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- [00:00]
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Foreign.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored cmo. Now, my guest in this episode probably needs no introduction. Gary Vee is one of the most successful marketers on the planet. He has become an enormous influencer with all the content he's created. He's written multiple books, he's created a media company, and he's got lots of opinions. I really wanted to meet him and find out about what has made him so successful. His background, how he got to where he is today, and his views on what you should be paying attention to today in terms of marketing. Which media is undervalued? Which media is overvalued. Now, you might discover in this episode that I don't agree with him entirely on a few things, particularly when it comes to tv, but I will let you decide what you think. Gary is a very genuine, authentic person. I found him very welcoming, and I really enjoyed our time together. I hope you enjoy this. I certainly did. Here it is. Gary, welcome.
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A
Thank you for having me.
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B
Well, it's great to have you. And it's really special to be doing this in the wine library as well.
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A
Yes. Origin.
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B
I know where it all started, right. How's it feel being back here?
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A
Like coming home, no question. Like, even walking into the store. It's. I'm sure this will resonate for anyone who's got a home. Right. And hopefully most do. You go back to your childhood room or maybe a place where your grandparents would take you and your cousins to the summer, or maybe your old high school football field. This is a very, very cozy home for me. This retail store, this is where I think I refined the skills I picked up on business and marketing as a kid for lemonade and baseball cards. The store and this big store was not the store that I actually grew up in. It was a much smaller store, really, where you and I are right now, with no two floors just down there pointing to that street, not this street. So this store I started working in in 2003, but this was the store where Wine Library TV started upstairs. And so, yeah, it's truly. It's incredibly special. As I was driving in from the city, the store I grew up in wasn't even the original store. Even smaller than that. My father had this tiny little house store that he bought in 83. I was thinking, my God, my father has been in this location for 42 years.
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B
Wow.
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A
So it's a real family business. I've been coming to this exact location, working here since 1989, which is just bananas to think about. It's the place where it all started.
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B
Yeah. And what do you think some of the lessons you picked up from those early years that have carried you through in terms of the success you've had.
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A
That the customer's always right? You know, I think what is very clear to me that has been a true competitive advantage is I'm the least full of shit person. When one says, I do everything for the customer. I've been blindly obsessed with, with delivering value to the customer. Not because I'm a good dude, not because I don't say the least. Full of shit out of, like, look at me, I'm rad out of. What has been instilled in me, literally from lemonade to baseball cards. And definitely here was, I don't understand why you wouldn't want to give the customer the disproportionate most value. This liquor store, this wine store, what I did in this store that was unique was price, selection and service were the three things that stores battled on. And the saying when I got in the game was, if you can do two out of the three really well, you have a big business. And When I was 15, 16, 17, it haunted me on the concept of, like, why wouldn't I do all three? I couldn't wrap my head around why I wouldn't do all three. And I think that's why my content works. I really believe one of the reasons that I broke out as a content creator and have had such a sustained long career as one is I don't think about making content from any other lens than why in the world is this good for the person on the other side of this phone or earplugs or what have you. So that's. I think what I really learned here was whatever debate I had as a 15 or 16 year old of like, is the customer king? Do you do everything for the customer? Is the customer always right? Customer over everything? I think the other things I learned here was discipline, hard work. Somebody asked me the other day, yeah, but Gary Vee, have you ever done any hard labor? And I don't mean like working at a country club. And I laughed and I said, well, I replied to him actually, which I rarely do to those kind of questions because he was trying to be snarky. But I thought it would be valuable to the person to understand, like, you know, you don't know how people got to places. This liquor store, this is the liquor store where I hurt my back. I've had back pain for 30 years. And this is the place that that happened because as a 14 year old, I worked manual labor 12 hours a day carrying these boxes around, cutting with a knife. There's a basement down there, 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day only manual labor. From 14 to 28 I only did manual labor and so much that I did it wrong. I didn't know how to use my legs or my glutes. And I really banged up my QLS and my 20s I had a lot of back pain, which is unfortunate. So not only did I do manual labor here, I did it at an extreme level. This liquor store. From 1998 to 2006, for eight years I worked 14 hours, 12 hours, 11 hours on a soft day. I would come to the slicker store at 7:38am and I would leave at 10pm Monday through Saturday. So sacrifice, discipline, work ethic, commitment, lack of complaining, lack of entitlement. I learned everything here.
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B
I think people see the success, don't they? But they rarely see actually what went into it and how many years of kind of graph went in before the success happened.
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A
Yeah, and I'm empathetic by the way. I don't have the audacity or the bravado or the delusion to think anyone should pay attention or should care or should know. I just don't see myself that way. I don't think anybody should worry or know about my life. On the occasional once in every 5,000 razzes I'll jump in and tell them the truth like I did yesterday. But yeah, which is why I always go the other way. I only assume that people have worked hard. I think the word luck is the weapon of choice of the hurt and the lazy. I really don't think anyone is lucky. I am aware that everyone has their circumstances and their serendipity, but it's really hard to be successful, especially for a sustained period of time unless you're putting in significant work and have talent.
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B
I saw this amazing study. I think it was in good to great or great by choice, where they looked at all these successful companies and they tried to work out whether they'd just been lucky. And what they figured out is it was nothing to do. There were the same number of lucky or unlucky events and all the companies they looked at, it was entirely what they did when the good or bad luck happened. It was the response to those events that determined everything 100%.
