The ONLY Marketing strategy you need in 2025 | GaryVee Fireside chat

Summary

Summary of "The ONLY Marketing Strategy You Need in 2025 | GaryVee Fireside Chat"

Podcast: The GaryVee Audio Experience
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Episode Title: The ONLY Marketing Strategy You Need in 2025 | GaryVee Fireside Chat
Release Date: March 25, 2025

In this compelling fireside chat hosted by Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary delves deep into the evolving landscape of marketing and media, offering critical insights and actionable strategies for brands aiming to stay relevant in 2025. The discussion covers a range of topics, including the pitfalls of current industry practices, the rise of live social shopping, the importance of authentic creative strategies, and the transformation of traditional branding paradigms.

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1. Challenges in the Marketing and Media Industry

Gary begins by critiquing the current state of the marketing industry, highlighting its shift towards overly academic and corporate practices that prioritize superficial metrics over genuine consumer engagement.

Gary Vaynerchuk [01:34]: "I think our industry overvalues fake reports... It's all a bunch of corporate jargon. There's a real opportunity for it to be better."

He emphasizes that many Fortune 500 companies are wasting significant marketing budgets on "potential reach" rather than "actualized reach," leading to ineffective campaigns that fail to resonate with real audiences.

2. Overreliance on Fake Reporting

A major concern Gary raises is the industry's dependence on inflated and misleading metrics. He argues that exaggerated reports on impressions and reach do not translate into real consumer engagement or sales.

Gary Vaynerchuk [03:18]: "Nobody here would spend the money if it was their family business and their kids' health depended on it. The way that the industry spends money, you wouldn't."

Gary advocates for a shift towards more transparent and accurate reporting that reflects genuine consumer interactions and impacts.

3. Quality Over Quantity in Marketing

Challenging the traditional emphasis on high-production-value advertisements, Gary champions the idea that quality content should be measured by its effectiveness and resonance with the audience, not by its budget.

Gary Vaynerchuk [05:19]: "If you have 4,000 ads, you have 4,000 ads versus 3. But if you like it or not, is very different."

He cites examples like Mango Gummies and Chili’s, where simple, authentic content outperformed lavishly produced ads, leading to substantial sales boosts.

4. The Rise of Live Social Shopping

Gary is particularly enthusiastic about the burgeoning trend of live social shopping, a strategy that merges real-time engagement with direct sales. He predicts that this will become a cornerstone of retail strategies in 2025.

Gary Vaynerchuk [09:15]: "Live social shopping is a real, real worthwhile thing to learn. I sold $180,000 worth of Veefriends ornaments on Whatnot on Black Friday."

He believes platforms like TikTok Shop and Whatnot are revolutionizing how brands interact with consumers, making shopping more interactive and immediate.

5. Importance of Organic Social and Creative Validation

Gary stresses the necessity for brands to integrate organic social strategies with their paid media efforts. He argues that creative content should first be validated organically before any significant investment in paid campaigns.

Gary Vaynerchuk [13:19]: "Every company I'm involved with that really matters to me... does not spend $1 of media anymore without the creative being validated organically as an organic post."

This approach ensures that the content resonates with the audience, leveraging social algorithms to maximize impact.

6. Evolution of the Creative Brief

Gary critiques the traditional creative brief process, advocating for a more dynamic and responsive approach to content creation that leverages real-time consumer feedback.

Gary Vaynerchuk [15:31]: "We think social is actually shocking. I have a very strong Q1 coming creatively... it's much bigger line items now than the creative AOR line."

He envisions a future where creative strategies are continuously informed by organic performance, allowing for more agile and effective campaigns.

7. Branding and Relevance at Scale

Discussing branding, Gary highlights the disconnect between traditional brand personas and the diverse, segmented modern consumer base. He calls for brands to embrace relevance at scale, tailoring their messaging to various consumer segments rather than adhering to outdated, one-size-fits-all strategies.

