The Death of Social Media and the Rise of Interest Media

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Death of Social Media and the Rise of Interest Media"

Podcast: The GaryVee Audio Experience
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Date: March 12, 2026
Episode Theme:
Exploring the fundamental shift from traditional social media to “interest media,” and how brands must adopt a "barbell strategy"—combining extreme digital tactics like AI-driven content with extreme analog, real-life engagement—to remain relevant and succeed in an AI-dominated marketing landscape.

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Main Themes and Purpose

• Death of Social Media: Gary argues that social platforms now operate based on personal interests rather than social graphs—marking the end of “social media” as we knew it.
• Rise of Interest Media: Platforms now prioritize relevance and merit, fueling content discovery by user interests and intent.
• Barbell Strategy: The future belongs to brands that master both ends of the spectrum: AI-driven, performance marketing, and high-touch analog/experiential interactions.
• Marketing Measurement Evolution: Truth in marketing now comes from measurable, tangible results (organic views, sales, in-person engagement) as opposed to older, vague brand metrics.
• Brand Survival & Innovation: Brands sticking to the “safe middle” become irrelevant, while those that simultaneously innovate with technology and create real-life experiences win long-term loyalty.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Social Metrics & Merit-Based Truth

• Organic Views as the Core Metric:

  • “The most merit based truth right now in marketing is views achieved on social media because you are unable to get them if the content is not relevant.” (Gary, 00:33)
  • Real metrics are about impact—does the content perform (i.e., sales, downloads, attendance) rather than just reach (GRPs, impressions)?

• Viral Success is Merit:

  • Example: Gary references how TikTok posts can have wild swings in views, showing the market’s honest reaction (00:33–01:01).

2. The Problem with Traditional Brand Measurement

• Legacy Mindsets and Fake Reports:

  • “The two things that are killing modern Fortune 500 companies: number one, campaign mindset... number two is fake reports.” (Gary, 05:30, 06:09)
  • Brands waste resources justifying old-fashioned advertising via dubious reporting.

• Brand Measurement is an Excuse:

  • Measuring “brand impact” is often impossible, but it’s used to rationalize poor short-term results.

3. Death of Campaign Mindset

• Outdated Boardroom Thinking:
  • “We think we're gonna guess it in a room and then we're gonna bet the farm on it on billboards, on television... we're gonna push that.” (Gary, 03:29)
  • Campaign-based marketing relies on luck and guesswork, instead of agility and feedback.

4. The Barbell Strategy: Analog + AI

• Analog and AI Must Coexist:

  • "The rise of Analog and the rise of Intent. Oh, my God. The rise of AI. Analog and intent along with AI. This is it." (Gary, 00:00; 14:50)
  • Brands win by combining innovative analog (real-world) experiences with AI-driven digital content.

• Extreme Examples:

  • Nike could run local running clubs and create community-driven social content. (09:35)
  • Gap could send 3,000 handwritten notes a day, creating jobs “AI can’t replace”—scaling the unscalable. (10:00–13:30)
  • “When I take a selfie with someone and talk to them for a minute, that changes our relationship with them forever.” (Gary, 12:55)

• Experiential as Content Fuel:

  • In-person events, experiences, and real-world activations serve as fuel for social, AI, and digital marketing—ensuring authenticity that AI content can’t replicate.

5. Brands in the "Safe Middle" Risk Irrelevance

• Middle Marketing Is Obsolete:

  • “The middle ... in marketing in three years is print ads, billboards, radio, digital banner ads ... this is gonna get thrown to the middle.” (Gary, 17:16)
  • Brands must escape the middle to avoid irrelevance. (20:04–20:50)

• Examples of Fluctuating Brands:

  • “Brands go in and out all the time ... look at Crocs ... hot, dead, then hot again.” (Gary, 21:25)
  • Even iconic brands like Nike can lose relevance if they don’t adapt (21:14).

6. Practical Brand Activations and Experiments

• Testing the Analog Edge:

  • Start with pop-ups (think Philly Cream Cheese hosting bagel shops at festivals), test, iterate, and ramp up if there's response (26:41).
  • Analog activations don’t need to be permanent (26:41–27:30).

• Not Just for Obvious Categories:

  • Even “boring” or industrial brands like Capital One can get creative with superstores, blending analog and digital (24:45).

7. Iterating Content: Speed Over Perfection

• Embrace Volume and Feedback Loops:

  • “Both on the brand side and on the entrepreneur creator side. The value is to put out volume creative and see what works...not spray and pray.” (Gary, 30:15)
  • “I value the organic reach insight more than my subjective opinion.” (Gary, 31:15)

• Iterative vs. Delusional:

  • “Good enough to make the next post better versus the insecurity of perfection that almost always fails and then dies.” (Gary, 38:26)

8. The Birth of Interest Media

• Interest > Social Graphs:

  • “I don't know if we've written the. The manifesto that we don't live in social media anymore. We live in interest media.” (Gary, 39:44)
  • “Social media is dead. Interest media is here. That's the title.” (Gary, 40:00)

• Curiosity and Safe Merit:

  • ‘It’s just measurable…safe merit. That’s why my content evolved...there’s something real underneath all this.” (Gary, 40:13)

