Effective Marketing Strategies For 2025 l On Brand with Donny Deutsch

0:00The first second of your video on social media is a staggering variable of its chance of being successful. for a second because as you know. So what then has to happen because in a second nothing can really be accomplished. It seems like not but tonight when you just happen to like look through your phone, pay attention for a second be like yeah, like a second or two I got this like, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. Oh, pretty person, I stop. Oh, loud noise, oh, visual, the thumbnail. Like you'd be surprised it's real strategy but then the next three to four seconds really matter because you're really like that first second gives you a hundredth of a hope and then the next three, four seconds really can either hook him or not.

0:42I'm here with one of the smartest guys in the room, whatever room he's in. Gary Vaynerchuk is kind of a legend at this point. He is the CEO of VaynerMedia. He's the chairman of VaynerX. He's probably, I would say, the leading mind on what the fuck is going to happen next. I think I just kind of summed it up. He's got something like 45 million followers across his platform. It's 300 million impressions every month. He's got a new book out. It'll be a bestseller. Just about every one of his seven books has been a bestseller. This is the seventh. Day Trading Attention, How to Actually Build Brand and Sales in a New Social Media World.

1:18As an old media world guy, I'm excited to talk to him. Gary, how are you doing, my friend? I'm well, brother. You look great, buddy. Thank you. I'm trying. 67. It's no joke. You really look great. Thank you. Thank you. Meanwhile, let's talk to you. What are you giving people stress instead of taking it? You know what it is? I'm not in the agency business anymore. That's why. I don't have to sit those three and a half hour client meetings when I know how they're going to end in 90 seconds and I want to blow my fucking brains out. You know, I literally was just in a meeting two hours ago and said to a client, the reason I usually leave meetings is if I already know the outcome, what am I doing here?

1:54And you always do. And by the way, meetings, they're like particles and atoms. I love when they schedule meetings for two hours. If you scheduled it for 15 minutes, not only would you save an hour and 45 minutes, you'd probably get better, faster, more linear thinking. Oh, my man, we are really alive. I've always loved you before. Does that one hit? I really believe actually just to give people value here. I genuinely actually believe this without hyperbole. I believe almost every corporate meeting is double the size of what it's needed. It's time and people and time and people. By the way, it's why I have a lot of 50.

2:27I do a ton of 15. And in many environments, including my own career for a long time, those were 30s. And look, when you're trying to accomplish things and get things done, that adds up in a very nice way. Let's talk about the most important thing first. What do we think about the Jets' pick last night? I was pumped. You know, last night was a tricky night. The Knicks lost to the Sixers, so I was a little grumpy on that. But, you know, I have a sports agency, VaynerSports, and we recruited Olu for two and a half years. So we know the kid inside out. I think he's really good. I'm super pumped with him.

3:02That's great. That's great. One other just quick political thing because we're not going to talk politics but you were born in Belarus. You immigrated over here in three years and just thoughts on what's going on in the Ukraine just from a guy who's just kind of comes from that region, you know? Bro, you know what's so crazy? Like I was a really poor student which was rare, by the way, for immigrants coming to the US during the 80s and that era. But I was always very good at history. I got really good grades in it. By far my best grades besides gym class. I was a gym class hero.

3:34By the way, they didn't even give grades in fucking gym. It was like pass or fail. Hold on. Get me this, please, if you don't mind. Can you grab it? It's the top one. I'm going to show you. I know this is probably audio podcast. No, it's video also. It's video also. Nope. Nope. On the other wall. The other wall. Closer. Nope. There you go. That one. Top one. Bring it. Yeah. I need this. This is very important. I'm sorry, everyone who's listening. I just grabbed my report card from high school. Oh, that's Jesus. It's a really small print, but I'm going to show you. There's only four A's on the report card in four years of high school, and they were all just.

4:04That's amazing. Well, good for you, my friend. That's something to be proud of. I love that you still have the report card. You should be proud of it. So anyway, to answer your question, look, the world has always been complicated. Unfortunately, one of the, man, when I tell you I love humans, I love man. I love woman. I love humans. I really do. You've gotten to know me through the years. I really like people. But unfortunately, it's been proven over time that humans do have an incredible tribalism and are deeply ingrained in trying to find ways to not like each other. Gender, race, religion.