Gary Vaynerchuk [17:44]: "The concept that we still live in television baffles me. How do I talk to them about it?"

He underscores the importance of authenticity and adaptability in building strong, relevant brands that can thrive in today’s fragmented media environment.

8. Audience Q&A Highlights

During the Q&A session, Gary addresses several pertinent questions from the audience, reinforcing his key messages and providing practical advice:

• Empowering Decision Makers: Gary acknowledges the challenge brands face when their creative decision-makers are not adequately empowered or informed.

  Gary Vaynerchuk [23:24]: "I think it's a good idea to let people make decisions creatively that might be more intuitive to how the creative works within a medium."

• Winning in Social Commerce: He identifies successful brands like Abercrombie & Fitch and Mary Ruth’s Organics as leaders in leveraging social commerce effectively.

  Gary Vaynerchuk [26:53]: "Abercrombie and Fitch is doing a good job. They're really taking advantage of the affiliate model."

• Critique of Traditional Media Formats: Gary remains critical of conventional media formats like 15 and 30-second TV spots, labeling them as ineffective and overpriced.

  Gary Vaynerchuk [30:07]: "I think the 15 and 30 is straight garbage. Straight fucking garbage."

9. Conclusions and Insights

Gary concludes the fireside chat with a call to action for marketers to prioritize authenticity, consumer-centric strategies, and innovative approaches like live social shopping. He warns of the impending challenges that brands will face if they continue to rely on outdated practices and neglect the evolving digital landscape.

Gary Vaynerchuk [25:23]: "If you do not provide value, eventually the shit hits the fan. And that is our fucking industry."

He remains optimistic about the future, believing that brands and marketers who adapt and embrace these changes will thrive, while those who resist will falter.

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Key Takeaways:

• Shift from Quantity to Quality: Focus on creating authentic, resonant content rather than simply increasing the volume of ads.
• Embrace Live Social Shopping: Utilize real-time engagement platforms to drive direct sales and build deeper consumer connections.
• Integrate Organic Social Strategies: Validate creative content organically before investing heavily in paid media.
• Redefine Branding: Move away from outdated, monolithic brand personas to more segmented and relevant consumer-focused strategies.
• Critique Traditional Media Reliance: Recognize the diminishing returns of traditional media formats and explore more effective digital alternatives.

Gary Vaynerchuk's insights offer a strategic roadmap for marketers aiming to navigate the complexities of the modern media landscape, emphasizing the need for authenticity, adaptability, and consumer-centric approaches to achieve sustained success in 2025 and beyond.

Transcript

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Before you listen to today's podcast, and I know there's background noise, I'm literally sitting on a plane that's about to be taken off. But before you do anything, I want you to go to my Instagram right now, Gary Ve, go on the profile, hit where it says following and add me to your favorites to make sure you don't miss any of my Instagram posts. I've got Fire coming this summer. Lots going on, lots of giveaways, lots of exclusives, lots of partnerships and. And just lots of rants and fire. That's what I want you to do. Please let me know if you did it on Twitter or on text. And now enjoy the podcast.

[Podcast Host]

Welcome back to another episode of the Gary Vee Audio Experience. On today's episode, we're sharing a fireside chat that Gary gave for medialink, a consulting firm serving the media and marketing industry. In this one, Gary shares his thoughts on how most brands are lighting money on fire, chasing reach that doesn't actually exist, and the importance of live social shopping. If you work in marketing, media, retail, or you're just trying to keep your Brand Relevant in 2025, this one's a must. Listen, let's dive right into this episode and see what Gary has to say about all this.