9. Humility, Leadership, and Organizational Culture

• Founder-Led Advantage:

  • Real innovation environments tend to be in founder-led businesses; once founders are gone, corporate inertia sets in (41:30).
  • "Most people want can only be found in a founder led business. Once the found out, once she or he is gone..." (Gary, 41:30)

• Humility as Superpower:

  • “It's very challenging to say out loud that your humility is your superpower...” (Gary, 49:14)

10. Personal Growth & Managing Negativity

• Detachment, Empathy, and Self-Awareness:
  • “My humility doesn't detach the ability to understand all the skills and all the good and the accolades. I'm aware of them. They're just so not defining of me that I'm able to not let it penetrate me.” (Gary, 50:24)
  • Brands, like people, must avoid entitlement and insecurity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Analog x AI:
  “The rise of Analog and the rise of Intent. Oh, my God. The rise of AI. Analog and intent along with AI. This is it.” (00:00)

• On Real Metrics:
  “Measure the creative in social, measure the overall marketing, the creative and the media on a business result.” (01:02)

• On Brand Measurement:
  “The effort in measuring brand eating up the oxygen of sales and common sense business.” (06:09)
  “Measuring brand is like measuring love.” (06:09)

• On Scaling the Unscalable:
  “Brands now have a chance to scale the unscalable ... we're going into the Thank You Economy era.” (12:55)

• On Barbell Strategy:
  “The strategy is extremeism on both [analog and AI] at the same time...why aren't you running to it as hard as you can to get to both?” (15:31)

• On Iterative Creative:
  “Good enough to make the next post better versus the insecurity of perfection that almost always fails and then dies.” (38:26)

• On Leadership and Humility:
  “It's very challenging to say out loud that your humility is your superpower, because by nature, you saying it potentially looks to people as, how could you be humble if they're saying you're human? But I don't know, there's that detachment. I'm analyzing myself without being within myself. I'm so grateful for it.” (49:14)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–01:15: The analog/AI moment; how organic views are the true metric.
• 03:29–07:00: Breaking down the problems with campaign mindset and fake reporting.
• 09:30–15:25: The barbell strategy explained; specific analog activation ideas.
• 17:16–21:15: The warning for brands sticking to the “safe middle.”
• 30:15–31:15: The value of iterative, high-volume creation and learning from data.
• 36:35–38:26: Why “good enough” beats the pursuit of perfection in creative content.
• 39:44–40:00: The concept of "interest media" over social media.
• 41:30–43:41: Challenges for brands not led by founders; cultural and regulatory friction.
• 49:14–50:24: On humility as a leadership and creative advantage.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Gary Vaynerchuk makes a compelling case for radical change in marketing: social media as we knew it is dead, replaced by a new era where interest-driven content and data-backed meritocracy rule. Brands must master both AI-fueled digital marketing and personalized, in-person analog experiences to survive—and must abandon the safety of “middle of the road” tactics. Operational agility, authentic leadership, iterative creativity, and a mindset of humility are crucial for navigating the coming era of “interest media.”

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For further insights, listen between 00:00–15:25 for strategy fundamentals or 39:44–41:30 for Gary’s thoughts on the evolution to interest media.

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Original language and tone maintained throughout.

Transcript

[A]

The rise of analog and the rise of intent. Oh my God. The rise of AI. Analog and intent along with AI. This is it. This is it. Oh my God. I'm so glad you captured that moment. The moment I thought of old school AI. That's exactly it. Holy shit. That's exactly it. This is the GaryVee audio experience.

[B]

What metrics much more active than GRPs

[A]

number one organic views achieved. The most merit based truth right now in marketing is views achieved on social media because you are unable to get them if the content is not relevant. You know for example in this article if you want to show two back to back posts on my TikTok, I know right now, two weeks ago there's a post where it got 1.2 million views and the one prior or after about 4, 5, 10, 15,000.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That is a level of merit on the creative. Once you then get those views if you put media behind it. So now this did well. You put media behind it and you track how many sales you got on.com or app downloads, something tangible, performance oriented, phone call, anything, you know, measurable business transaction, sale on.com, sign up for a form, quiz folks taken, you know, show up to an event, anything tangible. So for me it's. It's measure the creative in social, measure the overall marketing, the creative and the media on a business result. And then the last thing that trips people up is you know how to measure brand. But real quick, just so you understand, a GRP is measuring how many people saw and that is just not true.

[B]

Yeah, Vanilla, vanilla, vanilla. This one come to mind an easy one or if you want to think back many years ago.

[A]

No, no, it hit the. When we hit the little thing, it was working until I hit the little side. Leave it there.

[B]

Yeah, it'll pick it up.

[A]

I know that mug root beer for us was a big, big switch. I'm trying to think of who's really gone there. We're just going into the era where people are really going there. I would say mug root beer, but they weren't really running television if I'm being fair. It's really. We're in the earliest era of people really making that switch.

[B]

So if you're in a board meeting with C suite or cfo, like what are some of the. I'm sure you get the hesitations all the time. Like what are you describing to a CFO as far as they're on the fence about making that switch from the vanilla?

