy. And I would say that humility has been our secret power at VaynerMedia. I am not Don Draper. I am not a creative, Chief Creative Officer of a holding company agency, where I literally don't think my shit stinks. And that my opinion matters over everything.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  It is humility and curiosity of how to bring value to the end consumer of our clients that drives me. I am convicted in our process of social media first marketing, currently, while social media deserves to be first. Eventually, it will not. If this was 1971, I would be convicted in my television first marketing approach. But I do not have the audacity, nor does anybody in my company, that their idea for the campaign is right or brilliant. We do not measure based on headlines and ad age or Cannes Lions awards.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  We are committed to having marketing drive our clients' business. And we're committed to being gracious and kind to our employees first, the customers of our customers second, and then our actual clients third, in a way that I don't believe this industry does it. And I think that is the secret to the sauce. Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast, that's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Right, I get it. There is a bit of a dichotomy though. Well, maybe there isn't, maybe this is perception. Because your brand, so you as Gary Vee, your persona is strong, vibrant, really out there, and has been created, or I don't know, received over a sustained amount of time.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  During which I'm sure you have gone through, you know, changes in your outlook or your beliefs. I'm wondering what the differences are between kind of Gary Vee as the persona, or as the thing, and maybe you behind that? And whether there's a difference between you and Vayner?

• 10:39Speaker 00

  You know, I can see Daisy's cooking in the comments. She can probably add some color again, because I think it's a third party and a non... a non... Incentivize third party. But I, my answer to that is, and I actually want everyone to answer this. This is very simple. This is a very simple question, and I love engaging the audience. So please, everyone say yes or no. This is a yes or no question. Friends, all of you watching, do you feel there's slightly different versions of yourself, given the room that you're in? That as a mother and father, you're slightly different than a spouse. As a daughter or a husband, you're different than when you're presenting to your board. As the manager, you're different than you are when you're with your best buddies

• 11:24Speaker 00

  in the countryside of the UK. When the camera is on and I am performing, there is definitely an energy boost that accelerates my natural truth.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  I don't think Gary Vee and Gary Vaynerchuk are different. I think the context of when they show up is different. When I'm talking to Daisy as a business owner about a strategy we have on our team, or as a friend when we're flying back from a meeting in the UK and we're talking about marriages and children, those are different than me speaking to her right now as someone who's being interviewed in a fireside chat in the context of marketing.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  I also think that sometimes people get lost in the energy versus the words. I'm a very aggressive communicator when I'm in a public forum. But when the words coming out of my mouth are compassion and empathy and patience, I always laugh when people try to compare me to something a little bit more alpha than I am, because they're unable to, and that's on me. I don't actually judge them, I understand. But when they're unable to separate the energy, or the cursing, or the conviction from the merit of the words.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  I know, I get it, I get it. I mean, when you and I first met, I think we only had about half an hour, but I had, I came into that first meeting with a perception that immediately evaporated within four minutes, well, no, not even that, within the first few minutes. So I was interested to see whether it's, you know, is it a barrier or is it an advantage? Is it something that you feel you need or should do something about? Or is it solely in the eye of the beholder?

• 13:16Speaker 00

  I think it's a mix. It's such a beautiful thing you just said there. That last thing, I'm gonna stay on because I think it's going to bring a lot of people a lot of value.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  This is, this, talk about humbling. I'd like to say something that if you struggle with when I say it, I ask you to take a beat this weekend and pour your beverage of choice and get in your feelings because there is no bigger truth than what you just said in life. And this is how politics is playing out right now. And this is how marketing works, which is why I think I'm good at it because I understand what I'm about to say. In life, every one of us finds what we're looking for.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  When I tell you the thing I despise the most is when I am encountered with pessimism and cynicism, it breaks my little soul.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Because people try to say they keep it real. You know how people are like, "I'm just keeping it real." I'm like, "Yes, you're keeping it real negative."

• 14:19Speaker 00

  I do believe that I, as a very heavy, let's talk about this little world of our world here in marketing. In this world, with how aggressive and loud I came out in 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and I was poking, and I mean poking, at the establishment. I do believe people saw what they were looking for in me. Right? If you were blindly in belief that it was the old world of how brands grow, and you spent 25 years becoming a creative director, and here's this loud mouth saying, "Your subjective opinion is audacious. 99% of campaigns don't work." If you're the head of media at Publicis,

• 15:04Speaker 00

  and I'm like, "90% of the media dollars that holding companies are spending is a waste", of course you're gonna see what you're looking for. And I respect that. However, what I really enjoyed was the thousands that would stop me at Cannes, or at Adweek, or hit me up on LinkedIn after a talk like this, who would say, "I'm emailing you for my Gmail account, but you're telling the truth. Keep fighting the fight. I know you're getting all the judgment and the hate, but it's important what you're doing, because we are wasting clients' money. I am upset with what I see happening in my own company. I don't like that the banks have taken over our creative industry.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  It is just about the P&L right now. We do need more HARP. I do feel like just a cell on an Excel sheet in my big company. I could be fired at any time if we lose a client." And so, I was willing to be misunderstood for a decade to be respected in the end.

