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

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Why the Traditional Marketing Playbook is Dead (And How AI Changes Everything)"

Podcast: The GaryVee Audio Experience
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Date: May 19, 2026
Episode Description: Gary Vaynerchuk, joined by Sherlyn and a live virtual audience, dives deep into why legacy marketing approaches are obsolete, how AI is upending everything, the opportunity of organic social, the nature of brand soul, and the future of creative marketing. The session features candid Q&A, memorable real talk, and actionable advice for marketing leaders at all levels.

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Main Theme & Episode Purpose

Overview:
This fireside Q&A revolves around the demise of the traditional marketing playbook and the transformative impacts of AI and social media on brand-building and consumer attention. GaryVee makes a compelling case for why outdated boardroom thinking is failing, why organic social media is everything, and how creativity and culture should drive marketing forward, not politics or legacy metrics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gary’s Upbringing and the Roots of His Marketing Worldview

• Background: Gary discusses his childhood as a poor immigrant from the Soviet Union, highlighting how scarcity and hustle framed his approach to business and marketing.
  • “I started my first lemonade stand when I was seven… I would make signs and hang them all over different trees and poles... Didn’t call it marketing then, but that is what it was.” [04:03]
• Learning from Retail:
  • Grew up working in his family's liquor store, launching one of America’s first e-commerce wine businesses, pioneering email and Google Ads in the 1990s.
  • “I grew my dad’s business from a $3M to a $65M revenue business in my early 20s on the back of email marketing, e-commerce, and Google AdWords.” [05:30]

2. The GaryVee Brand vs. The Real Gary

• Persona vs. Person:
  • Gary addresses the duality between "GaryVee" and Gary Vaynerchuk, emphasizing authenticity and contextual energy:
    • “When the camera is on and I am performing, there is definitely an energy boost that accelerates my natural truth… I don't think GaryVee and Gary Vaynerchuk are different. I think the context of when they show up is different.” [10:39]
  • On being misunderstood for his intensity, he notes the importance of message over style:
    • “People get lost in the energy versus the words. I’m a very aggressive communicator in a public forum, but the words coming out of my mouth are compassion, empathy, and patience.” [11:45]

3. Marketing’s Fundamental Problem: Old Metrics, New World

• Outdated Playbooks:
  • Gary explains why corporate inertia and bonus structures tied to TV and legacy digital are holding back effective marketing.
  • “Corporate boardrooms teach very little that's interesting.” [02:55]
  • “It is very hard to convince your boss to do something you believe is true if the boss is being incentivized in their bonus based on measurement that overvalues television and programmatic digital.” [20:16]
• Advice to Marketers:
  • “There is a respectful way to communicate what you believe the firm or the organization should be doing… but in the end, you need to die on your own sword.” [21:05]

4. The Power and Imperative of Organic Social (Mid-Funnel)

• Non-Negotiable Volume:
  • He advocates for massive, daily output across platforms:
    • “I believe if it’s a Fortune 5000 company... you’re talking about 20, 30, 40 pieces of organic creative a day across 8 to 9 platforms, across 10 to 30 handles. Bare minimum. I’m aware no one is doing that on this call.” [17:47]
  • Why? The creative itself earns reach—AI amplifies creative that is actually relevant.
    • “Your creative creates the reach. All the AI algorithms and social media right now are being written on relevance for the first time ever.” [29:56]
• Don’t Waste Paid Media:
  • “No one should spend a single dollar of media on a piece of creative unless it has been validated for reach organically on social.” [19:00]
  • On measurement: “The biggest issue in marketing is that we think we need to be on brand and consistent, when the reality with the consumer is there’s not a single consumer brand on earth that is actually consistent.” [25:16]

5. AI’s Impact, Brand “Soul,” and Relevance

• On Brand Soul in the Age of AI:
  • Gary questions the idea of a consistent "brand soul," challenging the industry's reliance on paper definitions:
    • "Who is the judge and jury of the soul of a brand?... Even if it was the consumer, how would we poll them?" [25:16]
  • “The interpretation of the words is the issue this industry has struggled with. We need the humility to understand this industry runs on the subjective opinion of four people, three people, two people.” [26:29]
• AI and Relevance:
  • “For the first time in marketing history, we can measure relevance. The way we can measure relevance is through organic social media content.” [27:39]
  • “We now live in interest media, not social media. These platforms reward what people are actually interested in, not random stuff from people we follow.” [28:13]

6. The Next Big Things: Live Shopping, Experiential, and B2B Social

• Platform Predictions:
  • Gary sees no TikTok-sized breakout imminent, but big opportunities in “Substack and Beehive” for B2B, and “live social shopping” for consumer brands. [32:37–35:57]
  • Demonstrates live: “This woman is selling crabs on social media... China this year may top $1T in [social live shopping] GMV.” [34:07]
• B2B Advice:
  • “Every B2B business here should be producing 3 to 4 pieces of LinkedIn content organically every day. When something gets 8,000 views instead of your normal 800, spend media against it targeting CIOs, CFOs, whoever your target is.” [49:13]