[A]

Well, so this is how it actually works. An organization in the Fortune 500 land has a ROI measuring schema. How they measure return on investment. Most of that has been sold in by other agencies. Those reports are often tied into the media spend. The media spend. Often the reporting is justifying television and banner ads and things that agencies make money on. Got it. So the CMOs kind of just live in that world, whereas a CFO is struggling with like, why do our reports look good but our business is soft and same with a CEO. So in fact, CFOs tend to be the place where we get the most traction because I asked them a very simple business question, which is why do the reports look good? Why does the ROI look good but the business results are not there? Again, everything is broken because they're trying to measure brand. 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. The two things that are killing modern Fortune 500 companies. Number one, campaign mindset. I'll break that down. We will sit in a board, me, you and train. We'll sit in a room and we will come up with the idea for LA Cologne coffee. Now we will think and be like, hotter than hot or, you know, starting your day fresh or the pick me up when you need it. Like, you know, it's not hard. I just did it of like where you could go as a coffee brand. But we think we're gonna guess it in a room and then we're gonna bet the farm on it on billboards, on television, on print. And we're gonna push that. Right?

[B]

There's a close view of 0708 saying

[A]

brands are wasting their money on great then.

[B]

I mean, 20 years ago, like that was kind of pre prince.

[A]

Major, major decline that. That the trends were moving fast. That I'd be on a train like this in 07 and I'm. I'm. I'm 50. So I was the perfect age because I was on a train where every single person here or had a newspaper right now. Every person. Yeah. And I could just see. And once this came out, I knew it was game over. It was just a matter of time.

[B]

So iPhone specifically, or BlackBerry even.

[A]

Was BlackBerry even. It was BlackBerry and laptop even. But iPhone was the death below. I knew it. The two great mistakes every Fortune 500 company making campaign mindset. This concept that humans are just gonna sit around and guess it right. Made sense when there wasn't other options. AI the Internet, social Media. Fine. Crazy number two is fake reports. You know, just reports that. And really fake reports that try to measure brand. The effort in measuring brand eating up the oxygen of sales and common sense business. There's this obsession with Coca Cola and BMW and United Airlines to measure brand. Like if we do this, what's the long term effects on our business? The reality is you can't measure it. It's like love. And we spend all this money on it and it becomes the excuse and justifier of bad short term work. We're not getting sales. But look, it measured well on brand. Fake report. Crazy concept to try to do the most important thing. I'm the number one fan of brand. I've built brand for myself, for all my companies, those two. So I want to flesh that out. Does a vanilla campaign have some return on investment? Of course. I'll give you an example. Something caught my attention just last night. I was watching the Actors Awards, the SAG Awards on Netflix. They had commercials and you know, you never have commercials on Netflix and you're not used to changing the channel on Netflix or even looking at your phone. And so when the commercials came up, I'm like, wow. And I saw Jennifer Gardner doing something. Here's the problem. This is real life. Did you watch it last night? No, I didn't train. Did you watch the Actors Awards last night?

[B]

Cool.

[A]

Jennifer Gardner's in a commercial. I have no idea what the brand is. There you go. Real life lie detector test, right now. I know Jennifer Gardner was there. That's. I can recall it. I got one. Let's give love any other way. I remember Marshall's had a commercial. Marshall's the store. There you go. So I remember last night. Last night. Now, did it compel me to go to Marshalls? No. Did it compel somebody else? Probably. Was it worth how much they spent? Definitely not. Now if I saw Instagram post right now, as I was just in my phone and there was an ad for jets hoodie at Marshalls, that relevance would have worked. A bagel store. Yeah. That was more experiential. Yes. Production. Yeah. It leaves the world, goes more digital, more AI. You'll see more and more executions of analog. We're gonna write an article called the Barbell. Yeah. Yeah. Great. It's gonna be extreme digital and extreme analog. And I think all this analog stuff will pop up.

[B]

So we talked about Capital One. There's a couple other brands out there.

[A]

Yeah, they're an extreme store land. But I'll give you an example. Let me give you an Example, what if new B. All right, let's use Nike. What if Nike started running clubs everywhere? Just everywhere. Like you woke up tomorrow and heard like, there's just ads running in social. Where do you live? Beautiful. Join the Forest Hills Running Club sponsored by Nike. And you're like, I want to start running. Or you do run and you show up. But there's cameras there, trains there. At scale 500 trains, you know, and it's community and you met people there and Nike's giving you free gear. I think again, I said it at the keynote this last week, you'll see it. I believe in 2035 that the world will be more 2075 and 1975. And I think there's. I just see it. And so there's Nike's execution. Now let's use bubbly. The sparkling water should bubbly. Stand up. You know cafes where they serve bubbly? I believe so. And I believe they. People understand that experiential is also a production day to feed the social to be the 5 to 10% of content that is not AI generated. We are going to put real life content on a pedestal because it's going to be rare sporting event. And by the way, brands will start sporting events, right, Franklin, the tennis, racket, pickleball, they should be putting on tournaments. They should be like, a lot of this is going to get into analog. Let me go. Another analog place brands are going to go because this is less experiential as a production day. What about handwritten notes? Like, what if Gap started running? Literally writing 3,000 handwritten notes a day for everybody who bought something at a Gap store. What would that mean? A lot of people like, what does that mean? I'm like, what it means is this is an example of jobs that I think are going to be created. Everyone's like, oh my God, AI is taking jobs. I'm like, yes. Who today gets paid to write, you know, eight hour day? How many handwritten notes do you think? Truly handwritten, your hands, like, you'll have to get your game up and do work out. But four sentences, Three sentences with some data on the screen, probably from AI. How, how many do you think you can write in a day?