4:42I mean, even now what's going on, generational warfare. Like you and I didn't grow up in an era where boomers hated Gen Z. Like to make Gen Z and boomers go at each other, the world has a very good way of getting us to go against each other. And I like it when it's silly, like the Knicks and Sixers and I hate all my Philly friends for a couple weeks. Yeah, that's good stuff. That's silly stuff. That's fun banter. But unfortunately, people take that to real life stuff. And so what's going on? I mean, you have incredible wants and needs of a small group of individuals to recreate empires, to find reasons to hate, all grounded in deep insecurity.

5:22and it's really too bad. And to segue into what I know we're about to talk about, it happened twice again today and it happened 12 times this week. You go into these big meetings, you and I were fortunate when we were running, when you ran your agency where I'm at now, most of the meetings you're gonna have are with CEOs and CMOs and it's the big wigs, right? You're in a lot of meetings but you're in a lot of meetings with the big wigs and when I tell you, and a lot of them become your friends just like for your career. and you know the first five ten minutes as you get the you know back to wasting time and meetings people settle in and right away they're going into the politics of everything of course that's the era we're in it's more like the 60s but it's funny i have these ceos and ceos of the biggest five fortune 500 companies in the world spend the first five minutes as they put you know milk in their coffee talking about how god we you know tiktok should be banned or you know social media or like you know all this stuff of like the power of facebook mark zuckerberg this or elon musk this It's the power of changing people's perception on things, which is what marketing and comms is.

6:28So the first five minutes, Donnie, they tell me that these platforms are too powerful, must be regulated or shut down. And I see you know where I'm going. And then we go into the meeting and they're like, ah, Gary, I don't know if we should be investing that much into social media. I feel like I don't know. I'm like, you just told me that social media is putting the democracy of America, one of those powerful things in the world on its knees. You don't think this sells lipstick? That's amazing. And I will say this only because it's like an honor to say it on your show, given your career. I'm even not surprised, but it is very clear as we sit here today together, organic, social media creative, organic, social media creative.

7:12Defined organic. You're talking about what people are posting their own stuff that they created. You know, but Coca-Cola and BMW and Donnie Deutsch and Gary Vaynerchuk and the Knicks, the post, the organic creative, not with paid amplification like you and I grew up with, where you make a good 30-second spot and then you pay media to amplify. That will drive it. The organic creative is now the most important skill set and variable in all of marketing. and when I tell you on a good day, Donnie, at a Church in Dwight, at an Audi, at a, pick any of them, Toyota, on a good day, it's the 25th most important thing that these companies think about.

7:55And that - I'm actually shocked, you know, I'm out of the business because to me it's almost such obvious price of entry at this point. Like I always used to think, I think back to presentations I used to give and you'd start with, you know, the strategy and everything and then you'd show the big TV campaign and then you go into newspaper. And at the very end, it's like, okay, here's the source. And I would assume it's completely the opposite at this point. Like if I was running an agency, I would always start with the granular, with the source, I mean, because that's just the fucking world. Yeah, but you were also good at what you did.

8:25Meaning, you know, you and I, even though we ended up having different chapters in our careers on the Madison Avenue game, I believe that our, this is why I think we've always kind of intuitively and then we got to know each other more. We just care about where the attention is. Yeah, yeah. Like when I think back to the big idea, right? That's actually where we first got. That's where you – was that your first TV appearance, big idea? Yes. I love it. I'm very proud of that. I'm proud of that. That's a feather in my cap. I was very honored to be on.

8:54That, when we – that, I remember watching from afar and I'm like, this guy gets it. Like he was smart enough to be on this platform. That's where all the business attention was. And you weren't an ad. You were the actual content. It's funny. one of the things that you would get a kick out of people say to me you know at these stages at Cannes Lions and all this stuff our industry stuff uh Gary I get it I get it but man people still watch sports bro on TV you watch sports Gary I'm like I'm like you're right I do I'm like but I don't watch the commercials right I think the Super Bowl is the most underpriced ad in marketing right now today because it's the only fucking place where people lean into the advertising and and beyond the obvious exponential that you get in everything it's it's it's literally it's the day america not only doesn't turn away from power advertising leans into advertising it's the only time it happens and by the way it's bullshit as far as the award shows and everything else completely different completely different yeah that's right the the the best ad in in television is the super bowl the worst ad is the grammys the oscars and the afc and nfc championship game.