• 16:09Speaker 02

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• 17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and do you think it's really changed? Have you felt the shift in the last, I don't know, five or six years?

• 17:15Speaker 00

  I would say I have felt a shift in the last two years, but I will tell you that I also don't live for the admiration.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  No, I know that.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  You know, if I look at what Daisy's writing, when Daisy says, I'm gonna scroll up, it's true, right? Like, this is a former employee. You know how former employees can be, right? Like, it's hard to be appreciated, adored, respected by a former employee. We can all agree with that, right? And Daisy's a winner, and I'm humbled, but I know, even if Daisy was in here saying, "Not true," because she was, let's say she was mad at me, I still know the truth of who I was for her, and continue to be. And so, you know, I do feel a shift. It'll be fun to see if people feel like their perception of me, or my beliefs in marketing, or social media-first approach, has that shifted? Say yes or no.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  You know, again, somebody in here said, "I'm a Jersey," Lori said, "I'm a fellow Jerseyer. I understood you the whole time." So, you know, it's a path. I mean, I think when you're well-intended, and I'm sure a lot of people here are well-intended, if you're well-intended and you believe in what you believe in, it will always work out in the end.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree with you. Okay, so let's talk about marketing a bit, and we'll go to some Q and A in a minute, too. I'm keen to know, I mean, you're not shy about speaking truth to power, right? And I'm keen to know what it is that you believe that CMOs should really be caring about now that they're not.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Organic social media content production. It's the single most important thing going on in our industry. The mid-funnel, as we define it, organic social, AKA every brand in here, or every agency person representing a brand in here. I believe if it's a Fortune 5000, a top 5000 company in the world, you're talking about 20, 30, 40 pieces of organic ads, creative ads, a day, across 8 to 9 different platforms, across 10 to 15 to 30 different handles within the overall mix, meaning 4 different Instagram accounts, 3 different TikTok accounts. I believe that is a bare minimum.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  I'm aware that no one is doing that on this call.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  Number 2, once you understand the volume of creative, because everyone thinks it's spray and pray, throw against the wall and see what sticks, test and learn, it is not. It is advertising every day in the modern world. And then allowing the AI algorithms that show you if there's relevance with that creative to be a starting point for debate of taking that creative to the lower funnel performance or the upper funnel campaign.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  I believe that no one on this call should spend a single dollar of media on a piece of creative unless it has been validated for reach organically on social.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  I mean, that's a big one.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  If anybody wants to disagree with that, do so on the chat.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  That's a big one.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  So what's the barrier? I mean, if that is a real solution to what CMOs need to do to ensure growth, what's the barrier? Are they not hearing people? Are the people that are actually doing the stuff that may be lower down in the hierarchy unable to influence them? Are they just not willing to listen? What is it? What's the barrier? And how do we overcome it?

• 20:41Speaker 00

  I answered it in the chat. And I think a lot of people are going to resonate with it. It's reporting and it's corporate inertia and politics.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Right? So what do we do about that?

• 20:54Speaker 00

  We look for courageous, common sense leadership. You know, it is very hard to convince your boss to do something you believe is true if the boss is being incentivized in their bonus based on measurement that overvalues television and programmatic digital.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  It's a problem though, right? It's a problem. So we, as you know, we work with two layers of hierarchy for one of the words in our programs, scholarship emerging leaders. And they're not kids. They're in their mid 30s to even early mid 40s. And the CMOs, they're in two separate programs. And what we hear, time and time and time again, from the scholars is that they find it really hard to get the board or their CMO to listen. And, you know, they're full of concern or anxiety about that. You know, that speaking truth to power is not an easy, that's not an easy skill.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And it's scary as shit if you think that you're gonna get fired for saying something they're not gonna wanna hear. So are there any advice that you can give people that are experiencing that?