[B]

Thoughtfully.

[A]

I think thoughtfully. Ish. Clean ish, Right? Sounds good to me. Like, let's just use 200. You know, if you're doing 200, you're doing a thousand a week, you're doing 1,000 a week, you're doing 45,000 a year, right? Is it worth $2 a letter to Gap on ROI to pay someone 90,000 to do 40. I think the answer is going to be yes. And there's some math in there that we need to break down. I want you to say this here, but that's kind of the stuff I think a lot about. You know, like, there's a soccer stadium right there. Right? Like, there's a parking lot in New Jersey right now on a Monday morning in the winter. If you're a Reebok, could you be doing, like a little pickup game for people and filming it? I think the answer is yes. Like in this area, Harrison Emerging Jersey Town. Like, if you ran Facebook ads and said, come and play this pickup game for your health and get some free swag, people would come. It would lead to a thing. I say this all the time. It goes back to the Ricky Henderson effect. When somebody. When I take a selfie with someone and talk to them for a minute, that changes our relationship with them forever. And I think people have done that. Famous people who stop and think, you know, and then. But I think brands now have a chance to scale the unscalable. And I think we're going into the thank you Economy era. In fact, I would argue that we should write. We should write some articles for sure on LinkedIn about Thank youk Economy 2026. You'll appreciate this. Investing in old world intent. How it shows up, whether it's stationary, whether it's standing here and just shaking everyone's hand and giving them a Jolly Rancher. Because you're Jolly Rancher. I think the rise. The rise of Analog. The rise of Analog and the rise of Intent. Oh, my God. The rise of AI. Analog and intent along with AI. This is it. This is it. Oh, my God. I'm so glad you captured that moment. The moment I thought of old school AI. That's exactly it. Holy. That's exactly it. When people understand it's the two extremes and people gonna love it. Because people are so romantic about old school. If you're 1-800-Flowers, what about. What about standing in public places and giving roses to women and film it and just. And just the impact, like filming your AI. Your OG AI for AI content. Like, it just. It's gonna be so cool.

[B]

So when you're advising a brand on the barbell strategy.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Go. Go all in on first. Is it LLMs? Is it both kind of at the same time?

[A]

Both at the same time. You know, the strategy is extreme ism on both at the same time. While recognizing every organization will have its own cadence. Some organizations are all in on experiential, others in the done one. Some companies have started to integrate AI into the organization, others are demonizing it. So. But, but the way I think about things is if you know that the end state in four years is this, well, why aren't you running to it as hard as you can to get to both?

[B]

I mean it seems like so dangerous if you're a digital native company. Right. You don't have one store to just lean so heavily into in person and vice versa. Right?

[A]

Yeah, I mean look, I'm fine with a good crawl run, you know, crawl, walk and run. I'm not overly romantic. What I am is a lot of people use the, this a whole article itself using the excuse of we need to crawl, walk and run to not crawl. I mean I want to title that like using the excuse of crawl, walk and run to not crawl at all. Because you're scared to ever get into running versus what you're doing over here, which is jumping. You're doing something that you like and you're, you're using the excuse of crawl, walk, run when you know you have to run instead of jump. And then you use that excuse to never even start crawling. Is one I see from Fortune 500 companies because the company is being judged on how many times because you, the executive are literally getting bonused on how many times you jumped. So why the fuck are you going to start a crawl rock run when. When your personal mortgage is being paid on. If you jump 100 times meanwhile the jumping is destroying your business. That's corporate America summed up in a good analogy. There you go, use it. Clip that whole video, write it out, put us on LinkedIn. Like that's truth. The middle in this example that I'm saying in marketing in three years is print ads, billboards, radio, digital banner ads, email marketing, like not email marketing per se. I kind of like it. But just like back to social. Doing social like this, like this is gonna get, this is gonna get thrown to the middle right now this is an edge case of good strategy, but it's gonna get thrown to the middle because we can, we can type Gary and Matt sitting on a. I mean the world's changing

[B]

market is interesting too. I mean this for another day, but it's like what, 30 years old. You had your list for wines and then it's. I guess the comeback has already happened. But

[A]

I'm always bullish mediums, meaning I'm always bullish audio. I'm always bullish written word. I'm always bullish video. How it gets executed is like, what's the context? Right again, what do you do? What are you doing here? Clearly I believe in written words. Substack, LinkedIn, Twitter, X. Like what's going on with that? Right? We knew that writing has a place and I'm committing time to it. We are right now in writing mode, but we're also in video mode. This is a different image for train that can be used as a thumbnail, used as a clip. You know, like all that.

[B]

One or two more examples and I'll find some as well of a really good barbell strategy that you've seen out there.

[A]

Whether it's a client, I don't think anybody lives in. I don't think it's here yet. I don't think it's here yet. I don't think a company has 70%. Let me tell you what a good barbell. 70% of their money tied up in AI. Creative or social? Social first slash. AI creative and experiential at scale. It's just not there yet. We're not there yet. 70%. I mean, there's people that have, there's people that have 6 or 7% of their marketing budget, but 70% in these two, we don't have that yet. That's not happening yet.