7. Creativity, Community, and Culture-First Marketing

• Creativity Suppressed by Math:
  • “We’ve suppressed creativity. This industry is dramatically less creative than it was 40 years ago. It’s all AI and math and efficiency.” [36:18]
• On Culture-First Approach:
  • “Our entire strategy department is transforming from brand strategy titles to relevance strategy titles... Their job is to understand how the brand can join in to the 973 different bubbles of popular culture... I believe every brand is underserving communities not because they’re marginalized, but because we are stuck in campaign thinking and advertising.” [44:32]
• Advice for Marketers:
  • “Be respectful, but communicate your truth... All these people know what I know, they’re just scared to say it.” [37:37]

8. Marketing’s Potential for Good

• Marketing as a Force for Change:
  • “Marketing’s number one job is to scale love and accountability... I would argue Martin Luther King and Gandhi are much better marketers than David Ogilvy.” [41:14]
  • “Love always wins. I will die on that sword.” [43:14]

9. Rapid Fire & Memorable Moments

• Emerging Tools:
  • Favorite current app: “Today the answer is Claude.” [50:46]
  • Most important AI tool: “You need to spend five hours understanding everything about what Open Claw is... Where we're going with agentic AI agents.” [52:42]
• Personal Insights:
  • Company he regrets missing: “I would have been the first check into Airbnb.” [51:49]
  • If not an entrepreneur: “I would be a therapist, a guidance counselor. I wouldn’t work at a company.” [51:58]
  • “I have a significant mental health agenda.” [52:16]

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Notable Quotes

• On creative vs. campaign constraints
  “Every person’s best marketing idea ever went to the cutting room floor and never saw the day of light… and just do it and where’s the beef and MasterCard priceless easily could have hit the cutting room floor. Those are the few rare times we guessed right. But 97% of campaigns fail… So what the are we doing?”
  — Gary Vaynerchuk [56:16–58:10]

• On the reality of 'brand soul'
  “We need the humility to understand that this industry runs on the subjective opinion of four people, three people, two people. So look. And what is a soul? Like, people talk audaciously, ‘the soul of Nike.’ I’m like, Nike wants to sell sneakers and apparel. We have to take a step back.”
  — Gary Vaynerchuk [26:29]

• On social’s measurement power
  “For the first time in marketing history, we can measure relevance… Your creative creates the reach.”
  — Gary Vaynerchuk [29:56]

• On the future of marketing
  “This is the greatest era of creativity if you decide to grab it… Social media isn’t the enemy. It’s the opportunity.”
  — Gary Vaynerchuk [56:16]

• On communicating with truth and respect
  “Be respectful, but communicate your truth.”
  — Gary Vaynerchuk [37:37]

• On love and marketing
  “Love always wins. I will die on that sword.”
  — Gary Vaynerchuk [43:14]

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Timestamps of Key Segments

| Time | Segment / Content | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:55 | Gary’s upbringing and early marketing instincts | | 07:47 | Humility, company values, and VaynerMedia’s growth | | 10:39 | The GaryVee persona vs. the real Gary | | 17:47 | CMOs, organic social, and what matters now | | 19:41 | Barriers to marketing innovation in large organizations | | 21:05 | Speaking truth to power respectfully | | 25:08 | AI, brand soul, and marketing’s big misunderstanding | | 29:56 | Social relevance: how creative earns reach through AI | | 32:37 | What’s next – live shopping and new B2B platforms | | 41:07 | Can marketing make the world a better place? | | 44:22 | Culture-first strategy and relevance in marketing | | 49:08 | Best-in-class social-first brands and B2B social advice | | 50:36 | Quick fire round (favorite app, last thing bought, etc.) | | 56:16 | Gary’s closing wisdom: creativity, joy, and marketing’s role |

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Closing Wisdom

“This is the greatest era of creativity if you decide to grab it. Social media isn’t the enemy, it’s the opportunity… We are not curing cancer. Shouldn’t we make this a little bit more enjoyable?... The way to do that is to liberate the ideas and the creativity.”
— Gary Vaynerchuk [56:16]

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Summary Note:
This episode demonstrates GaryVee’s trademark blend of pragmatism and inspiration: cut through political games and outdated metrics, use AI and social media to unleash a new era of relevancy and creativity, and never lose sight of marketing’s power to inject love and positivity at massive scale. For anyone wanting to move a marketing organization into the future—or just not be left behind—this is a blueprint, manifesto, and motivational speech rolled into one.