• 22:07Speaker 00

  All of that is true. Everybody here has mortgages, college debt if they live in America, responsibilities, hopes and dreams. And it would be audacious to sit here and say, "Go in, guns are blazing, tear down the place," because you will find yourself in the unemployment line, right? So I'm very empathetic. There's a couple of things. There is a respectful way.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  There is a respectful way to have a conversation with anyone about what you actually believe in, right? So for example, Sarah says, "Right now, CMOs and boards are overvaluing AI above everything else," right? If TV's an afterthought. Now, if Sarah thinks that's right, then that's easy. If she thinks there's a nuance to that, there's a respectful way for Sarah to communicate that, right? There's, everyone here, there is a respectful way to communicate what you believe in. I'm gonna say something profoundly important, at least to me. I would like everyone chilling on this call to die on their own sword. Because the thing that breaks my heart, that is not, you know,

• 23:23Speaker 00

  one of the fun things about agency life is you become very friendly with your clients. So a lot of these people have become my friends and it has been devastating to watch my friends get fired. Because they thought they were appeasing the company by supporting TV or sponsorship or media spend or efficiency versus effectiveness or whatever it is. Deep down, they saw it differently. I know that because if I was their friend, these would be the talks, right? And then when the business would decline with traditional marketing, they would be hurt or passed up on or even fired. And meanwhile, they never believed in it the whole way and that's about to hit scale.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  So I would tell everybody here, there is a respectful way

• 24:11Speaker 00

  to be able to communicate what you believe the firm or the organization should be doing. Make sure that your boss, the board, the C-suite, your contemporaries and the people that work for you know where you stand on what you think you should do with creative and media. Right? And the reason that people don't challenge it and go social first is it doesn't measure internally properly yet. It also doesn't get the headlines. You know, getting, I'm more excited about a single organic piece of social

• 24:48Speaker 00

  getting 45 million views than I am about a TV campaign getting featured in Campaign Magazine or a Cannes Lion. Because I think it has more business impact. I can communicate that. That doesn't mean that my clients agree with me, but we can have the conversation. They know where I stand. And the reason I feel different in the last 24 months than I did last nine years, Carolyn, is a lot of people are starting to realize that social first versus social last, or even social with, is becoming a winning formula. When you look at Gruen's selling to Unilever for $1.2 billion after 26 months on a social-first framework, Liquid Death on a social-first framework.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  You know, when you look at these over and over and over, it starts to click in.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Yep. There's some, I think there's probably a number of questions in the chat actually, so just go over there and just ask a few. Uh, okay, this is about AI, and I guess can't really have a conversation about marketing without talking about AI.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  You shouldn't.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Uh, this is Tyler. Oh, hi, one of my fellows. "In a world where AI agents are handling the bulk of guest transactions and brand discovery, how do you keep brands' soul from being filtered out by the algorithms?"

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Who gets to decide what the soul is, is my next question to that person.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Expand on that.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  Who is the judge and jury of the soul of a brand?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  It should be the consumer, but the company's thinking to them, right?

• 26:28Speaker 00

  It's a little bit more nuanced than that for me, but I understand what you're saying. Even if it was the consumer, how would we pull that? How would we understand it? I would argue the biggest issue in marketing is that we think we need to be on-brand and consistent, when the reality with the consumer is there's not a single consumer brand on earth that is actually consistent. People have very different perceptions of brands and nuances, no matter how hard you push your tagline or TVC, right? You know, and so, you know, a soul, you know, Alex says, shouldn't the soul be clearly defined as part of... Yes, of course it should be defined on paper, but Alex, I'm sure you're aware of the Constitution of the United States of America.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  I don't know if you've heard, it's written on paper very clearly, but 50% of our country in America sees it one way and interprets it one way, and 50%, I mean, the Supreme Court of America literally rules on clearly laid-out verbiage and clearly laid-out arguments, five to four, six to three, every day of the week. So, this ideology that we can put things on paper, or in a brief, or on a deck, and that lays out the soul, the interpretation of the words is the issue that this industry has struggled with. Like, how many times, you know, does something get written in a brief, and then the strategist is mad at the creative because they didn't capture it? Or, you know, we need the humility to understand

• 27:54Speaker 00

  that this industry runs on the subjective opinion of four people, three people, two people. So, look, and what is a soul? Like, Sherilyn, people talk audaciously. They're like, "Gary, the soul of Nike." I'm like, "Nike wants to fucking sell sneakers and apparel." Like, we have to take a step back. Like, we're often in marketing of products. Like, thank you, Sherilyn, thank you.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  We had never done that last week. We had no nerve on the clock. And, you know, they said, "What's your biggest learning?" Anyway, my biggest learning is, it's just not that deep.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  True.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  I thought, "Oh, my God." That's gonna be our new mantra for all of us.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  But like, like, like, the soul of Starbucks coffee, like, I get it, but we're selling coffee. And by the way, like, there's better coffee out there. Like, you know, like, you know, I get it. And I believe in, like, I believe in soul. But I do not believe in the way we decide to measure or judge it. And in that vulnerability of human subjectivity, there's been a more important thing, which is, for the first time in marketing history, we can measure relevance. And the way we can measure relevance is through organic social media content. And by the way, I want to say something. I want everyone to hear this, especially if you don't know me or my stuff. If this was 2002,