[B]

So if the brand stays in the middle for the next five, 10 years, which sell box is that just. Are they just irrelevant?

[A]

Basically, yeah. I mean, think about how many things have become less relevant. You're of the age where Krispy Kreme was cool, remember? Is it as cool now? You know, like, what was everybody wearing when you were in high school? You know, like, you know, I. When I was in high school, everybody had a starter jacket. Not everybody in high school has a starter jacket. You know what I mean? Like, like, yeah. I mean brands go in and out all the time. Popeyes, Popeyes. Spicy chicken sandwich was red hot five years ago. Four years ago.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Not right now. As much like, you know, things ebb and flow all. I mean. Yeah, I mean, Nike's in a really shitty spot. Like literally eight years ago, everyone was wearing Nikes. Now there's a million things.

[B]

Might be helpful for them.

[A]

Yeah, Nike's at the top of my list of a big company that I think has fully lost its way running an old playbook.

[B]

Everyone knows the name of the brand.

[A]

Like if they had the chance to get back. Well, that's my whole point of everything. Once a brand, always a brand. I mean, by the way, that's an article that's another cutout. Let's make a note. Once a brand, always a brand. This is my main thesis. This is why I love marketing. Like this is my whole theory with Crocs. By the way, look what I'm wearing. Reeboks. Nobody wore a pair of fucking Reeboks for 10 years. Nobody wore a pair of Reeboks from 2005 to 2015. Nobody literally people wearing Reeboks from 2005 to 2015. Wore it to be ironic. Peak Nike look at Crocs. Red hot Crocs should always, should be the case study for once a brand, always a brand. Dead hot. Dead. You know, hot. Excuse me. The way it really went was hot.

[B]

Dead.

[A]

It got hot again three, four years ago. Kind of quiet again. North face. Exactly. I mean there's a million examples like, like that's exactly right. Champion. Champion was red hot. Then like ice cold, then became cool again. You know, I'm waiting for Juicy Couture to come back.

[B]

Courtney would love that. What industrial type of company do you feel like? Is it most important to me in sort of is it like should you think department stores but because they're like kind of in that middle man's land.

[A]

Well, I don't think of department stores that way. I think of it more as brands that need to go. I think you're thinking about it linear department stores because they already have the physical location. Notice what I did. I said Philly cream cheese. I'm saying, you know, I'm saying things that you don't think about. Need to have physical locations or do physical things or cream festivals. Right. What if Bose headsets had cream? Coachella. You think that would have worked out

[B]

if it was well executed?

[A]

No, no, I'm saying Coachella. Coachella. As you know, it's as hot as it is. Imagine if bozone that what that would have meant to their brand. Like what if, what if Hershey's candy company had had the best summer carnivals around the country? What if 25 summer carnivals popped up for the month of August outside of the suburbs of Miami and Dallas and New York here in Jersey. What? And that was owned by Hershey's. So it's all in essence it's Hershey's park as pop ups as summer carnivals but everything's being filmed. Could you imagine how powerful that is.

[B]

Going back to Capitol one just because it's such a boring for the average person. Boring cry like no one wants to go to 1980, right? With no windows and they just like I Think I'm capturing so many younger folks with their coffee.

[A]

I believe in it. I think it's. That's right. You know who's another brand to look at? Shark Ninja. While everybody has gone digital, they've opened up superstores. Right kid? Superstores. So like super retail locations now. That's just one small way to think about it. I don't. It's not that everybody needs a store, but. But everybody a physical analog execution. I just gave you Hershey's and summer Carnivals. I just gave you Bose. What if Bose built Coachella, Right? Like to me that's what we need to think about. You know, what if Gatorade had started the pickleball league? That's another what if, what if Gatorade started the pickleball league? That. I mean, I think brands have to go into deeper territory. What if, what if? Well, look at Planet Fitness, right? Like we just drove by a Planet Fitness. Like, you know, what happens if Under Armour started Equinox? What if they actually owned it? I think you're gonna see people blend into analog more and more. What if Rolex owned this golf course? Right. And now this is a bougie golf course. But it's Rolex going to start seeing what if, what if high end brands owned private clubs like Fly Fish Club, you know.

[B]

Yeah. I mean Equinox is kind of going that way with their 40 or 50k a year exclusive membership. So it's more of a club. It's not just place to work out. Yeah. Price more. So if a CMO is like, all right, I get your area, I'm convinced. Where do I start? Is it.

[A]

I think it's crawl run. Right. So it's a popup, you know, and Philly Cream Cheese. And if they agree with me, they do a pop up bagel execution. Maybe in the Hamptons they rent a place for two months and they do it in July and August and they see what it feels like. Or they do it for like a week during, you know again a music festival or something that goes for five days, you know, you know, or you start doing it for these four day weekends. That's super bowl, NBA, All Star weekend, you know, Ultra Music Festival. You start doing it around these four or five day events or even a one day event. Maybe they do it as a one day pop up at the Kentucky Derby. Right. And you just get a feel of like, is there something there there? It's a lot easier to do a pop up for a weekend than it is to build a whole store. But if you get three to four events and you feel like there's something there, I think you start really looking at that. This is a very emotional place for me. This is my. This is seven minutes from where I grew up. This was, this was the, this Metro Park. This is the train station that I went to every weekend coming from Boston to come here. My dad would pick me up on Fridays nights and I would drive home and then I would work Saturday and then I'd go back to school on Sunday. College.