[Interviewer]

So I am so excited and honored that we have Gary Vaynerchuk here with us today. We're really excited to talk about the space, about how it's changing, about how everything is evolving. As you know, we're working with a lot of clients on the tech side as we start to think about what we're seeing or doing out there. Would love to understand what is one of the biggest things that you see brands and clients sort of stumble over repeatedly? What's one of the biggest things you see out there?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's a really tricky question for me because my perspective on our industry is I really love our industry, but I think we're in a very challenged place where we've become incredibly academic and very corporate. I think the biggest thing we're challenged with is that I think our industry overvalues fake reports. Thank you. Have a nice night. I really. I think we're incredibly challenged. If we're talking Fortune 5000 marketing, there's a lot. I mean, I think agencies in general, especially at the holding company level, and I have a lot of empathy for this because when you're publicly traded and you're held accountable to stock price, but like principle buying. Are you fucking kidding me? I think creative is incredibly misunderstood. I think almost all the money is being spent in media on potential reach, not actualized reach. I think we completely lack any sensibility as an industry for what actually is happening in culture and is cool. We do advertising, we don't do real life. And so I think it's a challenging time. And I think there's a reason Fortune 500 companies, especially on a consumer lens, are getting challenged. I think there's a reason influencers can come out and start brands and do real business. I think we're in a real crossroads. I really do believe that. And I think we don't have enough authentic real talk. It's all a bunch of corporate jargon. And yeah, I think it's. There's a real opportunity for it to be better.

[Interviewer]

When you say fake reporting or incorrect reporting, is that because you think people are looking at the wrong data?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes, I think when you go into a meeting, when you go into a meeting and a PR company goes, great news, you got 87 trillion impressions this month from these articles. Who the fuck in this room believes that? Yes, like that's on the PR side. I mean media, like if the media isn't being consumed, like how do you buy impressions that not one human in this room believes a lot of those impressions are being actualized? Nobody here would spend the money if it was their family business and their kids health depended on it. The way that the industry spends money, you wouldn't. So yes, I think the entire industry is predicated on fake reporting. I really believe that maybe they should.

[Interviewer]

Report on data that doesn't actually matter. Like maybe it got the impressions, maybe it didn't. But if they didn't have an impact, does it matter?

[Audience Member]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And I think there's a lot of things I'm hoping. Actually, I think I saw somebody shared a headline with me this morning. I think Horizon started a creative shop today or announced it or was that yesterday. Days are blurring, it's holiday time. But I was pumped with VaynerMedia. I started the agency for very different reasons. I want to build a private equity firm on top of my agency long term. So I, from day one wanted media and creative under one roof because I'm going to need that for myself to be very transparent. I didn't even know anything about the industry, so I didn't even know that agencies had those two things separated when I started the company. I think creative and media have to come back together under one roof so that clients can hold a partner actually accountable. Yeah, look, I really, really, really think we're wasting an ungodly amount of money on marketing in the Fortune 5007. I really believe that.

[Interviewer]

So, you know, you talk a lot about quality over quantity and how the world is changing and how the data and the posting talk to us a little bit about how you're thinking about that.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You mean quantity over quality? Because. Because I believe that quantity is not debatable. And quality is. If you have 4,000 ads, you have 4,000 ads versus 3. But if you like it or not, is very different. What makes it quality? This industry decided high production value, AKA let's waste as much fucking money as possible on a video that not that many people are gonna see. Because, you know, it's fun to cast Michael B. Jordan so we can gawk at him on set. That's our industry. Is that quality? Because I think when somebody posts a Mango Gummy TikTok and it sells every pack of Mango Gummies out at Walgreens in the country, I would go with that being quality, but the Production value was $17.09.

[Interviewer]

Or maybe free.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Or maybe free.

[Interviewer]

So with that, talk to them about some of the brands you think are actually doing it. Well, I know we've all talked about the Ocean Spray example and what they did. Mango gummies.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, they didn't do that well.