• 29:20Speaker 00

  I would only be talking about email marketing and Google AdWords, right, and the beginning of this new thing called blogging. And in 2041, I'm gonna be interviewing like this and being like, "You're still doing social media marketing? It's so overpriced." The attention has shifted into VR, AR, whatever the world has in store for all of us. You know? And, take care, Ben. And so... You know, the reality is, is that we can measure relevance. Sherilyn, for the first time ever, so I don't know if people know this, let's take a quick step back. There is no social media anymore. We now live in interest media. You know, when I, when I post

• 30:03Speaker 00

  on my Instagram, right, I have 11.5 million followers on Instagram, right? When I post this post this morning, you know, this post has 105,000 views so far. It earned those views. This no longer goes just to my followers, it goes to people that might be interested about envy and why, my point here is revenge is a bad energy and envy and jealousy is gonna get you nowhere, right? But then, just, you know, literally five posts earlier, this video about me talking about self-esteem, if you have a daughter, this is only five posts earlier, oops, I'm sorry.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  This is very important, so bear with me, everyone. This got, Jesus, 6 million views.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  7 years ago, all my posts got 500,000 views, no matter what I posted. On average, you know? Now, your creative creates the reach. I need everyone to like, really go there, you know? The creative creates the reach. All the AI algorithms and social media right now are being written on relevance. For the first time ever, where we distribute our marketing, the distribution channel, is aligned with our interests. Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, they wanna keep people on the platform. That's how they make money.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  They want to show you and I things that we are actually interested in, not random stuff from people we follow. Got it?

• 31:47Speaker 00

  We, as marketers, get the benefit of what their interest is. The BBC didn't care if our creative was good or not. They just wanted our money. The Wall Street Journal didn't care. They just wanted our money, right? The radio station, they just wanted our money. These platforms want to keep people on, so they benefit creative that is actually relevant. Everyone, listen, I might be a new guy, but everyone here agrees, me included, that relevance to consideration leads to purchase. The AI algorithms in social literally measure relevance.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Relevance.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  That is, that is, that is a profound breakdown of where we are in social that I hope people understand. The other thing that we have to understand is that this argument that people keep having that telly has more reach than social is laughable.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  It's laughable. The actual sheer consumption of social media advertising versus telly advertising is profound. If you just take the streaming consumption in the world that does not have commercials, a lot of the platforms, I don't know what, and people are like, well, live sports. Yes, people watch live sports, but are they watching the commercials? And then you get into what the cost is. Because, listen, I would run television ads, I would buy billboards, I would do full-page ads in print if they were 80% less and matched the reality of the actual consumption today. Not we're overpriced to keep them in business because the world's passed them by.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, I get it. Okay, I've got a question from Kate, which leads into the platforms, really. You were the first person Kate heard talking about how TikTok was going to blow up in a big way. What do you think is next?

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Kate, thank you. I, I don't have anything, I would say, I don't think it's going to be of that scale. I would say for a lot of brands here, especially B2B, Substack and Beehive are very big opportunities. So just put that on a shelf. They will not hit the level of what TikTok is. But the reason I've had a pretty good career of like seeing around corners is I don't predict, I just wait for something to actually have meaningful mass attention that has opportunity for us to market in. I would say the closest thing I would say to what's next is the thing I've been talking about which is the barbell. The extreme of analog and the extreme of digital.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  So the two things I'm very interested in is experiential marketing in real live events and sampling and trialing product. And live social shopping.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Live social shopping. Oh, I see. Yeah, you're purchasing immediately through.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  Live. I'm talking, I'm talking, I'll just do it right now. When you go on whatnot, like I will just go to a category right now, like let's go to maybe this one. See if anyone's selling. This person, this is gonna blow you away. Watch this, everyone.

• 34:52Speaker 04

  You will be getting these crabs.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  This woman is selling crabs. On social media. Crabs!

• 35:01Speaker 04

  Congratulations. That's awesome.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  Watch, watch this, everyone.

• 35:06Speaker 04

  Alright, we're gonna do another dozen.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  Northern Maryland, just wondering if you.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  A dozen northern Maryland crabs.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  Actually located in Pennsylvania.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  Oh, she's in Pennsylvania.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. You can Google Harbor House crabs and you'll find, we have a just a small.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  I'm making a point here, so watch this. Here it goes. It's being sold.