[B]

This is it Trained in NYC and

[A]

then from there no, I, I would, I went to school up in Boston. I would take the regular not excelic because we didn't have money like that here. My dad would pick me up in Metro Park.

[B]

We.

[A]

I grew up though 710 minutes from here. Taylor Lane is 10 minutes from here. This is literally within 10 minutes where I grew up. So my grandma, we picked her up all the time. She used to come from Queens.

[B]

Was it Rigo specifically?

[A]

Yeah, it was that whole, you know, it's Rigo park for us. It was right there.

[B]

Quickly on New Jersey while we're here. You live here until through. Pretty much through your 20s.

[A]

Where in New Jersey? I lived in Edison from 82 to 89 I moved to Hunterdon County, New Jersey where my parents live now from 90 to 94. Then I went to college. 94 to 98 I would stay in Hunterdon. You know those summers I would work in a store. Then I came to. Then in the summer of 98 I moved into my apartment in 99. A couple months into that was in Springfield. I was there from 99 to 2003. I moved to Manhattan in 2004

[B]

was part of the location of the store. I thought I saw you touch on this to appeal to more of the affluent near Short Hills and also like the working class to the east.

[A]

It wasn't a strategy. My dad just had an opportunity to buy a store. It happened. It just worked out that way. His first store was in Clark which we not too far from here. That was very blue collar. Springfield was half blue collar, half white collar.

[B]

Okay, so back to what we're thinking of. The creative is a lot of that on the brand side.

[A]

Both on the brand side and on the entrepreneur creator side. The value is to put out volume creative and see what works. Now that's not spray and pray. It's not row against you see how we do it. We put time and effort into our content but we don't notice how on that edit. I don't think that edit that just got posted is as tight and as sharp as the example one that I saw. I don't think it was done as well. But I didn't put feedback in there and say, hey, change it. I actually want to see how it does. And then do it again. And then maybe the fourth time I'm like, hey, let's go back to that first one. Let's do it exactly like that. Do that three times. I value the organic reach insight more than my subjective opinion. I value the organic views achieved data and the comments for qualitative, not just quantitative data more than my subjective intuitive. And this is where everyone's stuck. Entrepreneurs and creators are insecure about not getting a lot of views. Brands think still like television and this is their only chance to do it. Got it. That's it. They both do the same thing. They do it for different reasons. Creator doesn't want 17 views to show up publicly. Brand thinks they only have one chance. They still think like it's television.

[B]

Dominate. Like, oh, we can't use green because the CEO doesn't want us to use that.

[A]

Right. Or our main color is this red. So let's not use this other red.

[B]

As far as subjectivity, leaning into that comment section, keeping an eye there is a lot more.

[A]

You saw me do it right now.

[B]

Literally a lot more helpful than like, what?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I value what we think. This is where. This is where it's nuanced. I value the subjective opinion. I don't value dwelling on it for too long because then it becomes less valuable than just posting it and making another edit. It's. And. But the subjective opinion I don't put on a pedestal. And I value the actual results and the insights more than the opinion. So I'm like, this subjective opinion, it's not zero we have. It's my own barbell. But it's more like a scale. Right. Whereas I think the world is.

[B]

So instincts can really work the results for that.

[A]

Correct. And that's how you decide who has good instincts. You know, like we, we have a read on who's coming up with good ideas and making good edits. And we, we're just, we're in the first era where the art is measurable. It wasn't before.

[B]

It was just whatever the guys in the suits wanted.

[A]

Yeah. And what the working media dollars did to hide if it was good or bad. Like if you made a video and you were lucky enough that it was a commercial and Honda or McDonald's spent $50 million in media to amplify it and everybody saw it and you know, like, one could argue, oh, that's good. But was it like, was there a better video to be made that would have sold more cars or burgers? The answer is yes. Yeah.

[B]

I'm sure you get this a lot. When a CEO says, I get where you're coming from, I just don't, I just don't like it. Well, maybe not necessarily to you, but

[A]

when a CEO to me too, that's

[B]

the creative to you.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Like, what do you do?

[A]

Well in social. In social, it costs so little to make it for a CEO. You're like, can we at least post it? And this is where handles and platforms come in.

[B]

When did you really start digging into the hall handles?

[A]

Probably a year, 18 months ago. New. Once I realized you didn't need followers to get views, you know, that changed everything.

[B]

That was like the last couple years.

[A]

That was the last couple years.

[B]

You had it a lot harder, right?

[A]

Way harder. Way harder. You had to fight to get into the feed, you know.

[B]

Yeah. It's like the first mover advantage, but it's also smarter to be the first mover.

[A]

Of course, you're, you're, you're creating the tunnel for everybody to ride through many

[B]

years to get how many subs that Disney and others did it in like a year just because the path was there.

[A]

Of course, the consumer behavior had been created, you know, so you're, you know, done smartly.