[Interviewer]

No, that's my point. Like, it worked really well for them, but they didn't do it the same thing. You were recently talking about the Chili's example, where, I mean, they had a 40% increase in Q3.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

40% of their Q3 growth for Chili's was based on one TikTok done by a human being, not even an influencer. 40% of its Q3 growth. You know, I come to this industry and have been in it for 15 years, loving business, and I love marketing because I think that's the offense in business. I just don't know why we don't have more conversations about the business part of all this. We're like in the mockery of the ad world. That's why CMOs have lost so much clout at board members. I spent a lot of time in business land. Business land. The top private equity firms in the world that own all these companies now. The boards, the CEOs, the CFOs. In the 15 years I've been in this industry, the clout of the CMO has collapsed. And I think it has to do with this conversation. CFO doesn't care. The board doesn't care that you want a canned lion if your business is down 30%. We talk about things within ourselves. That no normal human being. I love looking around this room. A lot of youngsters, a lot of OGs, like, have you ever talked to your real friends about this fucking industry? They're like, what are you fucking talking about? They don't give a fuck that Jaguar changed its logo. And so I think our industry has a real opportunity to get more practical. I think it's gotten very, very, very academic and corporate. And so I think that's the opportunity for all of us. And I think there's some tweaks. And I do think the media and creative thing together could be a monster, because it's gonna help because we built up so many proxies in this industry to justify things when we could just bring those two back together and really be in a much better place that I think. You know, it's funny, I speak to a lot of agency holding company CEOs and owners. I'm like, we need to bring back accountability. Because that's why brands are taking things in house. Like, you know, it's all fun and games until it's not. But it's not gonna work out nicely because ultimately brands have to have a healthy business and they're gonna point at you eventually. And so I think that's a big theme for me going into next year.

[Interviewer]

Let's talk about one of your other big themes for next year that I know you like to talk about a lot in social shopping.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You mean live social shopping? Yes, yes, obsessed.

[Interviewer]

So let's talk a little about some of your predictions and your thoughts for that. We have a big retail media network business, meaning that a lot of the brands that are setting up retail media networks, they come to us, they talk to us, and we actually help advise them on how to set them up and what to do. So we'd love to hear some of your thoughts about.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I see the retailers come to you well, and then you advise them to set it up. CBS will come and be like, yes, exactly. Brilliant. Because they'll all work because they have all the leverage. Obviously, there's good ways to do it and better ways. And to your point, I think that there's a lot of validity in that. But the good news for the retailers is they have all the leverage. So what was the question about social.

[Interviewer]

Shopping or live social shopping? And your thoughts about it?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Again, kind of looking around the room, always thinking about, like, why do I even do these things? Oh, because maybe I'll say something that might bring some value to somebody and then it'd be nice for them to say, send me an email and say thanks for doing that. I could not recommend we go into the holidays. A lot of you just want to completely check out. I get it. Some of you over a couple of weeks might get bored or interested in checking into something because that's how you're wired. If you're one of those people could not push you harder than to allocate 10 hours, 5 hours, 2 hours, however you roll with a glass of wine or eggnog or however you like it. To really dig deep into what's going on with live social shopping, it is going to be a very big conversation next year. It's already happened. Most of what I get credit for, like you see around corners, you predict things. It's not true. I just watch what's happening and when it's happened I go all in. This has happened. This is something I've been waiting for. Cause it's happened in China 10 years ago. And I'm like, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. It finally happened. So if you look at what's going on with TikTok shop notwithstanding, what happens in January with that app. But even Whatnot is an app that I would highly recommend you download if you wanna learn about it. It's just really happening and like really happening. There are a lot of people making millions of dollars a month selling shit on social and I think meta's clearly gotta be looking at it. I believe that there's like some smoke about Twitter and Shopify doing stuff like it's happened. And so I think it's gonna be a big deal and it's actually a big deal overall because it really opens up a whole new paradigm shift. Resetting what I alluded to earlier, which is I classify retail and CPG as conflict, channel warfare. Like this is not sustainable for the brands. These retail networks, they're just doubled up slotting fees. There's no money left for the CPGs or the brands to market. This is not gonna end well for the CPGs and eventually that then tips and affects the retailers themselves. And this new world allows brands to not even ever wanna be in Walmart and Target. There's just a lot going on and just live social shopping is a real, real worthwhile thing to learn. Even as a side hustle of you on. I don't know what you do or family businesses or things of that nature, but it's really real. It would blow you away. I mean I sold $180,000 worth of Veefriends ornaments on whatnot on Black Friday. 180,000. If I did everything perfect in Gary V. Land, social media content, email, text, like me, and I'm good at what I do, I would have never sold $180,000 worth of fucking ornaments, you know, in a month, let alone in four hours. There's a reason QVC and Home Shopping Network still do billions. There's something about the format of just the way we buy. We just like it's live, it's better. That's why we like sports. It's live. I don't know what to tell you other than get your shit together and learn it a little bit.

