GaryVee on how to make Super Bowl ads that are actually funny

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0:54it's super bowl week we are here in san francisco and if you don't know now you know this is where everyone gathers it is not just athletes and people who are in the world of sport it is leaders from across every category of business showing up here and really not just to enjoy the game in fact the pro move for a lot of them is to fly out on sunday morning and go watch the game at home, shh, don't tell. One of the conversations we got to have is with an old friend of mine named Gary Vaynerchuk, probably better known to you as Gary V. Gary is one of the best marketers, one of the most creative people in business you could ever hope to spend time with.

1:32He gave us 10 minutes, and 10 minutes with Gary is worth two hours with almost anyone else. You're going to love this one.

1:42A Super Bowl ad about shitting? Yeah, you know, like, shitting is something everyone understands. We all do it. Everyone does it. Hopefully at least once a day. I think it's super clever. Like it's amazing to me how many people think about pooping and fiber. Like now that there's so much buzz around our Superbowl spot with Raisin Bran, I was like, wow, like we had the insight, but I was like, oh wow, like everyone knows. And so, and the will shat, like that, I got to give my creative team, like this is why you hire talented people and give them room to cook yeah um it's so clever and we're really proud of it and what i'm most proud of is as you know because we've known you a long time we were focused on we believe that social would not only eventually rival traditional but would surpass it the the the social surround sound yeah like we've already kind of won it hasn't aired yet right but what happens if shatner says no is there a plan b on this one is there someone with another name that works or is it No, that one was Will.

2:40It's a one-of-one idea. Yeah, we have many ideas when we approach Super Bowl. We've done about 15 spots in the last 10 years, 8 years. We have to, you have to, by the way, Will's not young. Like, you know, it's, I mean, by the way, let me tell you something very devastating. We had a Super Bowl commercial with J-Lo for Hard Rock Hotel that had a helicopter in it the year that Kobe passed. Oh. And we had to redo the commercial. Wow. like yeah so when you're in super bowl commercial land you're in anything can happen yeah i mean like literally one of the things you know as an owner i'm always thinking about what could go wrong when when we're like we're doing william shatner i'm like he's 94 i'm like like i don't want to say it right but like there's risk so so but yes if will was like hey too expensive or not interested we would have went with a different direction but the whole concept was this is what used a super before we need to think and all of you are it's amazing no matter what your age is we're all thinking about fiber more it's trending just like protein did like we need raisin brand to be associated with fiber as like an easy way to do it this was the way to do it so once you get that and are you going in with the social and being like we're gonna we're gonna do every version of this like this ad is the shit like instead of i ship this ad i shit this ad like is it yes coins in the slot machine like here are all the ideas we're gonna do to capitalize on this But it's funny the analogy is, I keep trying to push this on Madison Avenue.

4:09It is not coins in a slot machine. Actually, let's use football. Great. It is, we're going to throw the ball 41 times this Sunday against the Patriots. And here's what we are, like, strategically on film, right? We're running 41 social media ads with purpose. Yeah. Not like, oh, let's see what the algorithm does. Right. So, yes and no. Well, but with purpose, you still don't know what's going to catch it. You can have a theory about you can feel really good about something that you don't know. Correct. But in social, you can afford to do 41 passes at a low cost and get quant and qual data. Television, I have to spend a fortune and pray.

4:46Right. Right. And there's no take the data, pivot the next day, or just the intro day. And as you know, in television, you're going broad. So now all of a sudden, you're doing vanilla, something that's not relevant. You're trying to be everybody. You're trying to be everything to everyone, which means you're nothing to no one. Right. Right. You know, and so, yeah, and social were allowed to take that message. And now let's go after Star Trek fans this way. And let's go after people 60 to 90 this way. And let's figure out some way to let 25-year-olds know who the hell this is. And, like, it gets very strategic.

5:14And so when you and I first started hanging out 20-ish years ago, it was like pushing a boulder up a hill to get CMOs to even think, like, they didn't have social media budgets. They had no, like, they didn't have digital budgets. It was like a whole different world. how is it today going and sitting with the CMO and the marketing team and pitching ideas that like that like you know you got a CEO who's probably like the CMO at some point and go we're linking our brand literally to shit are you sure right that one was easy again to your point for 99 % of our clients they would not do that when you were in the fiber business and it is gut health and it is poop that was it made sense I think overall you know it's funny you asked me this question and this is so common in stories when you're on the right side of history the amount of shit pun intended that i had to eat to what's happened in the last six months brother i can't believe i mean flying to san francisco i was with my north american president we were supposed to get six hours worth of work done we probably had five hours of pinching ourselves of like we have clients that two years ago would would balk at 500 000 for the year in organic social that are looking to sign$25 million deals.

6:29This is real. So what's changed? What's changed in those six months? The truth suffocated everyone. When you're Pepsi, and I'm in the building for 13 years like I am, and I'm like, and nothing's changing in their day-to-day business that much because Coke's not doing anything either, nothing happens. But when Poppy, Liquid Death, and Prime Energy Drink go attack Gatorade, Pepsi, and Aquafina, and you get hurt, the answer to your question is, why did it switch for us? Pain. Our clients started to feel pain. And when you start to feel pain, all of us, why are we doing bad food and exercise behavior?