[B]

You're generally on team. Let's do 100 pieces of creative rather than four hour meetings for three pieces of generally. Obviously there's nuance.

[A]

That is correct. That train's opinion, your opinion, my opinion are all valid until they hit the feed. And then the views are the views are the views. I subjectively thought that our edit on this was nowhere close to as good as the one that I saw. The views are about to show that I was right, but I still didn't stop it. And I'm Gary V. A 20 year veteran who really done it. And if I have the humility to say team don't change. Right. Think about that. Think about where I'm at.

[B]

You knew like right at first watch.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't sharp. Right. We the example. It wasn't the same sharpness that comes from.

[B]

You just gotta be around it.

[A]

Yeah. And then I can do this. Right. Which is like team. I'm talking to Matt and Train about my belief that the video that we just posted wasn't going to do as well as it could have because the transition wasn't as sharp as the example that I saw about this idea. Does everybody agree? Disagree. Let me know.

[B]

Just that voice memo. I don't know how many people that run companies like you that to their team, you know?

[A]

Right.

[B]

I feel like you just get a lot of in the tower type even now. You know, that's just having a discussion.

[A]

Right. Instead of like. Well, don't you mean like just like

[B]

classic or just not saying anything? I think.

[A]

Right. Yeah. Well, the good. You know, this goes to the point of me not. I don't live in the town. I'm in the dirt with you guys. You know, I don't resonate with the tower. I understand that. That I'm in my point in my career where I could tower it. But I think it's more fun to play backyard football in the mud than it is to eat caviar and champagne. You know, that's just who I am. I don't. By the way, I don't even think that that makes me better than or I don't think that people should admire me for that. It just is.

[B]

Sounds like a lot. We're going back to stop working creative is. You posted about this a lot. Like good enough versus perfection. Right.

[A]

Good enough to make the next post better versus the insecurity of perfection that almost always fails and then dies.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Iterative versus delusional.

[B]

Some famous works of art. I can maybe list some, but.

[A]

Oh, I like this. I like this acronym of die Delusional, insecure, entitled. You know, I think when you're delusional, insecure and entitled, you die. I think we should write an article of like die why so many creative and marketing executives die because they're delusional, insecure and entitled. On how their opinions. Opinions matter in the creative process instead of leaning into humility and curiosity and data and truth and merit. Need a vowel in there to make a word out of it. But I think that's why most marketing executives die. Delusion, insecurity and entitlement.

[B]

It's so much more fair now.

[A]

It's just measurable. Like it wasn't. It wasn't measurable five years ago. It's social changing within social. I don't know if we've written the. The. The manifesto that we don't live in social media anymore. We live in interest media.

[B]

Touched on it, but we should go.

[A]

I think we should. You know, social media is dead. Interest media is here. That's the title. Let's go into it.

[B]

Something like whomever it is. Nick can say something.

[A]

Yeah, like.

[B]

Yeah. Lack of fear, like

[A]

safe merit. I think that's a curiosity part of it. 100%. That's not part of it. That's why my content evolved. My early content was about tactics and then I'm like why aren't you all doing it? I'm like oh shit. There's something real underneath all this. This is that family business vibes. That is the warmth. Like you know, it's really cool that you're in it. Right. And you can really sense it. And you're also not 22, you've worked in other places so you have context. Right. I always feel worse for the kids that come to Vayner, you know. Yeah. Because they don't know. And then they're 24, 25 and they go somewhere else and they're like what the fuck? The level of taking it for granted is heavy.

[B]

It was very evident right away. Yeah, it's a good. Yeah, it's very rare. Yeah.

[A]

There's a lot of politics and bullshit. Yeah, it's predominantly that.

[B]

So maybe that's the answer to this which is like a practical step brands can take. Maybe it really starts less about the overthinking.

[A]

Well I think for corporation they're not going to have Gary V. The founder. Like I can't. That's not practical advice. That might be advice to seek out an environment you might want. You know, environment most people want can only be found in a founder led business. Once the found out, once she or he is gone. Now the problem with a founder led business is 80% of the time a founder is a psycho. It's even worse than a corporation. But man when you find that 20% founder led business where you've got a kind hearted, well intended leader because even if I was the CEO of GE or Fiji Water, there's a lot of inertia, corporate stuff, public company board. There's a lot of shit that I wouldn't be able to do that I do now.

[B]

It's not your baby, you know, it's like.

[A]

Yeah. And I don't mind. Like I'm a, I'm a very passionate guy. I could, I could adopt someone else's baby and treat it as my own. I could run a business that's not mine, my founding business. I just. It's the rules of engagement of a public company. All this stuff that makes it tough. I mean you know where I feel it a little bit doing business in New York and California. I don't control city hall. There's a lot. You know, I'm a pretty liberal dude in a lot of ways, but there's a lot of shortcomings in, you know, like people crying about bullshit and then litigation. And like, when you're the company, you're in a shitty spot in some of these states.

[B]

That's why Travis was able to do what he did, right?

[A]

Well, yeah, he could fight city hall. That was a different version. This is more about why people are moving to Florida and Texas. You know, it's not about like, they're trying to avoid taxes, though. That is part of it. It's, you know, if somebody complained, if you were like, Gary, mistreating me right now, it's a headache for me. You can literally make it up. Like, literally our relationship right now. Think about that in Florida and Texas, like, fuck you.