10:01Yeah, because you're paying not Super Bowl dollars, but second best in Super Bowl dollars, and it's being consumed like an ad on any other day, like you're watching CSI. That's right.

10:13These are the things, but what's interesting is everybody is really missing what you and I think what came intuitive to us, which is first you have to know where the attention is, and are you able to even get it? The reason organic social, just to get very nerdy on anybody who's into this, social change three years ago. It used to be like email marketing when I was building. Get as many people to follow you as possible like I did and then a percentage of them would see it. Yes. Now, Donnie, actually this might get you pumped. You might have to decide to get crazy and get eight billion people to know who you are.

10:50You would crush the new social media world. All right, talk to me about it. I'll tell you why. If you never even created a social media account for the last 15 years, even though I've been screaming about it. Tomorrow, you create an account and your first piece of content could literally reach millions of people if it hit with the audience. So how does that, let me ask you a question, because I am on social media, not to your extent, but I have a nice following. Some of my stuff just connects, and all of a sudden I'll get 50 ,000 likes, and other times it'll be 1 20th of that. And I always go, okay, is this content that much?

11:26is I think people are always looking for a secret sauce formula. You basically saying there isn't. It's all the play is the thing. What I would say is there. No, there is. I mean, by the way, that's the main reason I. That's the book, right. There's real strategy behind it. But like, look, I think nobody's been. I'm not sure how many humans on earth were more pot committed for the last 15 years to figure this thing out. Right. And every day I miss on things that I would have thought I would have hit on. So it's humbling, which is amazing, which is a great way to play a game. It's like golf, right?

12:00I think of social media. It's a great analogy. Great analogy, right? You're playing against yourself, yeah, and it's a tough game, and you think you have a beat, and you hit an amazing shot down the fairway, and then you're in the fucking rough, and you're all fucked up, right? You know, I view myself as like a top golfer in the world that didn't make the cut at the Masters because I had a bad weekend, right? Right, right. Like, you know, it is humbling. That being said, of course, people stumble into luck of virality and things of that nature. but just to take a step back before I go into detail, for every marketer, which I know a lot of will listen to this, it's really cool that there's so much science and art behind being great about this and most people mail it in as matching luggage to their campaign.

12:39And so my framework that we believe in is PAC, platforms and culture. So if you don't understand, there's seven or so major social media platforms, right? Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, shorts, TikTok for now, we'll see what happens here. YouTube shorts, Snapchat, LinkedIn is a place where you could go bananas. Right. And all of these platforms now have for you pages just like TikTok did, meaning their algorithms are now extremely over-indexing towards the individual merit of the individual piece of content. Let me give you one immediately, Donnie. I think this is going to change your social media game.

13:18I am surprised but I'm going to really push it it's going to be such an aha for you and everyone who's listening the first second of your video on social media is a staggering variable of its chance of being successful first second because as you know yeah yeah so what then has to happen because in a second nothing can really be accomplished it seems it seems like not but tonight when you just happen to like look through your phone pay attention for a second be like yeah like a second or two i got that like i don't care i don't care i don't care oh pretty person i stopped oh uh loud noise oh visual the thumbnail yeah like you'd be surprised it's real strategy it's you know but then the next three to four seconds really matter because you're really like that first second gives you a hundredth of a hope and then the next three four seconds really can either hook them or not yeah so what gives tips for somebody out there so what are the important and there's no simple formula but first second first four seconds i'll give you one right now i'll just go through it right now in my phone on the spot because it's fun doing this with you like really being a practitioner right i'm just opening my instagram for example right now and like the first thing is like maybe a trade that something just happened sources the 49ers have listened to calls for devo sam okay so now like that blue update yeah like when i opened it my eye went right there the blue like this you're gonna love this it's you know what's so funny when people really listen to me in advertising, like the OGs that are still in the game.