7:08But guess what? Go to the doctor and be told you're in deep trouble. I have a funny feeling we're going to all shape up. Brands are starting to feel the pain of doing a non-social first strategy. and we are the great beneficiaries because we have been the pie piper for 20 years that this is the real game. I was in a meeting yesterday where someone said, and I'm waiting for the data to back this up, that they're starting to see their AI-generated ads outperform their human-produced ads. By the way, I could save you time. That is true. Okay, what are you seeing? I see that both can work, meaning their AI ads that perform will be cheaper than the human-based.

7:48Well, and you can create, they're not even ads, they're pieces of content. You can create hundreds. Here's how it's going to play out. For the next three to five years, the big companies aren't going to do it because we keep yelling at them. Because we're all scared we're going to lose our jobs. So we're just mad at AI. So the big companies are not going to be able to do AI. By the way, there should be AI Super Bowl ads this Super Bowl. Why aren't there? Because they'll get murdered. Why? Because humans in society are scared about AI. So they shame brands and say, I'm not going to buy your stuff.

8:16And brands don't want to lose marketing. but it's called stigma. Do you remember online dating in 2001 and two? We're in the perfect age, some of us here. If we had friends or ourselves met someone on match.com, we made up that we met them at the bar. We were in cahoots with our new boyfriend or girlfriend because there was that much stigma around online dating in 2001, two, three, four. Yeah. Now. Well, even, I mean, when I was at MySpace, we did married on MySpace. We did a whole show about people who met on MySpace and got married. Okay. Next year is the first year we see an AI-generated ad in the Super Bowl?

8:50No. No? I think 28 maybe or a startup. And by the way, we might have it this year from the AI companies. I don't know if OpenAI or— Did you see the Anthropic ads yet? I saw Twitter this morning going crazy about it, but I don't have the context yet. Okay, okay. Was it AI-generated or just made fun of OpenAI? No, but it is an absolute mocking of OpenAI integrating ads. And Sam wrote a lengthy reply that was defensive. Yes, but pay attention. The fact that the AI companies did not make AI ads in a world where we all know that you could make a great AI video right now. I mean, McDonald's got murdered a couple months ago.

9:28If you follow Adland, they made an ad. Burger King mocked it and stole the person. It went poorly. And so I think that made everyone say, oh, we're definitely not doing that for a year or two. But it will happen. The stigma will go away. And my company will have to adjust. And every company will have to adjust. What's the number one thing CMOs aren't thinking about today that they need to be thinking about to be successful three, six, nine months from now? I would say they probably have thought about it, but they're not serious enough about it. There's two. Social creative and how it affects the GEO and AEO results in the LLM.

10:03And two, live social shopping. The QVC-ification of social media. The half a trillion dollar industry in China is now here. Is that TikTok and YouTube? That is TikTok Shop, number one. That is Whatnot, the independent app, number two. That is eBay Live Quickly, number three. That is Twitch Live Shopping starting to groom. And inevitably, you've got to think that Google, YouTube, and Meta, Facebook, Instagram are going to get serious about this because the economics are astonishing. There's also, for all the nerds out there, there's an app called District. full disclosure, I'm thinking about investing in it.

10:44It's the Shopify of live shopping. Very smart play. Yeah. So there's a lot going on in that space. Amazon owns Twitch. They integrate Twitch live shopping into Amazon. Is that what we see? Because their plays have been not very good in this space. That's why it's fun to talk to smart people. We've got to find one for you. You know, yeah, I'm sitting with one. I think that's one of the plays. You know, they're a little decentralized there. I do not see a world where... I actually think the only reason that Google, aka YouTube and Meta are not in it right now is because they're so distracted by AI.

11:19Yeah. And they're right. That's a bigger thing to focus on. But had the AI thing happened two years from now, not last year or two years ago, I think you would have already seen executions from them. Economics are enormous. Our mutual friend Cole Lazaro is graduating from college in just a few months. Same. The best kid. He calls you and he says, Gary, I need one piece of advice to share with my classmates who are going out in this uncertain world where AI is eating the entry level jobs. What are you telling Cole to tell his buddies? Go work for as little as possible. Whether you're lucky like Cole where maybe you have parents that can help you.

11:50Or you're unlucky like I was where you were just willing to live humbly with five roommates and live that life. Go work for as little as possible. You got to live. to be as close to the sun as possible. Want to be in sports? Go be an intern for Pat McAfee, the number seven intern, and just be around it. Want to be in marketing? Come to Vayner and do our residency program. Just get close to the thing. That is a huge mistake. The amount of people that have big dreams in their 20s that don't realize they get offered 5 ,000 more from some job that has nothing to do with their life dream, but they're not humble enough or willing to eat enough crow to go work somewhere where they're right there in the traffic.

12:38Want to be in music? Go work for the most important music manager or label or Spotify for nothing. Just get close to the action. Love you, man. Love you too. Great to see you. Great job, man. You did a good job. Great to see you. Always, man. Have a fun week. Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll catch up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Appreciate you, buddy. Thank you. Lod. Visit mastersofscale.com to find the transcript for this episode and to subscribe to our newsletter. And please make sure to check out our YouTube channel.