[B]

Prove it.

[A]

In New York, they're like, you got it, Gary, you're suck. I didn't do anything. Yeah, you know, it's tough.

[B]

Touched on something there. As far as you've talked about a lot behind us.

[A]

Let me go back because I didn't want to lose it. That's why I can't fix the cultural thing every time, but I can fix the operational process to get to good work. And the operational process is you have a revision, post the prior, make the revision, post another handle or platform. Actually, in fact, you want to do that team for fun, because we're talking about this right now, Matthew and I articles. Let's make that same video revised a little bit harder, a little bit more dynamic, a little bit more similar to the other one. Like, let's just make three different versions of what we just made and let's post it on some of the platforms or handles wanted, go a little deeper

[B]

on the kind of convenience on the court. Like, super sweet. So your teammates in the ladder room are super kind to the fans or whatnot. Like, is that always sort of in your DNA just because your mom. Dad.

[A]

Yes. Absorbed. Yeah, I was just. I've always been. I mean, my mom, as early as when I was 5, 6, 7 years old, actively called me golden heart, golden hearted boy. I was just always nice. And I see it, I see it in my son. I'm like, oh, I now know what my mom saw. Like, Xander at a very early age, four or five years old, had empathy. Like, somebody got hurt. He's playing over here. He would go over and so it's ingrained. But then you have to refine it. And I think some people start that way. You know what I did well and again, could be DNA, could be parenting, could be circumstance. I didn't give up on people when I was treated with hate. I think people go into a shell. I think a lot of people start off. Not everyone starts off potentially loving and open. It's. What do you do when you're met with adversity? Negativity, darkness. I doubled down on love. Heart, light. I double. I think a lot of people go into a shell and they protect themselves. This is what I think about insecurity and self esteem. I was strong enough to your bullying. I was strong enough to feel bad for you. And I'm gonna try to help you make a joke. Be like, yo, come on. Versus fight back. Now, that doesn't mean that you're a walkover. Like, I'm not gonna let anyone punk me, you know. But on my first reaction to your disrespect, I don't feel like you're punking me. I want to see if give you a little benefit of the doubt. In fact, I have a business meeting with someone who a year ago at Super bowl, like 13 months ago, I remember the event, did not realize it was the same human being. That human being punked me so hard in a business dinner 10 years ago. Downright rude. Didn't know the context of the situation. As an investor of what I was getting. I got some advisory shares to help a business. This guy at a dinner just out of nowhere, rudely, abruptly shits all over me, says, you brought no value. We gave you fucking shares. Fuck you. Like, very rude. I ate it. And calmly. 12 people at a dinner, like trying to trash my reputation. I said, I appreciate where you're coming from. You know, chemicals raging, like wanting to pick up like knife and like, let's go. But had the strength to say, hey, I just don't. You know all the details. This founder that you're trying to protect is clearly not educating you on all the things that have been going on. You're coming from your ivory tower. You're not in the dirt. And this is your judgment on me because I'm an easy target. He apologized to me over a cocktail at the super bowl and I did not remember it was him. The interesting part of that story is not only did I address it, the way I addressed was such a KN event to me that I didn't even recall it was the human being. It's one thing to have the emotional intelligence, strength to be the bigger man. It's another thing to like have it be such a non event that you don't even recall who it was. Talk about water off of your back, right? Because there are times I remember people razzing me that I do know. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna get you, Stan, later. You know? Anyway, wow.

[B]

So, like, if I'm someone reading this and that's not. Let's just say that's not who I am, what am I?

[A]

You mean the 98% of the people that are gonna read this?

[B]

Yeah. Like, how do I even get there?

[A]

By realizing that not everything's about you. It's crazy because I'm so Gary, and yet I think nothing's about me. Do you know how insane that is? Like, if anyone on this train has the permission to potentially think some things about them, it's someone who has a lot of notoriety, right? Has a big platform, has had a lot of impact. I am who I am. It is. People always say to me, gary, you have no idea how many people you've impacted. I'm like, I sure. Yet I have the humility to understand that everyone's actions have nothing to do with me.

[B]

That's a tough place for people to get into.

[A]

Yeah. I think people that don't have the credibility or any data to support why they should not be humble are not humble. I'm just so grateful. I've been saying it more to last three, four years. It's very challenging to say out loud that your humility is your superpower, because by nature, you saying it potentially looks to people as, how could you be humble if they're saying you're human? But I don't know, there's that detachment. I'm analyzing myself without being within myself. I'm so grateful for it. I wonder if the whole thing falls apart without my humility. But that doesn't mean that I'm not capable of understanding my impact. My humility doesn't detach the ability to understand all the skills and all the good and the accolades. I'm aware of them. They're just so not defining of me that I'm able to not let it penetrate me, which also means that I don't let the failures penetrate me.

[B]

When did you realize the importance of separating Gary Vaynerchu for Gary?

[A]

Never. I only analyzed it after I realized it. There was never a conscious day of, like, oh, about to get known. I. You know, I say this a lot, and I mean it. I'm not capable of not being myself. And who I really am is a nice person, you know? That's it. 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 this journey. See you later.