14:49Like, you know, it's funny. Let's say very senior people coming from very big companies that are coming here for the first time. A lot of them come with cynicism and be like, let me see if this is all bullshit, right? And then they're like, eyes start to open. They listen for an hour and they're like, wait a minute. This feels like very tried and true. I'm like, it is. Yeah, it's the same for me. Yeah, like when I look at this, I imagine myself in the 1957 like in Madison Avenue going over someone saying move that because it's not going to hit in the New York Post tomorrow because you need to when they turn it you got to stop you it's print advertising yeah the first second is print advertising that's a great analogy and so you more like the way this update hits it's not that by the way if that didn't have that word update in there it would just be another fucking thing and you think oh maybe there's something new I don't know about the Niners watch this ironically this video is going to be of me in a second here we go yep the post yesterday mine right so it starts with elon's elon's post yeah yeah elon's post yeah yeah those are the first words that wasn't even me i was on someone else's podcast they did a good job elon's post yesterday wow right this goes back to jingle copywriting yes for radio Or the burst in the ad that we've got to get you the first thing that you see.

16:08Donnie, it's really wild. The only thing that's changed is the mediums. And what ended up happening is now you have an entire industry at the Droga Fives, at the Wyden Kennedys, at the Crispin Porters. They're derivatives of your early era and obviously the OGs that we saw in Mad Men. and they're in this half pregnant environment of like half Mad Men era, half overvaluing big data, don't even know what they're talking about. Don't even know what the fuck big data is. That's the amazing thing. In analytics. Yeah, what the fuck are you talking about? You'll appreciate this analogy, I think. Right now, current Fortune 500 advertising looks like vanilla Frankenstein.

16:51I call it vanilla Frankenstein because it has all these particles that are disjointed and they don't really understand because some of it's new tech, some of it's old school. Everything's got to be on brand, which means it's the opinion of three people in a boardroom. And it's vanilla. If you're going to do TV first, when Toyota does its brand positioning, Toyota's current brand positioning, Donnie, is let's go places. That means, as you know, because you did this for a living and I've done it for a living, that means they can actually come up with anything because in theory, let's go places can be physically or mentally.

17:24Right, right. Let's go places, you can be anything. And that's the good news and the bad news about that. Bingo. And so it's all vanilla. So anyway, what my thesis that I'm putting on the industry is, look, there's seven. This is now the television. Right. Absolutely. Not the radio. Right. The television is the radio now. He's holding up his iPhone. Okay. And on the iPhone, there are seven channels that matter. Just like pre-cable. There were seven. There were seven. It was actually, that's ironic. Wow. Wow, what a great little tidbit factoid that we're in the same exact place, seven fucking channels.

17:59And the job of all of us, Donnie Deutsch and Gary Vaynerchuk currently right this minute are actually trying to be Lucille Ball and Bob Hope. Like as a personality, I'd like to be big on ABC, NBC, CBS. And the brands are trying to do what Procter & Gamble did, which is integrate commercials into it. Same formula. And that's it. And the ones that tell the best stories win. Forever and ever. But the problem is Madison Avenue, current agencies, they tell stories in the format of a commercial for PR or for an award at camp. Can I just say this? When I was in the business, I always said, fuck awards.

18:37I used to go to clients and say, you're not going to win awards here. The only thing I care about is an FE or whatever, something that's going to affect me. And when I would see somebody in my office going through awards books at the time, they used to put out awards, I'd go, what the fuck are you doing? I'm going to go to a client. Look at this creative award. No, no. What am I doing for you? It's not what I'm doing for me. That's because you were a businessman and you knew if their business was good, that'd be good for your business. But as you know, for creatives, if they win an award, then another agency wants to hire them.

19:05Yeah, that's one more reason. It's not a mind interest. Yes, yes. Right. So my big thing is, the problem now is, the biggest companies in the world are losing market share. Because they keep over-investing in traditional, creative, and fake media reporting. impressions you know this the PR companies I mean look one of the companies I most admire Edelman right independent global big but like you know the the Weber Shanwicks the Edelmans they sell PR impressions they're fake numbers yeah just because you got a mention in a newspaper you didn't get 28 billion impressions you got your name showed up in a newspaper they did the circulation of a newspaper multiply it by 40 ,000 in case somebody drops it at a bus stop yeah as if anyone even saw your mention in page 19 of a newspaper.