• 35:31Speaker 04

  Um, this is gonna be for a dozen of. You're doing half was the first one?

• 35:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, the first one. The first one was a half dozen.

• 35:39Speaker 04

  The first one was six? I thought it was a dozen.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  It's at thirty-five dollars right now. She's selling crabs. Live crabs!

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Now, now let me say something. Let me say something.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  The woman in the room is gonna be doing this next week.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Ready for this, Chilla? Everybody, China, this year, it may top one trillion dollars in GMV.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  $1 trillion in gross merchandise value. TikTok Shop in the US and the UK, these numbers are staggering. Tens of billions. I agree Evan, those crabs did look good.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  And so I think live shopping is next. I think anyone here that is selling a physical product, or represents a client that does, they should be absolutely talking about live social shopping. TikTok Shop is probably the leader, but like, I mean, there's, I mean, look, this is just like, look how real this is. Look what my meeting is at noon. Do you see it?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  You see it?

• 36:47Speaker 01

  No, I can't see it.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Okay. It says Meta and live shopping. Literally, I'm having a meeting with Meta about what they're, about what they're planning on doing with live shopping.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Okay. So that's what we're all investing in next. Right, I've got another question for you. Emily says, "When building a brand, do you think building a community is overlooked? Do we stuck too much in DC thinking? And have we lost a human-to-human view?" I think there's a number of questions there in one.

• 37:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  The value of community building for a brand.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  Yes. Yes. I believe that everyone has become a banker. Everything's Excel sheets. We've suppressed creativity. One of the reasons I love social media marketing is all, we had Wingstop, a big client of ours here yesterday. There was 37 good ideas. All of them are gonna go out. We didn't spend all day trying to pick one campaign to put on TV and outdoor and push down matching digital and social luggage. All of them. So I think we've suppressed creativity. I think this industry is dramatically less creative than it was 40 years ago. It's all AI and math and efficiency and like, one idea, right?

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Whereas if you look at the mix, you look at Betty Crocker in the 50s and 60s, they were doing 60, 100 different full-page ads in newspapers around the country that had different creative. The things I'm doing on social today. I didn't invent anything. I'm just executing it in the new platforms. I think we've suppressed creativity. I think we do not care enough about the end consumer. I think we are audacious about how smart they are. I think we pander. I think most of our messaging is vanilla, to be safe. I think, I think a lot of things.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Well, how depressing. So tell me...

• 38:37Speaker 00

  Well, it's actually, actually it's not depressing.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Well, it's an opportunity.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  It's, it's, this is, this is why I'm, it's actually the reverse. It's why I'm so optimistic. Why did I do this hour? First, I think you're fabulous. I don't know. But, but second, it's because I'm hoping that Olga A. Or Antonio B. Or someone hears one thing from me. That sends them down two hours of live shopping. Or, did he say 50 pieces of content a day? We do one a week. You know, and, and it becomes, just like, listen, just like what, starting with my mother and then later, living life and finding different conversations and peoples and letting, letting the world be my mentor, like, we all can find inspiration to do it differently. And we went to the most important part earlier.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  Be respectful, but communicate your truth. Be respectful, but communicate your truth. And I, I remember I called my mom after a meeting in 2014. And called her, "Mom, I love you, how are you?" And I said, "Mom, I don't think I'm a genius anymore." And she laughed, and she said, "What do you mean?" And I'm like, "These first three years in corporate America and big brands in the world, I'm like, man, I'm so much smarter than everybody, this is so weird." And now I've realized, no, I wasn't, I just had freedom as an entrepreneur to speak my truth. All these people know what I know, they're just scared to say it. Do you think anyone here does not realize that social media, across 10 platforms, from LinkedIn to TikTok, control a shocking amount of human attention?

• 40:09Speaker 00

  All we do is cry about how much time people spend on phones. So let me get this right. You cry your fucking balls off all day long about, "Everyone's on the phone and the world's fucked up." But you spend 3% of your energy on social media marketing?

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Yep. Because they've not managed to convince internally that it's the right thing to do. So what is the one thing that you think that people in the room need to do? Or learn, or start doing differently tomorrow? To make a difference to this issue?