[Interviewer]

So what are you really excited about? I mean, which platforms are you really excited about?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Are you excited about? I'll be honest with you, to me, this is macro. It's so big, I just assumed for Google not to have it on YouTube shorts in the next 24 months. I couldn't comprehend. And as again with your retail practice, I'm sure this is not lost on some of you that are looking at this little narrow place. Amazon, Walmart have their lives. EBay. I met with the eBay CEO a couple maybe a month ago. They're working on making theirs better here.

[Interviewer]

Great. So what else are you excited about for 2025? In addition to social shopping, what are some of the other things that you're really excited about?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

This is really interesting and I'm dying to get. I have enough of a sense of this company from afar that I know this is not what all of you are spending the majority of your time on. Cause I don't think it's what your clients are asking. But I will tell you, the elephant in the room in our industry is the lack of focus Fortune 5000 has on organic social, creative. It is such a big deal. Every company I'm involved with that really matters to me, I own it. My family owns it. I own a big part of it. It does not spend $1 of media anymore without the creative being validated organically as an organic post. Not one dollar. And if you look under the hood of Mary Roots Organics and Cakes, the bras for Spanx and so many of these brands that are winning. I'm telling you right now, in the next 24 to 36 months, it will be best practice to not spend a dollar in media until the creative is validated by the AI algorithms of the social networks. There is no AB testing framework that I've seen and I look at every dtc. This is what I. I'm very passionate about this, there is no better practice than converting the creative that over indexed it with the actual consumer and slightly tweaking it for performance. So I think the biggest elephant in the room is it's insane to not take advantage of the insanity of the technology that these seven platforms have created with their feeds. And I think it will become more standard practice in the next four or five years. And in these 36 to 48 months the the haves and have nots of which brands in our World of Fortune 5000 go deeper into that. I think it's crazy to support the classic creative AOR model. We talked a little bit about this not too long ago. To pay an agency to come up with an idea and then go spend a lot of money to produce it and run it on a television first with digital and social matching luggage is asking for trouble.

[Interviewer]

So talk a little about the creative brief. I know it's one of your favorite topics and how you think that's evolving.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So we think we're a creative AOR for a lot of clients. We're a media AOR for a lot of clients. More digital but getting into more traditional remix. We got a lot of different ways we do business. I think the craziest thing in the world is the creative brief. Like someone writing something and handing it to an agency strategist who then goes on Reddit for six weeks and comes back and hands it to a creative who then like the whole thing's crazy. We think the brief is now the over indexing piece of social creative. Come up with the idea, make it, post it. When that goes viral and or over index is your norm. That's the insight that becomes the brief to the campaign. So we think social. It's actually shocking. I said something yesterday and in the last 15 weeks it feels like the last 15 years of work is paying off. We have a very strong Q1 coming creatively and the dollar amounts that we have clients paying for just social creative and production is staggering to most of my employees. It's been a very big Q4 for me. Cause I've had a lot of fun of I told you so to a lot of my key employees because most of my employees come from classic agencies and they just did not see the level of spend we're seeing from some of our clients that we've gotten there to go into creative social, which are much bigger line items now than the creative AOR line. I mean as you all know, the ones that are close to this, Even the creative AORs are struggling to even Get a year retainer anymore. Right. They want a roster now the clients and ad hoc. It's becoming a very bad business. I think the new version of creative AOR is always on social, creative at scale, and then you do campaign work from that. And I think we're at the forefront, but I think we'll be copied pretty quick. I think in five years, a lot more agencies are gonna look like us than they do today.