Transcript

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

In life, every one of us finds what we're looking for. When I tell you the thing I despise the most is when I am encountered with pessimism and cynicism, it breaks my little soul because people try to say they keep it real. You know how people are like, I'm just keeping it real. I'm like, yes, you're keeping it real. Negative. This is the GaryVee audio experience.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Yeah, well, we're absolutely thrilled to have you. And so those of you in the room who don't know, VaynerX have become a global partner of the Marketing Academy and we are loving their team. They're supporting the alumni programs all over the world. All of our alumni programs all over the world. We're doing a shit ton of stuff together. It's all really, really cool. And next week, Gary's hosting our graduation party in the US which should be fabulous in Manhattan in a private member's club, as only Gary do. Right? So we're thrilled about it. And today is really a Q and A. So I've got some questions, in fact, I've got a lot of questions, but it's not about me. So to all of you in the room, get your questions in and when you look on the Q and A, you can see the questions and you can vote on them. So if we get a load of questions, which I think is likely, just vote on the ones that are really resonating with you that we really want Gary to answer. And I'll ask for some of those. I will just do for some people in the room that might be a bit sensitive and have not logged on to a virtual campus event before, there's likely to be a lot of swearing, right. He's going to say fuck a number of times, I guarantee it. So if you've got kids behind you and you've got the sound on, put your speakers in, put your earphones in so that they're not asking you what a wanker is or whatever. Right. Okay, Gary, let's start with you then. Let's start with your. Let's start with your earlier life. Right. I'm quite keen. We're always quite keen whenever we get guest speakers such as yourself, to just unpeel a little bit about where you've come from. I would love for you to tell us a few learnings that you, you got early on in your life and career. The things that your upbringing taught you that boardroom, corporate boardrooms just wouldn't give us a few of those.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, first of all, on the record, you know, corporate boardrooms teach very little. That's interesting. Next. I was born in the Soviet Union, and that was a great blessing because my timing was impeccable. If I was born in 1920 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60, my life would be very different. But I was born in 1975, and I was very fortunate that some Soviets were able to get out of that atrocious country. Just to remind everyone, see a lot of people from the UK and the US I think a lot of people don't know their history very well. The Soviet Union, when I was born there, is more similar to North Korea than it is to Iran. Meaning in Iran, if you live there right now, you can actually leave. You can go to Turkey, you can go to Canada, you can leave right now. But if you're born in North Korea today, you're not allowed to leave. When I was born in the Soviet Union, you were not allowed to leave. There was no passport. So I was born in a jail. To the world's greatest mother, who just celebrated her birthday three days ago. Happy birthday, Mom.

[Sherlyn]

And.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And that is really the story of my life. I immigrated to America when I was four. We grew up very poor. I lived in a studio apartment with five or six family members, depending on who was coming through at the time. And so we really struggled. My dad got a job as a stock boy in a liquor store, eventually became the manager of that liquor store. And so we moved to Edison, New Jersey. And I grew up in the streets of Edison, New Jersey, which was lower middle class New Jersey in the 80s. So, you know, very like humble stuff, right? Like, I had parents, friends, parents who wore the same clothes every day. That's the kind of neighborhood I grew up in. We played a lot of sports, we got into A lot of fights. And I started to become a marketer when I was six. And I say this very specifically. Seven. When I was seven, I started my first lemonade stand. And instead of like standing behind the lemonade stand, I would make signs and hang them all over the different trees and poles. And this is true, Sherlyn. I literally would sit and watch cars drive by to try to figure out what pole or tree to put the sign on. Now, I didn't think I was a marketer then. I never heard. I obviously didn't know the word. In fact, I don't think I had the aha of the story that I just told until I was probably into my late 30s. But, you know, I think some people are born into things, whether it's singing or dancing or playing sports. I was born into being a marketer. I would argue everything I learned as a child, you know, at the lemonade stands, at the trading card conventions I went to when I was 11 and 12. And then I really learned a lot growing up in retail. My father eventually opened a small liquor store in New Jersey that I grew up in, and I worked there. And it all led to me launching the first e commerce wine business, one of the first five E commerce wine businesses in America in 1996. This is a plaque about my family business. And grew my dad's business from a 3 to a $65 million revenue business in my early 20s on the back of email marketing, e commerce, and Google adwords. And that's what really got me into the mindset of like, underpriced and overpriced attention. I think you know this about me. I'm not a modern social media guy. I'm not anti traditional marketing. I'm anti wasting good money on bad marketing. I'm anti spending money on ideology versus practicality. I'm against making marketing for awards and fake corporate boardroom reports versus the consumer. And for context of this room. In 2009, I started VaynerMedia. Then I wrote this book, crush it, which kind of said, the Internet's gonna matter. And in 2000, I was really running the wine business and the agency from 2009-11. My brother was my co founder. He was running it day to day with me. But in 2011, I really jumped on board. The business was doing a million dollars in revenue at that point. And I grew this business from a 1 million to a $400 million revenue agency. I think we're one of the largest, if not the largest independent agency in the world. Now we're a lot bigger than everyone in this call realizes. We have 2,000 plus employees and we have a very substantial competitive advantage which is we are not audacious.

[Sherlyn]

You are not audacious.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

No, but oh my God, you're a shrinking violet.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