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A
Everybody on Earth is gonna get punched in the face. Everybody on earth is gonna win a scratch off ticket. Everybody on earth is going to have good, bad and different. There are People who are so cynical and so hurt and look for negativity that they don't even see their opportunities. There are other people who are so non operational and so delusional and so hippie dippy that they only see opportunity when oftentimes it's not even there. Life is life. And again, of course, you know, if somebody's listening right now, of course there are people. My mother lost her mother at 5. She was born in the Soviet Union in the height of communism. Her father went to jail for 10 years because of Soviet ridiculousness. I would argue that my mother's serendipity luck, you know, was. Was challenging as a child, but she also was able to get out of Russia at a time where many people weren't. She was also able to have a husband who was willing to work 247 and provide. So she, as an immigrant with nothing, was able to stay home and do her dream and raise her children. She was lucky that her firstborn son is obsessed with her and thinks she's the best and provided her very little angst besides an occasional bad report card. So, you know, life is life.
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B
Yeah, it is. I was getting my haircut last week, and I always chat with the guy who cuts my hair. Always. About what? You know, who's coming on the podcast. And usually you have to explain. Right. Last week I said, I've got Gary Vee coming. He's like, I've listened to your con. He said, I've listened to Gary's content since I was a young lad, probably from the age of 10 or 11. And he was like, you know, it's massively shaped who I am. And I just thought, how incredible to talk to a guy that cuts my hair. Our only connection is, you know, once every month where we chat for half an hour. And he loves podcasts as well, so we kind of bond over that. But you've reached so many people, you know, through what you do and the advice you give and so on. And you were very early as a creator, as you mentioned earlier. So what's. What's been kind of not the secret behind it, but what's been, what's contributed to that kind of scale and reach that you've had? What have been the big moments?
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A
A couple of things. First of all, everybody listening to the podcast, there will be background noises and active liquor store. I think the things we touched on. I really genuinely believe that the ultimate way to be selfish is to be selfless. I think I wanted to make your barber's life better. I have A lot of love in my life. Like I'm a very happy person, you know, I have a lot of joy, I have a lot of passion. I want good. I do not understand the concept of wanting bad for others. I could never comprehend passing my concerns, my adversities, my pain onto others. I have a different process for that. I think my intent was better than everyone else's. I really believe that.
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B
Yeah.
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And I say that with complete detachment from me. I believe that that's how I was parented. I believe that's how my DNA was formed. I believe the circumstance of, even where I grew up, I grew up 25, 30 minutes from here in Addison, New Jersey in the 80s where like we didn't coddle kids, kids went outside and I got punched and I got hit with a stick and I lost. And you know, like mommy and daddy weren't like there to fight my fights. I think we've become incredibly over coddled and entitled. You know, life is supposed to have adversities. You're supposed to lose, you're supposed to skin a knee, you're supposed to feel pain. That's the balance. And I feel like the reason so many people have been affected by my content is cause I think that's the purpose of when I make content. And I truly believe, watching everyone else, I think a lot of people's purpose is for them to get famous, for them to get money, for them to close a gap of their insecurities, for them to feel better. That's why so many people post Rolexes and private planes and bougie vacations and Porsches and Lambos. And that's why I don't, I don't think me posting those things would bring anyone any value. Yeah, I don't do those things because they bring me no value. And so I think life is about confidence and insecurity. And I believe that I was very fortunate that I was parented and built to be confident. And I think I have one of the biggest ambitions of passing on that confidence to my community. I want that for them too. In a lot of ways, I feel so much gratitude and potentially even guilt on how my mother raised me that in some weird way I'm mothering the universe through my content because I know so many other people were not as fortunate as I was to be given that mindset, that foundation. So to answer your question, it's because I've wanted to do that for everyone.
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B
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, you were very early as content creation. I was very late Right. So I became a content creator age 44, with this podcast and probably my two biggest lessons. The first one is the power of generosity. It really blew my mind that the more you give away, the more. Because people would say, john, why aren't you charging for this? You should be. You know, you could charge tens of thousands of pounds for this advice you're giving away. But what I've realized is the more you give away, the more it comes back. The more people hear about you, the more invitations you get.
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A
It's called brand.
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B
Yeah.
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A
This is actually a very simple business framework. Most people are in sales and some people are in brand. And brand beats sales every day of the week.
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B
It does the end. But I don't. I was thinking about what's the most undervalued bit of advice that you give. And I was thinking that the jab, jab, right hook thing, I've seen that in action in spades.
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A
Yeah, of course.
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B
But I have so many conversations with salespeople like, no, no, no, no. You've got to negotiate. You can't possibly give it away for free. You're devaluing the brand. And it's the opposite, isn't it?
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A
Well, yeah. I mean, I always say, like, pay attention. Who's giving the advice.
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B
Yeah.
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A
If I wanted the life of a six figure salesman, then I would listen to that person. That's not what I want.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I mean, I don't think it's very complicated.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, I think my father used to, in this store, get very upset with me because I would always leave money on the table in a negotiation. My father's a very ruthless negotiator. I think I'm a very good negotiator. But I always thought, especially in this business where I had to buy from the same people over and over. It's one thing if you're gonna make one transaction with someone and never see them again. I can wrap my head around the concept of, like, make sure you get the best deal you can for you and your family. That doesn't upset me. I don't think that's bad in this business. In America, you have to buy from the same distributors that sell alcohol. My mindset was like, I'm gonna work with these people forever.
