Transcript
Gary Vaynerchuk (0:00)
I'm sure it is not lost on anyone how much advancements we're seeing in the AI space. And I'm sure it's creating a lot of, you know, anxiety and concern, I'm sure for a lot of people in our industry. And the truth of the matter is that like it's super real. Like we can be self serving and selfish and hopeful and delusional, grounded in our self interest about why it's not this or is it ethical or emotionally ideological but like the reality is like we are going to be making one hour videos for $4 that take 19 minutes and that used to cost $800,000 and nine months and this has a higher likelihood of working than what we all. I mean this is like I feel so interested in that what I've been talking about, which is like, hey, social media is real and like we have to stop putting television or bad reporting or awards on a pedestal. And now I feel like what I was talking about is like minor leagues compared to what I think we're happening. What's about to happen, however, what I would say is what I've been talking about will play out again in this AI forward world which is if you are not common sense centric, if you, you know, we talk about this is like I want to talk to everybody in this room like humans, not like we're at a business thing. Like this industry loves to talk about, like we're consumer centric and does work and runs media. That is the opposite of consumer centric. I know you know that as a human, you may not act on it or even talk about it as an executive or being in the industry, but I know you know it as a human. I know not one human being here has clicked a banner ad in a decade. I know that. Right. And I know that if your life depended on it, your family's well being depended on it and I gave you a million pounds or euros to make something sell, that you would spend it differently than what we often in this industry recommend and do. So you know, I think what I'm most passionate about forever, how I got into this industry is I'm most passionate about where the actual consumer's attention is. You know, it's funny, I wasn't academic with my marketing. I got into the industry 15 years ago on the back of doing marketing for my family's wine store. And I could see that things were changing in 2006, 7, 8 and saw an opportunity. As I've been in marketing in the industry for the last 15 years. I learned all the terminology, I learned the core principles, and I've smiled along the way because I realize in a lot of ways, even though I've talked a lot about disrupting it and things of that nature, my principles are incredibly classic. Like for example, the main reason in hindsight I couldn't articulate this when I came out the gate because I didn't know the proper terminology. But in hindsight, the main reason I've always loved social media and the distribution of creative on it is it allows you to win on relevance. I just can make 50. When I look at all of you right now and I'm thinking, I want to sell this PayPal beverage to all of you, it's inconceivable to me that one video can make it happen. I feel like I have to systematically put you into micro groups or even individual groups and create words, videos and pictures that might compel you through relevance to consider drinking it. So I think we're living in the golden era of that. I believe that what is very clearly starting to hit the ether of our industry is that social creative is now moving to the forefront. I can tell you because I'm in the trenches with all of you. Like our company, the scopes we signed in 2025 in fee for social creative are 1020 x what we were getting the year before. So the speed in which the dollars are going, we are as a. So to take a step back, I'm making too many assumptions. VaynerMedia we are full pledge media and full pledge creative in every category. Social, digital and traditional. We have dozens of creative hours on that side of the equation. We have much bigger scopes for the social creative in fee than the above the line creative in fee. And I know all of you are starting to see that because I'm enough in the business world and it happened fast. There are clients where we were the, the social partner getting 700,000 in fee for the year and the creative AOR, Anomaly, Droga wine, whatever. They were getting 4 million and then and in 18 months it flipped and I think we're never going back. I would tell you all, I just think it's all wrapped up now. Especially because I think it's the AI overlay on top of this. You know, just like anything in life, it takes like six things to make the thing happen. This isn't just that though. It was happening anyway. The industry was starting to get into a social first environment. I think the acceleration of what AI is going to do for creative is going to get it's just getting hard for a Fortune 500 to get excited about spending $1.3 million on making a single 30 second video and spending 5 to $10 million to amplify that and then do matching luggage and digital and social to support the idea that we guessed in a room like this, which is based on politics and insecurities and guessing. So I think that's where we're at. I think the craft. You know, it's funny going through this industry. I remember maybe the third or fourth year I was at Cannes, it was like two in the morning at the Carlton and some extremely drunk creative director from a holding company came up to me and he's like, you know what? I really fucking hate you. I'm like, all right, here we go. I was like, here we go. But I'm like, pretty good in that setting because I understand the context. I'm like, go ahead. He's like, you don't care about the work. And it was a really. The reason I'm telling this story eight, ten years later is it's a really important moment in my career. I looked at him like, brother, I'm the only one that cares about the work. And it was funny. He sobered up quick and we had this really interesting conversation. I said, the way our industry considers the work is for ourselves. We're insular. I'm like, you're telling me that the awards that are gonna be given today, that is all politics and already thought out. You all know, like, that's the work. I care about someone actually seeing a video or a picture and actually buying something. This is called marketing. This isn't called second rate art. And we need to consume that and be fucking accountable to that. And one of the reasons that over the last decade so much marketing has gone in house is cause we haven't been good enough. That's real fucking talk. And so I'm actually very passionate about this industry. I want agencies to succeed. I spend time with my direct competitors and try to add deposits and help them grow. Cause I want it for us. Meaning I don't view that as a negative. We're going to go in and pitch and it's going to be a subjective call, you know what I mean? Like, I don't feel like that's hurting Vayner. I think we can all be there, but we as an industry are really need to wake up and like it's. The doors are closing in quick and we just need to be dramatically more consumer centric. And the information that is being consumed by the 8 billion people outside this room, it is predominantly coming through this. And the thing that is most dominant on this for attention is social networks. Yes, there's gaming and there's utility apps. And until we swallow that pill that so many of us have not wanted to and understand that the creative that works in there is the work and especially now, I don't think it's lost on anybody that's close enough to this. The algorithms flipped three years ago and now we're completely interest based it organic reach measures relevance. That's insane. We finally can measure creative like honestly we can hold creative accountable. I think that's, that's what I really am passionate about and like that's where it's going. And until we have a distribution change, which might be the meta glasses in six years might be something else. But until we have a distribution change, this is it. And I think the people that most understand how to storytelling that environment and understand the best practices at Vayner we call it pack platforms, algorithms and culture. I think it's really simple to understand. Like if you want to sell something in this market in Thailand, in Boston, in Rio de Janeiro, which platforms have the attention and how do they work? How does the algorithm work? So what creative units? I'll give you a real life example, this may help some of you. I hope it does one second. Videos on Facebook proper right now are dominant. So most people will post a picture and you'll post it. If I made a picture right now and posted it on Pepsi's Facebook in Europe and posted it, and let's just say whatever the reality of how many followers in the algo, if that got 8,000 reached people, if I made the same exact thing, but I made it a 1 second video instead of a picture, which is a picture, it would get 100,000 views and it would get 14 more comments which would give me more consumer insights and then I could do it again. That level of craft. People love to talk about craft in this industry. Craft, which for a common sense man like me equals let's spend a lot of fucking money on production. That means nothing to the business. That's how when someone's like I care about the craft, I'm like, you have lost your way. You're in the ether. We're in the muckery of marketing for the sake of marketing, not remembering what we all do here for a living. And so my tough love, my pushback, my passions, my different take over the last decade has been more about what is happening now, which is this industry doesn't need to exist. Every one of us, very likely I would go with now, if we're in marketing in 10 years, are working at a brand, not an agency, and we fucking blew it. Thank you. All right. That's like the things on my mind in a macro. I can go anywhere. Influencer marketing, AI influencers gaming, live social shopping. I'm obsessed with. Let's just do Q and A. Yes. What's your name?