No, I am incredibly expressive. I like I have the gift of gab. But Daisy who ran the UK for me is in this chat and she's now onto an incredible marketing career. I'm sure she's asked about me because she worked for me for a long time and now doesn't. I'm sure she has lots of things to say about me. But back to my mother. For all I am, deep down, I'm a nice boy. And I would say that humility has been our secret power@vaynermedia. I am not Don Draper. I am not a creative chief creative officer of a holding company agency where I literally don't think my shit stinks and that my opinion matters over everything. It is. It is humility and curiosity of how to bring value to the end consumer of our clients that drives me. I am convicted in our process of social media first marketing currently. While social media deserves to be first, eventually it will not. If this was 1971, I would be convicted in my television first marketing approach. But I do not have the audacity, nor does anybody in my company that their idea for the campaign is right or brilliant. We do not measure based on headlines and ad age or Cannes Lyons Awards. We are committed to to having marketing drive our clients business and we're committed to being gracious and kind to our employees first, the customers of our customers second, and then our actual clients third. In a way that I don't believe this industry does it. And I think that is the secret to the sauce. Everybody, 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.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know, I could see Daisy's cooking in the comments. She can probably add some color again, because I think it's a third party and a non incentivized third party. But my answer to that is, and I actually want everyone to answer this, this is very simple. This is a very simple question and I love engaging the audience. So please everyone, say yes or no. This is a yes or no question. Friends, all of you watching, do you feel there's slightly different versions of yourself, given the room that you're in, that as a mother and father, you're slightly different than a spouse, as a daughter or husband, you're different than when you're presenting to your board as a, as the manager, you're different than you are when you're with your best buddies in the countryside of the uk. When the camera is on and I am performing, there is definitely an energy boost that accelerates my natural truth. I don't think Gary Vee and Gary Vaynerchuk are different. I think the context of when they show up is different. When I'm talking to Daisy as a business owner about a strategy we have on our team or as a friend when we're flying back from a meeting in the UK and we're talking about, you know, marriages and children, those are different than me speaking to her right now. As someone who's being interviewed in a fireside chat in the context of March marketing, I also think that sometimes people get lost in the energy versus the words. I'm a very aggressive communicator when I'm in a public forum. But when the words coming out of my mouth are compassion and empathy and patience, I always laugh when people try to compare me to something a little bit more alpha than I am because they're unable to. And that's on me. I don't actually judge them. I understand. But when they're unable to separate the energy or the cursing or the conviction from the merit of the words.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think it's a mix. It's such a beautiful thing you just said there. That last thing. I'm going to stay on because I think it's going to bring a lot of people a lot of value. This is this. Talk about humbling. I'd like to say something that if you struggle with when I say it, I ask you to take a beat this weekend and pour your beverage of choice and get in your feelings because there is no bigger truth than what you just said in life. And this is how politics is playing out right now. And this how marketing works. Which is why I think I'm good at it, because I understand what I'm about to say in life. Every one of us finds what we're looking for. When I tell you the thing I despise the most is when I am encountered with pessimism and cynicism, it breaks my little soul because people try to say they keep it real. You know how people like I'm just keeping it real. I'm like, yes, you're keeping it real. Negative. I do believe that I as a very heavy. Let's talk about this little world of our world here in marketing. In this world with how aggressive and loud. I came out in 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and I was poking and I mean poking at the establishment. I'm. I do believe people saw what they were looking for in me. Right. If you were blindly in belief that it was the old world of how brands grow and you spent 25 years becoming a creative director and here's this loudmouth saying your subjective opinion is audacious. 99% of campaigns don't work. If you're the head of media at Publicis and I'm like, like 90% of the media dollars that holding companies are spending is a waste. Of course you're going to see what you're looking for and I respect that. However, what I really enjoyed was the thousands that would stop me at can or at Adweek or eat or hit me up on LinkedIn after a talk like this. Who would say emailing you from my Gmail account but you're telling the truth. Keep fighting the fight. I know you're getting all the judgment and the hate, but it's important what you're doing because we are wasting clients money. I am upset with what I see happening in my own company. I don't like that the banks have taken over our creative industry. It is just about the P and L right now. We do need more heart. I do feel like just a sell on an Excel sheet in my big company. I could be fired at any time if we lose a client, you know? You know, and so I was willing to be misunderstood for a decade to be respected in the end.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

No.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know, I'm much more, you know, if I look at what, you know, Daisy's right. When Daisy says I'm gonna scroll up, it's true. Right. Like, this is a former employee. You know how former employees can be, right? Like, you know, like it's hard to be appreciated, adored respected by a former employee. We can all, we can all agree with that.

[Sherlyn]

Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And Daisy's a winner. And like, I'm humbled, but I know even if Daisy was in here saying not true because she was, let's say she was mad at me, I still know the truth of who I was for her and continue to be. And so, you know, I do feel a shift. It'll be fun to see if people feel like their perception of me or my beliefs in marketing or social media first approach, has that shifted. Say yes or no. You know, again, somebody in here said, I'm a Jersey, Laurie said, I'm a fellow Jersey. Or I understood you the whole time. So, you know, you know, it's a path. I mean, I think when you're well intended, and I'm sure a lot of people here are well intended. If you're well intended and you believe in what you believe in, it will always work out in the end.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Organic social media, content production, it's the single most important thing going on in our industry, the mid funnel as we define it. Organic, social, AKA every brand in here or every agency person representing a brand in here. I believe if it's a Fortune 5000, a top 5000 company in the world world, you're talking about 20, 30, 40 pieces of organic ads, creative ads a day across eight to nine different platforms, across 10 to 15 to 30 different handles within the overall mix, meaning four different Instagram accounts, three different TikTok accounts. I believe that is a bare minimum. I'm aware that no one is doing that on this call number two, once you understand the volume of creative because everyone thinks it's spray and pray, throw against the wall and see what sticks, test and learned it is not. It is advertising every day in the modern world and then allowing the AI algorithms that show you if there's relevance with that creative to be a starting point for debate of taking that creative to the lower funnel performance or the upper funnel campaign. I believe that no one on this call should spend a single dollar of media on a piece of creative unless it has been validated for reach organically on social. Okay, I mean that's a big one.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Right. So what do we do about that?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes. People that are experiencing that all of that is true. Everybody here has mortgages, college debt if they live in America. Responsibilities, hopes and dreams. And it would be audacious to sit here and say, go in guns a blazing, tear down the place, because you will find yourself in the unemployment line. Right? So I'm very empathetic. There's a couple things. There is a respectful way. There is a respectful way to have a conversation with anyone about what you actually believe in, right? So, for example, Sarah says right now, CMOs and boards are overvaluing AI above everything else, right? If TV's an afterthought now, if Sarah thinks that's right, then that's easy. If she thinks there's a nuance to that, there is a respectful way for Sarah to communicate that. Right? There's everyone here. There is a respectful way to communicate what you believe in. I'm going to say something profoundly important, at least to me. I would like everyone trilling on this call to die on their own sword. Because the thing that breaks my heart, that is not. You know, one of the fun, fun things about agency life is you become very friendly with your clients. So a lot of these people become my friends. And it has been devastating to watch my friends get fired because they thought they were appeasing the company by supporting TV or sponsorship or media spend or efficiency versus effectiveness or whatever it is. Deep down, they saw it differently. I know that because if I was their friend, these would be the talks, right? And then when the business would decline with traditional marketing, they would be hurt or passed up on or even fired. And meanwhile, they never believed in it the whole way. And that's about to hit scale. So tell everybody here there is a respectful way to be able to communicate what you believe the firm or the organization should be doing. Make sure that your boss, the board, the C suite, your contemporaries, and the people that work for you know where you stand on what you think you should do with creative media, right? And the reason that people don't challenge it and go social first is it doesn't measure internally properly, yet it also doesn't get at the headlines. You know, getting. I'm more excited about a single organic piece of social getting 45 million views than I am about a TV campaign getting featured in campaign magazine or a Cannes lion. Because I think it has more business impact. I can communicate that. That doesn't mean that my clients, clients agree with me, but we can have the conversation. They know Where I stand and the reason I feel different in the last 24 months than I did last nine years, Sherlyn, is a lot of people are starting to realize that social first versus social last or even social with is becoming a winning formula. When you look at Gruen's selling to Unilever for $1.2 billion after 26 months on a social first framework, Liquid death on a social first first framework. You know, when you look at these over and over and over, it starts to click in.

[Sherlyn]

Yeah, there's some. I think there's some. I think there's probably a number of questions in the chat actually. So just go over there and just ask a few. Okay. This is about AI and I guess can't really have a conversation about marketing without talking about we shouldn't, you know. This is Tyler. Oh, hi. One of my fellows. In a world where AI agents are handling the bulk of guest transactions and brand discovery, how do you keep brands soul from being filtered out by the algorithms?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Expand on that.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

It should be the conspiracy you are. But the companies think it's them, right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's a little bit more nuanced than that for me. But I understand what you're saying. Even if it was the consumer, how would we poll them? How would we understand it? I would argue the biggest issue in marketing is that we think we need to be on brand and consistent when the reality with the consumer is there's not a single consumer brand on earth that is actually consistent. People have very different perceptions of brands and nuances, no matter how hard you push your tagline or tvc. Right. You know, and so, you know, a soul, you know, Alex says, shouldn't the soul be clearly defined as part of. Yes, of course it should be defined on paper. But Alex, I'm sure you're aware of the Constitution of the United States of America. I don't know if you've heard it's written on paper very clearly, but 50% of our country in America sees it one way and interprets it one way. And 50%, I mean, the Supreme Court of America literally rules on clearly laid out verbiage and clearly laid out arguments five to four, six to three, every day of the week. So this ideology that we can put things on paper or in a brief or on a deck, and that lays out the soul, the interpretation of the words is the, the issue that this industry has struggled with. Like how many times, you know, does something get written in a brief and then the strategist is mad at the creative because they didn't capture it or, you know, we are. We need. We need the humility to understand that this industry runs on the subjective opinion of four people, three people, two people. So look. And what is a soul like Sherlyn? People talk audaciously. They're Gary, the soul of night. I'm like, nike wants to fucking sell sneakers and apparel. Like, we have to take a step back. Like, we're often in marketing of products. Like, thank you.

[Sherlyn]

Thank you. We had an MMI event last week, and we had an OD Merc on the talk, and they said, what's your biggest learning? And he went, my biggest learning is it's just not that deep.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

True.

[Sherlyn]

I feel like, oh, my God. That's gonna be our new mantra for all the marketers.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Like, the soul of, like, Starbucks coffee. Like, I get it, but we're selling coffee. And by the way, like, there's better coffee out there. Like. Like, you know, like. Like, you know, I get it. And I believe in like. Like, I. I believe in soul, but I do not believe in the way we decide to measure or judge it and in that vulnerability of humans, human subjectivity. There's been a more important thing, which is, for the first time in marketing history, we can measure relevance. And the way we can measure relevance is through organic social media content. And by the way, I want to say something. I want everyone to hear this, especially if you don't know me or my stuff. If this was 2002, I would only be talking about email Marketing and Google AdWords, right? And the beginning of this new thing called blogging. And in 2041, I'm gonna be interviewing like this and being like, you're still doing social media marketing. It's so overpriced. The attention has shifted into VR, AR, whatever the world has in store for all of us, you know, and take care, Ben. And so, you know, the reality is that we can measure relevant Sherlyn for the first time ever. So I don't know if people know this. Let's take a quick step back. There is no social media anymore. We now live in interest media. You know, when. When I. When I post on my Instagram, right? I have 11.5 million followers on Instagram, right? When I post this post this morning, you know, this post has a hundred five thousand views so far. It earned those views. This no longer goes just to my followers. It goes to people that might Be interested about envy and why. My point here is revenge is a bad energy and envy and jealousy is going to get you nowhere. Right? But then just, you know, literally five posts earlier, this video about me talking about self esteem, if you have a daughter. This is only 5 posts earlier. Oops. I'm sorry. This is very important, so bear with me, everyone. This got, Jesus, 6 million views.