• 40:38Speaker 00

  Make organic social media content on the side for your real life? So that you know what you're actually talking about? And you're a practitioner, not a pontificator? Or a parrot of words coming out of my mouth? So that you can walk into any boardroom and prove? That organic social media, when you put media behind it? Will have a bigger ROI in sales? And brand than if you do the alternative? Everyone needs to become a practitioner. We talk too much. We're students too much. The thing that makes me dangerous is this. Look at this. This is my WhatsApp with my team. This is Team Gary, this is how we make content. We're talking all day. This is 8:30 this morning.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  This is me writing the copy. I am a copywriter, gentlemen. For so, I wrote the copy for the revenge post I just posted. I am a practitioner.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 00

  Of marketing. Not a pontificator. I'm not a professor at university talking about marketing. I'm marketing.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. Well, you heard it there then, folks, that's what you need to start doing. To promote. Um, right, Anna Lisa's got a question. Do you think marketing can make the world a better place? What's your view on sustainability, profit, people, planet? Is it a marketing job? Or is it someone else's? I've got a view on it, but let's hear yours.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  I think it's the so, I think it's the number one item on the list of what should marketing do?

• 42:14Speaker 01

  I'm so glad you said that. Oh, actually, no, I'm not, we could have had a real tussle.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  I would, I would, I would, I would argue that? Marketing's number one job? Is to scale love and accountability.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  I would argue that Martin Luther King and Gandhi and John Lennon are much better marketers than David Ogilvy.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  I would argue that the reason I have so much commercial success with VaynerMedia is because Gary Vee pushes practical positivity and markets every day to make the world a better place, especially for young men who are being pushed into very weird places and thoughts. And that what I do to make them understand that nice guys finish first and that kindness is a strength is far more important than me helping Wingstop sell chicken wings or Pepsi sell soda. And so when we talk about soul, it does not happen in advertising agencies peddling airlines and sneakers.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  But it can happen in the way we choose to communicate as communicators, right? So we've always, always had the belief in the academy that marketing, media and advertising can change the world, given that its impact and reach to the 8 billion people on the planet.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  What do you think the Premier of China and the Prime Minister of the UK and the President of the United States, what do you think they do for a living? They are in the communications business.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Well, proving that it can be done just as damagingly as it can for good.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  Well, let there be no confusion. That is the whole punchline of Earth. Right? This is a very, there's a very fine line. This is why Star Wars is the most profound movie made. The line between the dark side and Jedis, aka love and hate, is very narrow. But let me say something very important this afternoon. Love always wins.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  You may all be confused right now and hate and darkness might have a little momentum. You know, it's like sports. You know, maybe hate and negativity and cynicism has scored the last two goals, but I promise you, we're gonna win this shootout in the end. Love always wins. I will die on that sword.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  I bet not many of the people in the room thought that we'd be going there today, but there you go.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  I mean, look, we also went to selling crabs on Live Shopping. I mean, we're going all over the place today.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  We definitely did that. So I'm just gonna see what other questions we've got, because we've got quite a few. Right, Derek. Oh, Derek, one of my scholars, one of my year one scholars. Um, Mr. Vaynerchuk. On top of being social first, Vayner appears to also be culture first, or at least trying to move at pace of culture. How do you define culture? Do you see the two things as symbiotic? If so, in what ways? Is a world where diversity is being tackled only despite signals of culture often starting at the fringes overlooked and understerved communities? How should culture-forward, social-forward brands lead?

• 45:22Speaker 00

  It's a great question.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Knowing that they might be pushed back.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  It's a very good question. So I think there's a lot there that's also very brilliant. What was the person that asked that question?

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Derek.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Derek? Derek, first of all, I need to know you, please. I put my LinkedIn here. Please take a screenshot or control copy, send me a message. I'd like to know you because your question's incredibly profound on many levels. One, I'm just sheerly humbled that you're aware that we do trade on culture. I would say, for example, our entire strategy department is transforming currently from brand strategy titles to relevance strategy titles. Their jobs are not to figure out the brand infrastructure, what the brand can stand for. Their job is to understand how the brand can join in to the 973 different bubbles of popular culture that are going on in the world.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  That then allows it to do what you're talking about. Even though the world is decisive, red, blue, conservative, liberal, we push brands to be relevant to everyone. We do also say be careful of politics because it's a very easy way to get into trouble. But... When, back to underserved communities. In the context of our lives, we think about people being suppressed by governments and by culture. Yes, but I'm gonna put that on the shelf because that's more politics than what I'm talking about right now, which is, I believe every brand is underserving communities. Not because they're marginalized communities, but because we are stuck in campaign thinking and advertising.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Our industry is so stuck on picking one group of people to market to and betting everything on it versus being relevant to everyone. Meaning, once again, not complicated. If I'm, I'm just gonna use the UK because I'm in a London mood. If I am Kit Kat Bar and I'm trying to sell Kit Kats in the UK, yes, I want to be relevant to 20 to 25-year-old Indian UK residents that immigrated from India. And I want to make content that might have some cricket content in there. I equally would like 45 to 50-year-old posh women

• 47:39Speaker 00

  that are cool and hip and hang out in shortage to also buy Kit Kats for their kids as an indulgence. And I need to make content that speaks their slang, their popular culture. I would also like countryside truck drivers when they stop at Tesco to pick up a Kit Kat Bar. And I would like to do some, you know, truck-driving humor. And put that in my content. And all of that can be real.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  All of that can be real.