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B
Yeah.
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Every time I leave a penny or a nickel on a deal and the other person feels it, it allows me to make another deal the next time and the next time and the next time. I watched Up Close and Personal as a teenager, my father so ruthfully negotiate that. I was also There to watch people not come back to him, or I started to feel, and I think I'm right about this, that people inflated the initial price to my father on something.
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B
Not knowing he's gonna negotiate.
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So, you know, I think for me, leaving something for the other person, the negotiation is meaningful.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Builds relationship. It also builds reputation. Even if I wasn't to deal with a person again, I always feel that somebody's way of communicating about me matters. You know, if I came here today and you two lads and I came in and I was snobby and disrespectful and thought I was better, then we would do this interview. You'd act pretty much in the same way you're acting now, but on the flight home in perpetuity, when my name would come up, you would feel not as good than if I was gracious and humble and kind. I think reputation is the ultimate brand. I personally get incredible amounts of joy of knowing that the people that actually know me the best, even though I'm well known publicly that your barber would like me dramatically more if we were mates, dramatically more. And, you know, I know that Brandon, who I've known since I was 14, loves me much more than training. Danny and Trin and Danny have only been in my ecosystem now for two weeks. Both knew who I was before. I genuinely believe they view me better today than they did a month ago. Because, you know, there's always that fear of, like, don't be your heroes, or how are people really like, Especially someone like me who's so aggressively sharing love and optimism and positivity. In fact, I feel as humans, when we see someone as a vert, as I am, we actually almost have to default into, like, is this a shtick? Is this. Is this his thing? You know, I think we've been disappointed by people that have propped themselves up as kind and good. Pastors, religious institute, politicians, you know, even parents for some people, unfortunately. So, you know, I don't struggle with the judgment, and I feel incredibly warm on knowing that I believe the people that know me best speak about me best behind my back.
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B
Will you be pleased to know we did ask Brandon that when we first arrived. That is exactly what he said. He said, you're absolutely authentic and exactly the person that, you know, you were 20, 25 years you've known him.
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Yep.
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B
Yeah. That's incredible. One thing you're very well known for is kind of spotting trends, investing early, that kind of thing. You're early in on Twitter, I think, weren't you? Facebook, Tumblr what is it that has allowed you to spot those trends? And have you got any of them wrong?
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A
Of course I've gotten them wrong. Let me go to that part first. I've gotten them wrong for many different reasons. Scared money doesn't make money. My most famous passing is on Uber. Who was my dear friend Travis. I was very illiquid by my standards at that time in my life, and I made a humongous financial mistake by passing on Uber. There was a period after Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr that I was very high on my own supply. I thought I was a genius investor. And what ended up happening there was I started to invest in ideas, not people. You know, with Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, I invested in David Karp, Ev Williams, who was Jack Dorsey's partner, and Mark Zuckerberg as much as I did in those businesses. Later, after those wins, I could see that the idea would work, but I overlooked if the kid was capable of operating. So I became infatuated with the horse, not the jockey. So that was a chapter of losses. So of course I've had losses on the wins. I think it goes back to the beginning of this podcast. When you are obsessed with the consumer, you win, you do. So what I pay attention to today, whether it's live, social, shopping, irl, streaming on Kick and Twitch, live podcasts like we talked about before we started here, Le Booboo, collectibles as a genre, as a lifestyle genre, similar to fashion, food, music and sports, like, what I pay attention to is the consumer. When you pay attention to the consumer, you're always there. When you're there, you're able to invest in things before others see it. That is no question. The reason that I've been early and often right is because I'm with the consumer and the consumer's with me. And I don't care about anything else. I don't care about Wall Street. I don't care about Madison Avenue. In fact, my chapter in Madison Avenue in these last 15 years has been wildly disappointing on how not consumer centric Fortune 500 is how agent. How not consumer centric agencies are. They're Cannes lion centric. They're Ad Age and campaign magazine centric. They're bullshit report centric. They're industry and security centric. But they are not consumer centric. And so for me, don't worry, Brandon. I like the background noise. It's too quiet. So for me, for me, that. I think that's why.
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B
Yeah, I love that quote in your book. About 99% of people are orientated around corporate politics, only 1% orientated around the.
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A
Customer in the Fortune 500.
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B
Yeah, and that's so true. Everyone's playing this game of how do we go up, up the greasy pole, how do we impress internal stakeholders and no one's looking out as the customer.
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A
And by the way, I don't judge any of my contemporaries that work at Winon and Kennedy or at MasterCard or at Nike. They have families to feed. They have families to feed.
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B
That's how the game is played. Isn't that how the game is played?
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A
Exactly right. But it doesn't mean it's right. Yeah, just cause the game is played doesn't mean that's good marketing. You know, it's like these professors of marketing that make me laugh. If you're only in academia, you're not in marketing. You're in the pontification of a hypothesis of marketing.
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B
So let's talk about who's from your expertise point of view, which brands would you say are really nailing it at the moment? Who would be on your list of people that are doing a good job and why?