[Sherlyn]

Wow.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Seven years ago, all my posts got 500,000 views no matter what I posted on average, you know, now your creative creates the reach. I need everyone to like really go there, you know, the creative creates the reach. All the AI algorithms and social media right now are being written on relevance for the first time ever. Where we distribute our marketing, the distribution channel is aligned with our interests. Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube shorts. They want to keep people on the platform. That's how they make money. They want to show you and I things that we were actually interested in, not random stuff from people we follow. Got it. We as marketers get the benefit of what their interest is. The BBC didn't care if our creative was good or not. They just wanted our money. The Wall Street Journal didn't care. They just wanted our money. Right. The radio station, they just wanted our money. These platforms want to keep people on, so they benefit creative that is actually relevant. Everyone, listen, I might be a new guy, but everyone here agrees, me included, that relevance to consideration leads to purchase. The AI algorithms in social literally measure relevance.

[Sherlyn]

Relevance.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That is, that is, that is a profound breakdown of where we are in social that I hope people understand. The other thing that we have to understand is that this argument that people keep having that telly has more reach than social is laughable. It's laughable. The actual sheer consumption of social media advertising versus tele advertising is profound.

[Sherlyn]

Found.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Live social. Oh, I see. Yeah. You're purchasing immediately through live.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Audience Member]

You will be getting these crabs.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

This woman is selling crabs on social media. Two crabs will come with that as well.

[Audience Member]

Congratulations. That's awesome. Should we grab another one of those?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Watch. Watch this, everyone.

[Audience Member]

All right, we're gonna do another dozen. Northern Maryland.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Just wondering. A dozen northern Maryland crabs actually located in Pennsylvania. Oh, she's in Pennsylvania.

[Audience Member]

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. You can Google harbor house crabs and you'll find we have a.

[Sherlyn]

Just literally in a shop. So you're literally buying from. Located. I'm.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Audience Member]

This is going to be for a dozen of.

[Sherlyn]

You're doing half.

[Audience Member]

Was the first one.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Audience Member]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's at $35 right now. She's selling crabs. Live crabs. Now. Now let me say something. Let me say something.

[Sherlyn]

Going to be doing this next week.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Ready for this, everybody? China, this year it may top $1 trillion in GMV. $1 trillion in gross merchandise value. TikTok shop in the US and the UK these numbers are staggering. Tens of billions. I agree, Evan. Those crabs did look good. I. And so I think live shopping is next. I think anyone here that Is selling a physical product or represents a client that does. They should be absolutely talking about live social shopping. TikTok Shop is probably the leader but like I mean there's, I mean look, this is just like look how real this is. Look what my meeting is at noon. Do you see it? You see it?

[Sherlyn]

No, I can't see it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Okay, so that's what we're all investing in next thing, right? I've got another question for you. Emily says when building a brand do you think building a community is overlooked? We stuck too much in B2C thinking and have we lost a human to human view? I think there's a number of questions there in one. Yes, the value of community.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes, yes. I believe that everyone has become a banker. Everything's excel sheets. We've. We've suppressed creativity. One of the reasons I love social media marketing is all we had Wingstop, a big client of ours here yesterday. There was 37 good ideas. All of them are going to go out. We didn't spend all day trying to pick one campaign to put on TV and outdoor and push down matching digital and social luggage. All of them. So I think we've suppressed creativity. I think this industry is dramatically less creative than it was 40 years ago. It's all AI and math and efficiency and like one idea, right? Whereas if you look at the mix, you look at Betty Crocker and the fitness and 60s they were doing 60, 100 different full page ads in newspapers around the country that had different creative. The things I'm doing on social today, I didn't invent anything, I'm just executing it in the new platforms. I think we've suppressed creativity. I think we do not care enough about the end consumer. I think we are audacious about how smart they are. I think we pander. I think most of our men messaging is vanilla to be safe. I think, I think a lot of things.

[Sherlyn]

Well, how depressing. So tell me.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, it's actually, actually it's not depressing. This is why I'm. It's actually the reverse. It's why I'm so optimistic. Why did I do this hour? First, I think you're fabulous. I don't know. But second, it's because I'm hoping that Olga A or and Antonio B or someone hears one thing from me that sends him down two hours of live shopping or did he say 50 pieces of content a day. We do one a week, you know, and it becomes just like, listen, just like starting with my mother and then later living life and finding different conversations and people's and letting the world be my mentor. Like, we all can find inspiration to do it differently. And we went to the most important part earlier. Be respectful, but communicate your truth. Be respectful, but communicate your truth. And I remember I called my mom after a meeting in 2014 and called her, mom, I love you. How are you? And I said, mom, I don't think I'm a genius anymore. And she laughed and she said, what do you mean? I'm like, these first three years in corporate America and big brands in the world, I'm like, man, I'm so much smarter than everybody. This is so weird. And now I've realized, no, I wasn't. I just had freedom as an entrepreneur to speak my truth. All these people know what I know. They're just scared to say it. Do you think anyone here does not realize that social media across 10 platforms from LinkedIn to TikTok control a shocking amount of human attention? All we do is cry about how much time people spend on phones. So let me get this right. You cry your fucking balls off all day long about everyone's on the phone and the world's fucked up, but you spend 3% of your energy on social media marketing?