• 48:16Speaker 00

  If you understand that you need much more volume of relevant content, and we do trade on that.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  And it's, I don't even know how to think about not trying to be relevant to everyone. But you have to be overly respectful to those subcultures. You have to understand them. You have to make it valuable for them, whether you make them laugh or think, or ponder, anything to consider. And you have to be authentic and real. Like, if you're Kit Kat, let's just stay on my example. Like, you're not a healthy snack.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  Right, so like, you know, going after yoga gals that are 20 in the posh clubs of London, you're gonna have to make a piece of content that's more about, "Hey, why don't you eat one of us?" After you have a night out drinking with your girls and isn't it nice to have a quick little indulgence of four little bars?

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have a hangover too.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  That's right, and we are just not real. Friends, we are not real in our advertising industry. We have this outlandish hope and dream that people will see us different than we are versus owning who we are and then being relevant to people and meeting them where they are. Ooh, I like that. I like that whole thing. I haven't said it that way, like, that's real shit.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  So, just quickly, who out there, brands, both B2C and B2B, do you believe are doing the best stuff in this space right now?

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Gruins, Mary Ruth's Organics, Liquid Death, brands that are going from zero to 250 million in revenue on a social-first agenda. The end.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  And what about B2B? And how does social first really play out for B2B?

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Oh, my favorite platform of all.

• 50:15Speaker 02

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• 51:18Speaker 01

  Is the only platform, is it?

• 51:20Speaker 00

  I would say Substack and Beehive have just started getting us into a place. I would also say Google with YouTube Shorts, making B2B content on Shorts. That's informational, so that you show up on Gemini for the future battle of GEO, AEO and LLMs.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  Got it?

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 51:40Speaker 00

  I also, going back to experiential, every trade show, every event B2B does, film everything, it's a production day, and create content for LinkedIn. But every B2B business here, or if you're servicing a B2B business, should be producing 3 to 4 pieces of LinkedIn content organically every day. When something gets 8,000 views instead of your normal 800, then you spend media against it, targeting CIOs, CFOs, whomever your target for what your thing is.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Okay, alright, cool. Now listen, we've got a shit ton of questions that we're not gonna get around, so I might talk to your team and see if I can get something with you at some point in the future, where we answer some of these, together we do a couple of calls or something and answer some. Because, oh, so actually, Alexander just wanted to say that Lord of the Rings is the best film ever made. I actually think it's Moulin Rouge, but...

• 52:28Speaker 00

  Mmm, good movie.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Um, I'm gonna end this, if you're up for this, Gary, with quick fire, right?

• 52:35Speaker 00

  Yes, I'll go fast, I'll go fast.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  One word or a short sentence answers.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Some are fun, some are more serious, right. The one app you'd never delete?

• 52:44Speaker 00

  Um, the one app I would never delete? I guess today the answer's Claude.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Claude. Last thing you bought in a store?

• 52:56Speaker 00

  I really wanna give you the truth, so let me think real quick. The last thing I bought in the store was big red bubble gum at a Hudson News at the airport.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  You've got 100 grand to invest, crypto or gold?

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Crypto is too broad, that would be like saying precious metals and bouillon. So I'll say gold or Bitcoin. In a 10-year window, Bitcoin.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Okay. The company you really wish you had invested in and didn't?

• 53:31Speaker 00

  I have an email that's in my inbox right now from airbedandbreakfast.com. "Hey Gary, me and my two co-founders think you're the coolest. Our dream investor is you. Please look at our company." It got archived by my admin, or I missed it. But I would have been the first check into Airbnb.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Okay. If, in a parallel universe, you didn't make it rich and successful, but you're working in the industry, what company would you be working for right now?

• 53:58Speaker 00

  I would never... If I wasn't an entrepreneur, I would be a therapist, a guidance counselor.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  I would not work at a company.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  Oh, that's amazing. Imagine I'm Gary's counselor.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  By the way, I would argue 55 million people do. I think if people really paid attention to my content, they would see I'm being clever with my outside personality. I have a very significant mental health agenda.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Yes, I know you do, I know. That's why I think you'd be an absolutely excellent counselor. Right, an AI tool you secretly use more than people think you do?