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A
You know it's funny back to. I've made myself pretty clear here. Given that I only spend time with consumer. I don't go very deep into doctor Sketch, whatever that soap is or poppy. I mean I know about the answer to your question is all small brands.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like the winners are the brands that are zero. That brand that just sold for a lot of money, that was like a fancy Purell, you know, like the hand like. But I can't even name that brand. I think it just sold for $700 million. The brands that are doing it well are living on social media. Like I do not understand why people are emotional about this. The consumer's attention is on social media, period. Nobody gives a fuck about billboards. I am sorry that bus stop ads are not as good as they were in 1972. A television commercial across the globe, America, London, Singapore, Sydney, Australia is wildly overpriced. Digital banner ads are complete and utter rubbish. Dog shit. Google AdWords are declining in our face because of AI chatbots, newspaper ads and magazine print ads. You have to be borderline in a coma to believe that that is a good use of your marketing dollars in comparison to to what has become the foundational ecosystem of our society, which is the mid funnel known as organic social media. And then when that works well, paid social media amplification, I think that people.
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B
Find difficult and I know you quote this, making a good social campaign is harder than making a good TV ad.
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A
Well, that's because it's actually judged. A good TV ad is fake judging. It's like the Olympics. The German and Russian judge have their own agenda. You can see the data, it's transparent. Either your product got views or it didn't. And then you know what everyone's doing in our world? They're spending media dollars to amplify bad creative on social to make it look like it got views. We are now in an era where we have the ability to use good working media dollars to amplify good creative. It's called the algorithms, the AI algorithms that the biggest tech companies in the world use to build feeds for social networks. And we run away from this merit and this golden era opportunity out of politics, insecurity, delusion, lack of education, lack of interest, and all the other shortcomings of the human race.
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B
I think the other side of the argument on that one is if you look at tv, TV typically works over the longer term, right? And that's kind of what set is built for.
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A
Who says? Because. Because how could you possibly say that when the longer term of social, especially this last three years, doesn't have the ability to even have that context?
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B
Yeah.
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In fact, even more obvious, over the last 15 years, the long term of TV, all the brands that are most invested in it have lost market share, not gained market share. That's profoundly challenging to be excited about. No shit. TV worked over the longer term from 1960 to 1980. There wasn't an alternative.
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B
Well, the studies that the system one where I work, where we kind of, we use like emotional measurement to predict how people are going to behave. Right. So short and long, Right. So we basically go, how do you feel about this creative and are you likely to act? And we've looked at where TV can win is it gets more attention per second.
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A
Right?
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B
So when you're scrolling through your feed, an advert comes and goes, you give it like two seconds, right? On TV you might give it 10 seconds.
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A
I would literally die on that debate. I don't think we're going to.
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B
Have you seen Karen Nelson Field's work on the attention economy? So she measured active attention by platform. And you've got.
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A
But just let's talk about that for a fart. Yeah, of course I have. Let's talk about that. And by the way, let me make a very important statement. There's no absolutism, right? For example, I'm going to spend the next four to six weeks begging every one of my clients to buy Super bowl.
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B
Yes.
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A
Like begging 100.
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B
Begging 100.
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A
Because to your point, these three gentlemen that I'm looking at will 100 give their attention to the super bowl spot. And I could not. I believe the greatest ad.
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B
Yeah.
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A
In marketing is the Super Bowl.
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B
I almost think it's the most undervalued in terms of.
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A
As you know, I yelled about that for 10 years and I continue to believe it.
- [26:04]
B
Yeah.
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A
In this new eight million dollar price point under price. As we both know, creative is the variable of success in social, in television, in Billboard. And so the scary part of super bowl is, you know, you're stealing the attention. I think they're paying 8. It's, you know, I'm making this completely up. If you told me God came down and said it's worth 29, I'm like, makes sense. Like, I think it's that extreme. The problem is if the creative is off, then you're in big trouble because you spent a lot of money.
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B
Hundred percent.
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A
Look, brother, I'm incredibly empathetic to reports, to science, to people that are spending time. The only thing I pay attention to is what businesses are doing. And do you credit the television, do you credit the marketing or do you credit the products better than, I mean, I think Apple is actually very bad at marketing. Yeah, but the product is so superior, Right? Then there's all the CPGs. Almost every CPG when it runs its TBC is also paying the Tesco's, the Saintsberry's, the Walmarts, the targets to be on end cap and on discount. And so they come and they're like, TV worked. I'm like, motherfucker, you're 50% off and you're at the end cap of the biggest retailers in the world. There's also that part, Right? So look, I do not believe and I'm thrilled one day in heaven to be judged that I was wrong. I do not believe in 2026 that people are giving any seconds to a television spot 0.0. Not to mention, have you looked at the creative that is the modern commercial? They're all dog shit.
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B
Now. There's a lot. Well, we measure this at system one, right. So I can tell you. Exactly. So about 50% of all TV ads get. We classify it one to five star, right? So one star is no emotional response. Pretty much. Right. About 50% get one star, five star BE, exceptional motion response, about 1%. Interestingly, it's the same across TV and social. Broadly. The distribution of creative is pretty even actually wherever you go in terms of, you know, you got to be in the top 1%, maybe top 5% to really cut through and make a big difference.