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Yeah. Okay, well, you heard it there then, folks. That's what you need to start doing tomorrow, right? Annalisa's got a question. Do you think, think marketing can make the world a better place? What's your view on sustainability, profit, people, planet? Is it a marketing job or is it someone else's? I've got a view on it, but let's hear yours.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I would, I would, I would. I would argue that marketing's number one job is to scale love and accountability. I would, I would argue that Martin Luther King and Gandhi and John Lennon are much better marketers than David Ogilvy. I would argue that the reason I have so much commercial success with VaynerMedia is, is because Gary Vee pushes practical positivity and markets every day to make the world a better place. Especially for young men who are being pushed into very weird places and thoughts. And that what I do to make them understand that nice guys finish first and that kindness is a strength is far more important than me helping Wingstop sell chicken wings or Pepsi sell soda. And so when we talk about soul, it does not happen in advertising agencies peddling airlines and sneakers, but it can

[Sherlyn]

happen in a way we choose to communicate is communicators. Right. So we've always, always had the belief in the academy that marketing, media and advertising can change the world, given that its impact and reach to the 8 billion people.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Let there be no confusion. That is the whole punchline of Earth, right? This is a very. There's a very fine line. This is why Star wars is the most, most profound movie made. The line between the dark side and Jedis, AKA love and hate, is very narrow. But let me say something very important this afternoon. Love always wins. You may all be confused right now and Hate and Darkness might have a little momentum. You know, it's like sports. You know, maybe hate and moment and negativity and cynicism has scored the last two goals, but I promise you we're going to win this shootout in the end. Love Always wins. I will die on that sword.

[Sherlyn]

I bet none of it. I bet not many people in the room thought we'd be going there today, but there you go.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

We definitely did that. So I'm just going to see what other questions we've got because we've got quite a few. Right, Derek. Hi, Derek. One of my scholars, one of my year one scholars. Mr. Danger, on top of being social first, Vayner appears to also be culture first or barely trying to move at pace of culture. How do you define culture? Do you see the two things as symbiotic? If so, in what ways is a world where diversity is being attacked globally despite signals of culture often starting at the fringes, overlooked and undisturbed communities? How should culture form forward, social forward, brands lead?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Derek.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Derek.

[Sherlyn]

Derek.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That was Derek. First of all, I need to know you, please, I put my, I put my LinkedIn here. Please, please take a screenshot or control copy, send me a message. I'd like to know you because your question is incredibly profound on many levels. One, I'm just surely humbled that you're aware that, that, that we, we do trade on culture. I would say our, for example, our entire strategy department is transforming currently from brand strategy titles to relevance strategy titles. Their jobs are not to figure out the brand infrastructure, what the brand can stand for. It is their job is to understand how the brand can join in to the 973 different bubbles, bubbles of popular culture that are going on in the world that then allows it to do what you're talking about, even though the world is decisive. Red, blue, conservative, liberal. We push brands to be relevant to everyone. We do also say be careful of politics because it's a very easy way to get into trouble. But when back to underserved communities. In the context of our lives, we think about people being suppressed by governments and by culture. Yes, but I'm gonna put that on the shelf because that's more politics than what I'm talking about right now, which is I believe every brand is underserving communities not because they're marginalized communities, but because we are stuck in campaign thinking and advertising. Our industry is so stuck on picking one group of people to market to and betting everything on it versus being relevant to everyone. Meaning once again, not complicated. If I'm, I'm just going to use the UK because I'm in a London mood. If I am Kit Kat bar and I'm trying to sell Kit Kats in the UK, yes, I want to be relevant to 20 to 25 year old

[Sherlyn]

Indian

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

UK residents that immigrated from India, India. And I want to make content that might have some cricket content in there. I equally would like 45 to 50 year old posh women that are cool and hip and hang out in shortage to also buy KitKats for them, for their kids as an indulgence. And I need to make content that speaks their slang, their popular culture. I would also like country side truck drivers when they stop at Tesco to pick up a Kit Kat bar and I would like to do some, you know, truck driving humor and put that in my content. And all of that can be real, all of that can be real. If you understand that you need much more volume of relevant content. And we do trade on that. And it's. I don't even know how to think about not trying to be relevant to everyone. But you have to be overly respectful to those subcultures. You have to understand them, you have to make it valuable for them whether you make them laugh or think or ponder, anything to consider. And you have to be authentic and real. Like if you're KitKat, let's just stay on my example. Like you're not a healthy snack, right? So like, you know, going after yoga gals that are 20 in, in the posh clubs of London, you're gonna have to make a piece of content that's more about, hey, why don't you eat one of us after you have a night out drinking with your girls? And isn't it nice to have a quick little indulgence of four little bars?