• 54:42Speaker 00

  I don't think there's any secret to it. I mean, I think the biggest tool that I'm using in the world is right here. This is my OpenClaw. And if you don't know what OpenClaw is, you need to go and Google or AI it right now. And every person here, the single biggest thing that I might have left, and I've left some good gems here, is that you need to spend five hours understanding everything about what OpenClaw is, what harnesses it are in AI, and really where we're going with Agentic AI agents. So I would say OpenClaw.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Okay, great. If you had to kill one social platform tomorrow, what would it be?

• 55:17Speaker 00

  For my, like, as like it disappears off the face of the earth, or for my own usage?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Either. Or both, we've got time.

• 55:26Speaker 00

  You know, how many people here in the chat have more than one child? Please put the number.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  I've got three.

• 55:33Speaker 00

  Beautiful, I've got two. I would say that the answer is, I struggle with that because I find them valuable for different reasons. I definitely wouldn't wipe any of them off the earth, I don't have the audacity. They exist because people get value from them. For my own personal usage, I'd probably... It's so funny, I'm gonna go with Facebook. Nah, all the... I'm gonna go with Snapchat, even though I'm obsessed with Snapchat, but I gotta pick one because I don't wanna be... I don't wanna bail out, so I wanna answer. Keep going.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Where did DM you ever received?

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Let's just say that as my notoriety started to grow, my ego started to grow quite a bit. I was, you know, you become very desirable. I've gotten some very weird DMs. I would say, let me go somewhere much more important than silly. I would say the DMs that aren't the silliest but are the most important are the people that have stopped abusing alcohol and drugs, stopped hitting their spouse,

• 56:47Speaker 00

  stopped having dark and suicidal thoughts because a sustained amount of my content and the other small group of people that are putting out love and positivity but grounded in accountability

• 57:01Speaker 00

  has meant something to their lives.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, fuck it, nice. It's the last one. What's the one thing you'd ban from marketing conferences forever?

• 57:12Speaker 00

  Oh man, that's a great question.

• 57:21Speaker 00

  I think there is no logic to the random idea that is betting the... I'm gonna go very nuanced. We must get out of campaign work. We cannot guess in a boardroom,

• 57:33Speaker 00

  a slogan and then a 30-second video, and then spend hundreds of thousands and millions to make it. Inherently make it vanilla, because we're trying to reach everyone, which means we reach no one. And then spend millions, if not tens of millions, in media amplification on our audacious, often wrong, guess.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Okay, right, well, we're almost at time. So, what nugget that you haven't said yet? Would you really wanna leave a room full of marketers? And there'll be some agency people in the room as well.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  I got it. This is the greatest era of creativity, if you decide to grab it. In every room that you're in, we are all trying to get down to one idea, to guess and politic and bet the farm on. You were all brilliant. You didn't get to hear to this meeting if you didn't have real skills. I want all of your ideas to become ads. Social media isn't the enemy, it's the opportunity. It's got its shortcomings, but everything has its shortcomings. But if we're talking marketing, it is the opportunity for creativity to explode. And if creativity explodes, the lack of politics internally start to melt away. And so the work becomes more joyful.

• 58:59Speaker 00

  And to remind everybody, if it wasn't obvious during this talk, we are not curing cancer. And so, shouldn't we make this a little bit more enjoyable? Because there's way too many tiers in advertising. And we must eradicate that. And the way to do that is to liberate the ideas and creativity. And currently, the way to do that is to be on 10 social media platforms with 30 handles. And the biggest mantra, I just addressed all 2,500 employees at VaynerX, and said, "Our mantra going forward to our clients and to ourselves is that every no has a place to go."

• 59:37Speaker 00

  And I know that, and I know what I'm about to say is true. Every person's best marketing idea ever went to the cutting room floor and never saw the day of light. And, and just do it, and where's the beef? And Mastercard Priceless easily could have hit the cutting room floor. Those are the few rare times we guessed right. But 97% of campaigns fail. And they waste a lot of money. And it wasn't fun getting there. So what the fuck are we doing?

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Let's leave it right there, that's the mic. What the fuck are we doing? Well, thank you so, so much, Gary. I thoroughly enjoyed this hour with you. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your wisdom and your knowledge and your nuggets of truth. Thank you, everybody in the room. Jump over to the virtual campus, there's a shit ton of on-demand stuff just dropped. If you've recently been laid off, there's a really good one by me, which is all about the seven steps you need to take now. If the shit is at the fan and you're out of role. So jump over there, look at some of the learning journeys. I will see the US scholars, hopefully, next week in Manhattan at Gary's Private Members Club. And I can't wait to spend more time with you, Gary. I've loved every second of this.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Thanks for everybody, share the learning on LinkedIn, tag Gary, tag me.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of the

• 1:01:06Speaker 06

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