- [28:15]
A
I want to be wildly respectful to what your org does, to what people are wanting to do, but I'm incapable of conforming to something I don't believe, and I just don't believe it.
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B
Yeah, let's do a quick game of over and undervalued.
- [28:31]
A
Okay.
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B
Because I thought this would be quite fun.
- [28:33]
A
Right? This will be fun. And by the way, I think what you're going to see without, before we go into it is the combo we just had for seven minutes, you know, in a clip, even on this podcast. The combo you and I just had for the last seven minutes, to me normally in real life is a three hour board meeting, is a four hour dinner. And so I'm excited to do this. But, but by the way, let me, let me say it this way. You can waste $10 million on social media in one second. I know how to do that right now. It's called broad reach media amplification against creative that didn't over index organically.
- [29:08]
B
Yeah.
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A
So again, this overpriced, underpriced or undervalued. Overvalued is going to be nuanced.
- [29:15]
B
Yeah.
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A
I literally believe the best deal in marketing is a television commercial. It just happens to be a cultural phenomenon in America called the Super Bowl.
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B
Yeah, yeah, totally agree. I'll tell you with you. Right. Okay. Start with. I think we're going to violently agree on this one.
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A
Good podcasts, wildly undervalued.
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B
About as wildly undervalued I think you can get.
- [29:34]
A
Yes, but because, you know, all that social media is is television. All that podcast is is radio. Yeah. But again, within a podcast, if I'm a B2B SaaS business trying to reach Madison Avenue Fortune 500 marketers, I'm advertising on this show. If I'm selling comic books as Marvel. I don't know if this is the best podcast for you, know what I mean? But as an overall genre, I think it's net net. I believe podcasts are still underpriced and.
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B
There'S just a lack of availability on the reach and also the engagement. So I mean, you'll have the Same like people, 40, 50% of people will be listen the entire episode. And that kind of engagement, you have to go to the cinema to find.
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A
That kind of stuff. There's also, what's the ad unit? You doing a live read in a Howard Stern like human way where you're like, I really like this. Watch you got a nice watch on right now. If you were to read that, that's gonna matter.
- [30:30]
B
Yeah.
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A
The problem is this is where corporate marketing is completely fucked up. Mindshare, Starcom mediavest, these global media companies would rather buy a wide media buy that's vanilla on a radio buy than to do the work by going to 73 podcasts that look like this and doing one on one deals. Because everything is reach and frequency, everything is scale. Every agency is a publicly traded company, so they're trying to maximize their EBITDA. And so getting to 73 podcasts like yours is actual work. It's much more fun to hire a 23 year old out of university to be a Excel junkie and just go programmatic on the trade desk or Google. I mean, I don't know, I'm starting to get upset.
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B
No, no, you're so right. I remember like when I used to be a client on the client side running brands, I remember signing off 20 million pounds on an Excel spreadsheets and then the media people doing it themselves. Like I totally. I hear you. Anyway, people are too busy. Okay, number two, LinkedIn, wildly underpriced. Agreed.
- [31:40]
A
Especially if you're B2B. If you're B2B, if you're listening and you're a B2B CMO, LinkedIn should be your number one spend. And meanwhile, as we know, in a B2B company, first of all, those are sales organizations.
- [31:52]
B
Yeah.
- [31:53]
A
Second, they'd rather build an $8 million booth at a conference for the 13th year in a row, even though they've penetrated that market, than spend 800,000 on organic social creat within LinkedIn and the latter will outperform dramatically. So I think LinkedIn, by the way, for all the B2C people, you sell sneakers, you do exercise, fitness. LinkedIn is much more Facebook than it is CNBC. And so I think there's a real opportunity there.
- [32:26]
B
Yeah, totally agree.
- [32:28]
A
Email emails, that's a good one. I'm going to say something pretty interesting here. I'm going to go underrated on that as well. Again, there's so many people that have completely fucked up their email because they've spammed their customer into submission, but done well. Like for example, if you were to start an email service today and your intent was to give heavy value on the email in the jab, jab, jab, right way, hook way.
- [32:53]
B
Yeah.
- [32:54]
A
I think you would dominate. And in fact, being transparent and vulnerable, I feel like even though email has been foundational in my career, I've also could have done better. Throughout my 25 years, I'm bringing more value on email. Social, I crushed with value, you know. But email, it's hard. You get really addicted to that drug and it becomes sales, not brand. But overall, I think email still has tremendous potential.
- [33:20]
B
I totally agree. And the other thing is you own the data in a way that you don't. Right. With the social media platform that's got a huge. The multiple you'd pay.
- [33:29]
A
That's why I'm obsessed with sms. SMS is email.
- [33:31]
B
That was my next one, by the way. Yeah, sms.
- [33:33]
A
I would argue it. I mean, I will tell you, this business that we're sitting in, had winetext.com not been invented, we would be in deep shit. That's how much SMS has mattered. SMS is huge for me. 212-931-5731. Please sign up. You know, like it's my text platform that I use on community. That's my phone number there. 212-931-5731. Please text me if you agree with me today or you think I'm an idiot. So I would say SMS is the most underrated of the four we've already mentioned.
- [34:02]
B
Yeah.
- [34:03]
A
And I think. And I think the first two were very underrated.