[Interviewer]

How do you talk to brands about.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Nicely.

[Interviewer]

And I'm gonna open up to a few questions, but how do you think about branding and all of that? So, you know, brands talk a lot about how they have to have a brand Persona and they have to have a value proposition. How do you think about that? When in a lot of cases you're giving over a lot of the. Obviously you greenline it, but you're still giving a lot of the control over to other groups outside the four walls.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Take any. So when we get into this 1991 how brands grow philosophy that people want to talk to me about from an academic standpoint, I just take their brand put on the screen. Can be any brand you want. I type in Nike, Schmikey, Sunkist, Chanel, whatever you want, cmo, brand person. I type it in in the search bar on Instagram and TikTok and show them 87,000 pieces of creative that they did not make about their brand. None of which look the same. No same adjectives, no same colors. The concept that we still live in television baffles me. How do I talk to them about them about it? By telling them the truth, which is they're stuck in academia from the 90s in a distribution framework that does not exist anymore. And they're more than willing and able because they write the check to stay in that world, but it doesn't exist. And for what? To not make creative that's relevant to different consumer segmentations. Look at this room. Are you looking at this? Look at how every. Like, look at the different faces, genders, races, income levels. I'm sure. How would one video try to sell these lovely shoes you're wearing? How could that possibly hit everyone here and convert. We need more relevance at scale to convert. Every brand's journey is to win on relevance at scale to as many consumer segmentations as as possible. To hold up a book that was written pre Internet as the philosophy of brand is fucking asinine. Just like this industry. We are stuck friends. I mean, again, what I like about talks like this is like, let's talk on a human level. Like, you're a human being. You walk out of some of these meetings, you know that shit won't work. We need to have that combo more as an industry. I think it'll be healthy. There's a respectful here. I can be a big shot. We can have fun. We're great friends. I love being with all of you. Happy holidays in a business meeting. I'm not trying to curse them out, but I'm having very articulate. I'm definitely not willing to fold on anything. And I don't fold because I have no opinions. I just care what the consumer thinks. And I think our industry is loaded with human beings that have audacious opinions that are their opinions, but are not played out with how the consumer's acting today. And so I have no feelings. I don't give a fuck about social media at all. I'm being dead serious. I'm actually looking forward to when we go to glasses or something else because the whole deck gets reset. I have no passion to social. I have passion to social because it's the most underpriced scaled avenue right this second. But I'll be in videos in seven years, probably no hair, and be like, you fuckers are still doing social. You idiots. You know, like, to me, I'm chasing attention. I'm chasing it at the best price I can get it for. It's why I love Super Bowl. I love to shit on television ads. Cause they're ridiculously overpriced. But super bowl's grossly underpriced. 8 million bucks for 130 million people to watch 30 seconds. Especially if you get the first half, it's a fucking steal. The problem is if you blow it. Cause the creative is the variable, you're in for 20. You know, you guys all know the media shit. The fucking networks make you buy a bunch of dog shit to get a Super bowl spot to begin with. So now you're in for 50. So the creative is the variable of success. This is why I'm obsessed with social creative right now. Creative, let it not be ever lost on any of you. Creative is the variable of success. Being able to validate if the creative is actually resonating with human beings for free on social, with technology, that is. Do you know what the creative testing bullshit SaaS companies in our industry's tech is compared to? You know, Google and Meta and TikTok. No shot or worst of all, three people's subjective opinion in a fucking boardroom. That versus the best AI algorithms in the world. Are you kidding me? So that's what I'm thinking.