[Sherlyn]

Yeah, we have a hangover food.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Gruen's, Mary Ruth's, Organics, Liquid death. Brands that are going from 0 to 250 million in revenue on a social first agenda, the end.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Oh my favorite platform of all.

[Sherlyn]

Is the only platform is it?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I would say Substack and Beehive have just started getting us into a place. I would also say Google with YouTube shorts making B2B content on shorts that's informational so that you show up on Gemini for the future battle of Geo, AEO and LLMs. Got it. I also going back to experiential every trade show, every event, B2B does film everything it's a production day and create content for LinkedIn. But every B2B business here, or if you're servicing a B2B business should be producing three to four pieces of LinkedIn content organically every day. When something gets 8,000 views instead of your normal 800 then you spend media against it targeting CIOs, CFOs, whomever, your target for what your thing is.

[Sherlyn]

Okay, all right, cool. Now listen, we've got a shit ton of questions we're not going to get around so I might talk to your team and see if I can get something with you at some point in the future where we answer some of these together. We do a chat on a call or something and answer some because. Oh so actually Alexander just wanted to say that Lord of the Rings is the best film ever made. I actually think it's Moulin Rouge but good movie. I if you're up for this Gary with quick fire, right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

One word already. Short sentence answers you got. Some are fun, some are more serious. Right? The one app you'd never delete.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The one app I would never delete. I guess today the answer is Claude,

[Sherlyn]

last thing you bought in a store.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

You've got 100 grand to invest. Crypto or gold?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Crypto's too broad. That would be like saying precious metals and bullion. So I'll say gold or bitcoin in a ten year window. Bitcoin.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I. I would never. If I wasn't an entrepreneur, I would be a therapist. A guy. Guidance counselor. I would not work at a company.

[Sherlyn]

Oh, that's amazing. Oh, imagine having garbage.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Yes, I know you did.

[Audience Member]

I know.

[Sherlyn]

That's why I think you'd be an absolutely excellent counsellor. Right. An AI tool you secretly use more than people think you do.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

We've got time.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

I've got three.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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

[Sherlyn]

Weirdest DM you've ever received.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Just say that as my notoriety started to grow, my ego started to grow quite a bit. I was, you know, you become very desirable. I've Gotten some very weird DMs. I would say, let me go somewhere much more important than silly. I would say the DMs that aren't the silliest but are the most important are the people that have stopped abusing alcohol and drugs, stopped hitting their spouse, stopped having dark and suicidal thoughts because a sustained amount of my content and the other small group of people that are putting out love and positivity but grounded in accountability has meant something to their lives.

[Sherlyn]

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

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Oh man, that's a great question.

[Sherlyn]

Oh,

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think there is no logic to the random idea that is betting the I'm gonna go very nuanced. We must get out of campaign work. We cannot guess in a board, boardroom, a slogan and then a 30 second video and then spend hundreds of thousands and millions to make it inherently make it vanilla because we're trying to reach everyone, which means we reach. We reach no one and then spend millions, if not tens of millions in media amplification on our audacious, often wrong guess.

[Sherlyn]

Okay, right. Well, we're almost at time, so what nugget that you haven't said yet would you really want to leave a room full of marketers and. And there'll be some agency people in the room as well.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I got it. This is the greatest era of creativity if you decide to grab it in every room that you're in. We are all trying to get down to one idea. To guess and politic and bet the farm on you are all brilliant. You didn't get to hear to this meeting if you didn't have real skills. I want all of your ideas to become ads. Social media isn't the enemy, it's the opportunity. It's got its shortcomings, but everything has its shortcomings. But if we're talking marketing, it is the opportunity for creativity to explode. And if creativity explodes, the lack of politics internally start to melt away and so the work becomes more joyful. And to remind everybody if it wasn't obvious during this talk, we are not curing cancer. And so shouldn't we make this a little bit more enjoyable? Because there's way too many tears in advertising and we must eradicate that and that and the way to do that is to liberate the ideas and creativity. And currently the way to do that is to be on 10 social media platforms with 30 handles and the biggest mantra I just addressed all 2500 employees at VaynerX and said our mantra going forward to our clients and to ourselves is that every no has a place to go. And I know that and I know what I'm about to say is true. Every person's best marketing idea ever went to the cutting room floor and never saw the day of light and just do it and where's the beef? And MasterCard priceless easily could have hit the cutting room floor. Those are the few rare times we guessed right. But 97% of campaigns fail and they waste a lot of money and it wasn't fun getting there. So what the are we doing?

[Sherlyn]

Let's leave it right there. That's a microphone. What the are we doing? Well, thank you so so much, Gary. I've thoroughly enjoyed this hour with you. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your wisdom and your knowledge and your nuggets of truth. Thank you everybody in the room. Jump over to the virtual campuses. A shit ton of on demand stuff just dropped. If you recently been laid off, there's a really good one by me which is all about the seven steps you need to take. Now if the shit is at the fan and you're out of roll, so jump over there. Look at some of the learning journeys. I will see the US Scholars hopefully next week in Manhattan in Gary's private members club and I can't wait to spend more time with you, Gary. I've loved every second of this. Thanks for everybody. Share the learning. Share the learning on LinkedIn. Tag, Gary. Tag mate.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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 show.