- [34:05]
B
We've done super bowl, which totally. I'm with Bells. I'm with you. YouTube. We touched on YouTube, but what about.
- [34:12]
A
YouTube again, also underpriced, but again, very nuanced. The YouTube people. I see a lot of people wasting a ton of money on YouTube. And social. And social. And it's because they're treating it like television. Most Fortune 500 brands are wasting money on YouTube because they're guessing on a video, which is the bane of my existence and why TV is struggling and then they spend money on it. So you put a video as a pre roll, mid roll post roll in a YouTube environment, both YouTube and YouTube TV and you're forcing it down people's throats. I think it's a bad idea. I think every piece of creative going forward in the world should only get media support once it's been validated organically, whatever medium that is.
- [35:02]
B
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
- [35:04]
A
Again, we're going nuanced here. I want to make sure the audience wins. Post this. Other agencies, small businesses, big businesses. So YouTube I would say is underrated when you know how to use it because it's still under. It's under invested in in comparison to programmatic banners and television. But I would say most people in Fortune 5000 so I'm going to. Even the PE brands are, are wasting their money on YouTube.
- [35:31]
B
Yeah. We're sticking with Google. How about search?
- [35:34]
A
I'm worried about search. I'm not a very big fan of search overall. First of all, search is sales. So even from a marketing and branding standpoint, it is not that it's intent based sales. It's not search marketing, it's search selling. Yeah, right.
- [35:47]
B
Yeah.
- [35:48]
A
So let's call that. Right. That's like a nuance that I did.
- [35:50]
B
Yeah, right.
- [35:51]
A
I'm very even. Look at this. I'm getting goosebumps because I know I'm on to something that we don't talk enough about. I'm really sad that it's called search marketing. I wish it was called search sales.
- [36:01]
B
You're spot on. It's basically the shop front. It's like how you merchandise the.
- [36:06]
A
Yes. But the problem is it's a toll booth.
- [36:08]
B
Yes.
- [36:08]
A
Yeah, you know, you know this like you're, you're like, let's just use a liquor. That's Kahlua. Kahlua. If we type it in right now into Google, they're probably buying their own brand, even though it shows up first on Google. Google has effectively made people pay for their own brand equity, which is wild.
- [36:29]
B
That's wild.
- [36:30]
A
It's also gotten more expensive because it is shocking how many people have moved to AI already.
- [36:37]
B
Yeah.
- [36:39]
A
So Google AdWords is a very different beast now. People are on that drug because it's sales. So now the cost of the AdWords is going to explode because there's less supply. Right? There's. Excuse me, there's less demand. Right. Because now people are going to ChatGPT and perplexity and Gemini, which is a Google item. So there's less demand. The supply. People still need it. So now you're gonna pay $49 instead of $14 to get the same amount of business. And you're still paying really for what you created, which was demand. You know, this last touch attribution has destroyed companies over crediting Google and undercrediting classic things that I shit on billboards, radio, you know, print and television. Like, I don't think that there's absolutism. So I think I've seen billboards, I think I've seen, I mean, I saw the New York Times yesterday at a, at a hotel and I went through it, you know, which was nostalgic and I'm sure I was affected subconsciously. Back to the point you made on some of the ads. AdWords is overpriced.
- [37:48]
B
Yeah.
- [37:49]
A
And a very, I'll say it even more aggressively. AdWords, the companies that are reliant on it, many of them will be heavily damaged over the next 36 years if they don't quickly diversify aggressively. If I AM driven or AdWords by AdWords or AdWords are meaningful to my business today, right this minute I am shitting my pants out of fear and adjusting very quickly.
- [38:16]
B
Well, this also makes a really important point you have to make, which is about the importance of brand. Because brand becomes even more important, doesn't it? Because you basically want to optimize the search engine in people's heads.
- [38:26]
A
Well, you probably. I can even tell by your temperament. You know what's funny is I believe in all the classic stuff.
- [38:31]
B
Yeah.
- [38:32]
A
I just believe that attention happens to be slightly in different places. And I believe corporations are overinvesting in yesterday, creating arbitrage.
- [38:40]
B
Yeah, no, totally get that. What about TikTok?
- [38:44]
A
TikTok might be the most underpriced aspect because the extremities of my religion, which is organic, creative. The upside when you do it best on TikTok is better than any other platform in the world. You are literally one TikTok. You this podcast probably leveraging me. Cause I have a lot of juice in that world. Is literally one 49 second clip away from the next day being in a different place. Back to television. One of the hearts of this conversation. What is so profound. And by the way, I'm devastated I missed this era. I wish I owned a leading global agency in 1959. 63, 72. I myself would have adored the late nights in my agency to come up with the 32nd spot in 1978 at the height of commercials being consumed. Pre remote control. Yeah, pre remote control. Television ads might be the best thing that ever existed.
- [39:46]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [39:47]
A
And I couldn't imagine making a commercial that I know everyone would have seen. A 7Up commercial, a Ford car, a Volkswagen. So Anyway, real quick, TikTok has the biggest upside in this generation. One TikTok has changed the course of many businesses. There is no other medium that can say that outside of a Super bowl spot in the last decade. I'm bullish.