[Interviewer]

All right, so I know we've got some questions. Sure. Scott.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah.

[Audience Member]

So, Gary.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Scott, how are you? First of all, can I give you some depths for the color of your sweater? It's a pretty color. Yes. Clap it up. I agree.

[Audience Member]

Because the last time we met was CES and I was wearing a sweater with wine bottles on it and he gave me props that we got to.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Keep this act going. Yeah.

[Audience Member]

But anyway, we were just having a conversation with one of our sister companies called Next Gen, who deals with NextGen within UTA. And one of the things he was saying was similar to what you said about validation on social media, if you will. And his issue was that the people within brands that are enabling the decision to be made about what creative is on social and what the decisions of, hey, balls up brand, go do this on social, aren't actually the decision makers within a brand that are empowered to make that decision. Do you think that that is also an issue within a brand? That the decision makers aren't as plugged in as some of the people inside of the brand and aren't empowering the brand to actually make those decisions about creative Social, if you will?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Audience Member]

And how do you fix that? Do you just empower younger kids to.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Make more decisions if you're a brand? Yeah, I think it's dangerous to say younger kids, like, I know unlimited 20 year olds that are internal at brands that when I sit down in 15 minutes realize they have no fucking clue what's going on.

[Audience Member]

Fair enough.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And there's plenty of 50 year old creative directors that I'm like, oh shit, you know how the algo works. So. But to your point, notwithstanding that hedge. Yeah. I think it's a good idea to let people make decisions creatively that might be more intuitive to how the creative works within a medium. I would tell you that there are very few people currently outside of creators. You know, it's so funny. The creators themselves know because it's their life. If you're an influencer, it's your life to get organic views. But in business land, that's the biggest issue right now. In agency land, all the best talent doesn't go and become a copywriter at Ogle B. They start their own million dollar brand on social. So yes, I think there's a lot of themes that I just heard that make a lot of sense to me. I think the decision makers are stuck in what Andre said, which is like, this is not on brand or I don't like this. It's like I'll use this analogy. We have people making decisions on how we should fish when we're fucking baking a cake. Like we're not even in the same conversation. People are bringing television mentality to social creative.

[Audience Member]

So how do you fix that pain?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What's that pain? What I've seen fixes it is when brands start to feel the pain. It's all coming. The pain is coming. That's why you're reading about so many m and as both on the agency side and brand side. Like think about our headlines in our industry last 48 hours. The fuck you think is going on? We've been fucking around and now the pain comes.

[Audience Member]

So with the pain, you're still optimistic about 2025?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm optimistic about 2025 in the way that I'm always optimistic. Winners win, losers lose. Like I believe the people that have the best actions. We must all. Even at what you all do for a living, you must sneak in. Cause I'm very empathetic. You have to do what you have to do for big conglomerates on both the agency and the brand side. You must sneak in as much truth about the consumer as you possibly can in every deck. Even if you get one fucking slide in there of truth for the consumer. Not what will sell, not what will work, not what corporate. It's just. It's all corporate. So do I have hope? Of course I do. Because I actually think there is a lot of pain coming which re wakes up everyone and says maybe we shouldn't spend $3 million on a TVC that nobody sees.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, enough.

[Audience Member]

Hey, Gary.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Hey brother. What's your name?

[Audience Member]

Hey, Michael.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Michael, pleasure.

[Audience Member]

Nice to see you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Good to see you.

[Audience Member]

I love your best practices about posting on organic and tiny.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm curious about it and by the way, I want to make this is a very important nuance. I believe posting on social is brand building and the testing is added value for what you do next on media amplification or campaign work. Like when you're getting that level of testing quality for free as a byproduct of what you should be doing in modern brand building anyway, it gets intoxicating. But go ahead.