- [40:12]
B
Yeah. We had Alison, the founder of Poppy, on the show earlier in the year and she put her success down to that as well. Twitter or X as an ad product.
- [40:23]
A
It very much is underwhelming. I'm really hopeful that Elon attacks that at some point. It's an incredibly strong conversation, community, tool. An incredible opportunity for something almost no one does in our industry, which is community management at scale, replying to everyone. What I was built on in 07 to 11 more and more for youth culture, I'm seeing it as a viable creative place. You're looking at, I would say the 15 to 25 year old set. There's more upside organically on Twitter than there's been in the past. I think they have a meaningful commitment to AI given how Elon's looking at it. So I don't call, I don't count them out. But the ad product is dramatically less effective than meta and TikToks even snaps to some degree.
- [41:09]
B
Yeah.
- [41:10]
A
So I think, you know, if we're talking to the audience we're talking to, I think it's a quagmire. You know, I think people overly stay away from it because of the political part. I think it's hard when you're a CMO to use your own politics as the barometer to where you spend money. But I unfortunately see so many CMOs doing that, which I'm empathetic to. Like it's challenging times, but I mean when your job is to require to grow a business. But that's my take on X right now.
- [41:41]
B
Yeah. And also like when there's a big news event, that's where everyone is.
- [41:44]
A
Well, it is the water cooler by the way. Yeah, it's been for 15 years the water cooler of our society. But if I'm spending a million dollars to build both a brand and to drive sales, which is how I think about things, I think you have to drive some level of short term sales because you won't make it to the other side on brand. I would say that there are other places in this second right now that I get more excited about with Twitter, but I do keep an eye on it daily. I'm very active on it personally and I do see some Reddit like 15 to 25 for like the Kick and the twitch audience. This new IRL vlogging ecosystem, why Danny was brought in and trained, like where I'm going next. I see Twitter as a viable play.
- [42:33]
B
Last one a bit unfair. New York jets undervalued, overvalued.
- [42:37]
A
Oh boy. Unfortunately, they're probably properly valued and the value is outpacing my wealth creation. So I have more work to do, not less than I did 10 years ago. I believe that sports teams have become the trophy of choice of the kings and queens of our society, which is too bad for me because I think I saw it before others, but I was a child and wasn't in that financial place, sports is one of the few places left that are fair. You know, one of my issues with marketing is this will make a lot of sense to you if I wrap this up, this part, and we can go five minutes over. I love business and sports, and I have disdain for politics, academia, and many other things. And they are based on just one thing. One is true and one is fake. You can't hide in sports. If we all go right now and shoot a basket and we all have to shoot 10 baskets, all six of us in this room right now, somebody's gonna make the most. And all of the other five of us have to recognize that that person made the most. There is no debate. You know, business, like, either the business makes money or it doesn't. Either you get views and listens to this podcast or you don't.
- [43:56]
B
Correct.
- [43:58]
A
I'm not mad at traditional media. Their math is just more blurry because of the way the tech stack a magazine. It's unfair to be. I'm not mad at a magazine. I just know I can't really understand the value of it the same way I can. And social media algorithm. Right.
- [44:14]
B
Yeah, it's not.
- [44:14]
A
It's. And so I think I gravitate towards things that are true. Right. I love sports. I love business. I love emotional feelings. You're either happy or you're not happy. We may not be able to see it. All of us could be very happy or hurt right now. If we're good enough at putting up a facade, we won't know. But I do believe it plays out, you know, I do believe your funeral exposes who you were. You know, I believe that. I believe that when you have tough times, how many people are there to pick you up? Exposes who you were? So I think I gravitate very heavily towards those things, you know?
- [44:58]
B
Yeah, makes sense. We're living in kind of a wild time in terms of AI as well. I know something you talk a lot about, which I appreciate, is the power of authenticity and being real. And we talked about it quite a bit already, haven't we? How is AI going to change that? What kind of challenge is AI going to bring to maintain that human connection, the emotion, the happiness that in some.
- [45:18]
A
Ways it's gonna allow us to do more of it. AI is gonna do so much. We're gonna have more time to be human, which is a real fucking brain twist. Cause everyone's so scared about the opposite. It's also gonna create unparalleled challenges. I would argue much of what's good in society has been predicated in the last hundred years of video being the judge and the jury of our society. Video proof has been a wonderful addition to our world. In 1850, when there was horrible atrocities happening, people debated if they happened or not.
- [45:49]
B
Yeah.
- [45:50]
A
Then cinema was created. Then video was created. You know, we know John F. Kennedy was assassinated. We've seen the film. We know that Rodney King was beaten. Right. We know all. We know the Berlin Wall fell. We watched it. We were about to go after an 80 to 100 year window where video has been a very good friend for truth in our society. We are about to go into an era where no one will believe any video. There will be unlimited videos of me on the Internet in a decade saying things I never said. I think the TV ad is the best deal in marketing.
- [46:32]
B
We got him, folks.
- [46:34]
A
You know, I think that's scary. Me saying racial slurs, you saying things you never said. And what will happen is people will realize deepfake video, AI video has taken over and now we'll be in a place where we don't believe in at all. That's scary. That's really scary. Now I am optimistic because I think the Blockchain will now have its day. I think a lot of people who think Bitcoin stupid NFTs are stupid, they're about to learn something called the blockchain. The blockchain is a decentralized network of servers that does not allow meta or Google, Gary Vaynerchuk, or you, and even more importantly, America, Russia, China or India to control is the source of truth in our society for a very long period of time. For example, you, 15 years from now, 6 years from now, whenever the time is right, you will take this audio and you will mint it on the blockchain from your address to validate that this podcast was real. Otherwise, the technology's already in place. For you to have this exact interview with me using AI and I'm not.
- [47:49]
B
Here, that is wild.
- [47:50]
A
It is wild.
- [47:51]
B
That is totally wild.
- [47:52]
A
But you know what else is wild? An airplane to somebody that was born in 1749.
- [47:56]
B
Yeah. Yeah. We just have to find new solutions, don't we? To the problem.
- [48:00]
A
And we always do, my friends. If you are pessimistic about AI, if you're pessimistic about Russia, Ukraine, America, China, I'm gonna tell you something. The number one underrated brand in the history of the world is the human being. We have become unbelievably good at paying attention to the 0.00001% of us that are bad. And we have completely taken for granted the 99.999% of wonderful good or at least content indifferent like just medium. I believe in the human so much. I as a pimple on the pimple on the pimple of the ass of the human race, already have very clear understanding that we can find a solution to these deepfake videos called the Blockchain. There are much smarter people than me working on that every nanosecond and I believe in us. I really believe in us.
- [49:01]
B
Yeah, that's a great message. Well, maybe to wrap up senior marketers listening, people that want to start their own brands starting out today, what advice would you give someone that's got an idea, they want to go for it?
- [49:15]
A
How would you coach them, document and create the content on social media? The amount of people who have shit on me and my point of view on social over the last decade only to then start their journey of their podcast of their brand. And I'm talking Fortune 5000 Fortune 500 marketers, the most lovely emails and LinkedIn messages, literally. Gary, I thought you were a snake oil salesman until my wife started her own shampoo business on the side. And I cannot tell you how humbling this journey has been that it has been this mid funnel. Let me talk to marketers now in real like less hyperbole, more just right to the point. The mid funnel, which is organic social, has AI algorithms across seven platforms that have the far majority of attention of society consuming on there. It's unequivocal data. Nobody debates that. That the hours spent now is like you'd have to really be like detached and agenda based to not know this to be true. That the mid funnel when you post organically in social. So for anyone who's listening, you start documenting your journey. Today is day one of me starting my peanut butter brand or my podcast around banner ads. I don't care whatever strikes someone's fancy. The mid funnel has now become the most important funnel. As you know, we started upper funnel and then we went down. Right. Almost everyone listening right now, almost everyone still today will go into a boardroom with Droga5 and Wieden and Kennedy and 72 and Sonny and BBDO and do a brief and try to come up with an idea, come up with their 30 second spot and then everything down from the TV, the billboards, the banner ads, the direct mail, the social, we'll be matching luggage to this guess and that's why all campaigns fail. We are fully out of the campaign Era, which is heartbreaking for many people listening. By the way, I said it earlier, I wish I was in the campaign era. I wish I could have a cocktail in midtown today, you know, and try to convince my client to buy my idea. I would have been very good at it. By the way, the mid funnel is the place to start for everybody on your question. And when it does well, you bring it down to the lower funnel and you turn that creative into performance becomes undebatable.
- [51:35]
B
Yeah.
- [51:36]
A
And you bring it up and that video or that creative you did in social, that clearly resonated because it got a million views instead of 30, becomes the brief campaign. If you want to go there. My belief is you actually take that video and it becomes your YouTube. It becomes your connected TV. I think we're going into the era where the creative will win on social, on merit, and then go up to the distribution of classic television. Yeah, that's my answer. And not because I've liked it, but because every Poppy and every other brand that is achieving what everyone's trying to achieve right now is doing such.
- [52:14]
B
I think the good thing about that as well is the barrier to entry is pretty low. And therefore it's as good as your content and as good as.
- [52:22]
A
It's a level of merit. You know what's really funny? It's also a level of creativity that every creative in our industry yearns for. Do you think creative directors are happy? I know they're not. I interview them every. You have to understand, the other thing about me when I talk all this shit is last week, this is real. Last week I interviewed 16 ECDs and GCDs working at all these agencies. 16. I am not a French banker sitting in my ivory tower consolidating up these agencies. I am an operator. I am in the trenches. I feel very confident in the words that come out of my mouth. I understand they're in contrast to many people's beliefs, but I believe those beliefs are grounded in far more flawed realities than I think our industry would like to admit. And I know this to be true because some of the people that have shit on me the most publicly have given me some of the most significant flowers when they change their jobs. I believe I speak about what I believe in. And I believe, unfortunately, most people in our industry have been forced to not, not because they're bad people, but because they have a mortgage, because their kids need tuition, because they have to pay their car bill, and they work at companies that sell yesterday. I believe that.
- [53:47]
B
Gary, it's been amazing, mate.
- [53:48]
A
Thank you, my friend.
- [53:49]
B
Thank you so much.
- [53:50]
A
Continued success. I'm proud of you.
- [53:51]
B
Thank you.
- [53:52]
A
Yeah, I mean that. By the way. It's been really good.
- [53:54]
B
Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show, so please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on XenSoredCMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.