[Audience Member]

My question was around for social commerce and who's winning in that space right now?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Are you saying live or affiliate shop in a TikTok shop? I think Abercrombie and Fitch is doing a good job. They're really taking advantage of the affiliate model. They're starting to sneak in some of the live social shopping I pre mentioned. You should absolutely look at Mary Ruth's Organics and Cakes, both of them are very advanced. Complete social first. I don't know how many times again, you might not. I'm in a very low luxurious spot where I'm an early stage investor as well. So I'll come from a meeting with Mondelez and then my next meeting will be with a company. They're like, two 25 year olds are like, hey. I'm like, hey. They're like, yeah, so we do like 83 million and we started only 18 months ago and we just do TikTok. So I'm able to sit in two different worlds and understand kind of what's happening. I hope everybody understands. The Fortune 500s on the consumer side have lost their moats. They don't have an advantage in distribution anymore and they don't have an advantage in media anymore. Like really, you know, I don't know how your company thinks about this, so I apologize if this is like, I don't think this is bad, but like the thought of like pre locking in any media is insanity. It should all be flexible and as much of it should be biddable because all the stuff you're locking in on the upfront is the worst shit in the industry.

[Interviewer]

We agree with you. We tried to change that a few years ago. Unfortunately, the ones that get right back to exactly where they were talking about sports too.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

People watch sports. I just think our industry forgets that commercials are different than the content. You know, like people are like, what about sports gaming? Like, yeah, I understand. People watch a lot of shit. People watch streaming all day long. I just watched 5, 8 drillion hours of streaming this weekend with my fiance Sabrina Carpenter's fucking bullshit special. 8000 fucking Hallmark fucking Christmas movies on Amazon Prime. But the second, like even prime with the freebie thing, the second it goes to ad, I'm on phone and out. The fuck am I gonna watch a bullshit 30 second video for? This is why Super Bowl's so special. We want to see the ad, right? But nobody wants to see the Grammys ad. Nobody's like, oh, can't wait for the Oscars next year. The ads are gonna fucking crush it. But we sell the fuck out of that. I just think, I think, really, I mean it. I think we lack a very substantial common sense consumer centricality in our industry. And we're going to pay the price if we don't adjust. Cause these brands aren't gonna have money. Cause they're gonna lose market share. And the new age of brands are like five you. I'm not having agencies or what? Consultant. With who? The fuck all you. We do internal. This is not gonna end up good if you don't bring value. That's life. Promise you right now, if you remember anything from this fucking talk, if you do not provide value, eventually the shit hits the fan. And that is our fucking industry.

[Interviewer]

You and Jeremy Zimmer said the same thing.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Sounds like a very smart man.

[Audience Member]

Question.

[Interviewer]

All right, yes. Last one.

[Audience Member]

So are you predicting the depth of the 15 and 30 second spot? Because most of traditional media television production development is paid for by the 15 and 30.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think the 15 and 30 is straight garbage. Straight fucking garbage. And I'm devastated because I can smell that Netflix is gonna replicate that garbage. But whatever.

[Interviewer]

That's the saddest part is that all these industries, when they've had a chance to innovate, they haven't.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

But that's cause they hire the fuckers from the old thing. Like when I got right when I invested in Facebook and Twitter and all that, that's when I was really learning. I was like, this is awesome. Facebook's gonna be awesome. And I'm like, wait a minute, they just hired 800 fuckers from Yahoo and they're bringing all that same dog shit. You know what I mean? That's why when you go into LinkedIn accounts of the fucking people making the decisions, they're like, oh, they used to work at Paramount or fucking cba. Everybody, everybody is siphoning off the brand's money. These brands are in trouble. Every single brand that Procter and Gamble has is vulnerable to an Alex Cooper and a Logan Paul and an Emma Chamberlain. This shit's going to hit the fucking fan and then everybody's in trouble. Promise? Promise.

[Interviewer]

I'm just glad we have Emma Chamberlain in our house too. Yeah, me and Alex Cameron for now.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Cause they can go to CAA tomorrow. We need to wake the fuck up, my friends. We need to wake the fuck up.