19:53What is even a newspaper? Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. So anyway, I think that marketing has gone from lots of smart thinking by lots of smart people. I would call it mutual fund buying. Like if you have an investor, like you do a lot of thinking, you get to a presentation, you make a decision. And now I think it's day trading. Like you're buying by the nanosecond. So let's go back to some news, some news you can use this. We started doing some practical stuff. So I'm somebody, I'm starting up a new business or whatever reason, I want to build my personal brand. And now I know, okay, I'm supposed to go on TikTok.

20:28I'm supposed to go here. I'm supposed to go here. Now you've got every human being in the world playing in the same swimming pool. And so what do the smart guys do to win? They create cohorts. They know, you're going to love this, consumer segmentation, but not 18 to 35. That's ludicrous. more like, let's talk about how I do it. I know that a certain group I always want to make content for are 22 to 25-year-old men and women just getting out of college because I've come to learn through my journeys, very anxious years. And I'm going to say probably skews 65 % men out of that group. Yeah, it's actually, it's exactly right.

21:07Very, very impossible. So for me, I know I'm making content. So if I'm going to make a video, I know I'm going to talk about their dynamics with their parents. Maybe, hey kids, get off the parents' payroll. Because if you don't want your parents to have say in your life at 25, the only reason they have say is because they're giving you money. And the second you don't take money from them, you don't have to actually answer to them anymore because you're a grown up. But as long as you're taking money from mom and dad, they may have a little more say in your life because you don't want to upset them because you don't want that faucet to stop.

21:35Because I knew who I was making that video for, that video is going to have a better chance of being successful because I'm not just trying to make a video for everyone. That was made for that person. Oh, wait. They call that targeting back when I grew up. Oh, figure. But unlike when it was television, you would buy MASH or Seinfeld or Dallas. Now you're creating the content based on the audience. Yeah, and the data is so much better, Donnie. And now you can target gender, race. It's unbelievable how you can make this stuff. And if you come from that. But then the other thing that happens is, so for anybody who's listening, if you're a flower shop, you can literally run$30 on Meta, Facebook or Instagram, on a five mile radius of your store with your content.

22:27Five mile radius. So now you're doing direct mail plus television for the cost of nothing, Donnie. It's just nothing. And you post it. Now here's where it gets fun. It's the reverse of the way we grew up, Donnie. You post it and the algorithm will take it and it will go. You posted it organically. If it goes well, then you pour money on it. So if you're a local business, you may want to pour money on it right away because look, if you have a great flowers video and you're in Short Hills, New Jersey, but everybody who's watching it is in California, Arkansas, your business is not conducive to getting that business.

23:07you may want to do the paid media local but if you're someone who's just trying to build a brand you have a dot com and you're selling all over the world your chocolate bar well you're just posting it and if the seventh one does well then you're taking your media dollars and you're amplifying it what percentage of clients that come in today have any idea about this when they walk in the door I mean they know social media and this and that but what percent of clients actually understand it You'll break it down. You'll appreciate this. This is why I wrote the book this time. We're in a crazy place.

23:40And this is going to make sense to you because I know you pay attention. In the Fortune 500 ecosystem, truly Fortune 500, where Deutsch and Bain are playing, zero. Yeah. Amazing. Because their KPIs, their MMMs, their MMAs, all the reporting, all the justification, none of it. The systems, right? What they do for Walmart. It's the upstarts that have it weaved into their formula. I'm going to break it down for you. from the fortune 5 ,001 to the fortune 5 ,000 call that private equity back businesses, things of that nature, 5%. It should be way higher. That set is missing the mark in the venture capital backed CPG direct consumer businesses, 30%.

24:20That's why you see things like poppy. That's why you see the Logan Paul and KSI prime energy drink. I'm sure there's been things with your circles. People throw at you and be like, do you know this brand? or personalities like Dr. Becky. These things that people are seeing that are hitting. And then the crew that most knows it, which is wild, is individual human beings, whether they're building it for their personal brand or they're very small. Oh, yeah. I would go to my 16-year-old daughter if I asked her how to do it. Like, okay, I'm not sure what I'm doing here, but how do I do this? And where she'll crush is on the C in PAC, culture.

24:58She knows what's happening. And she's like, dad, this Swedish candy store downtown is killing it. Or Ralph Lauren's, you know, mocha, mocha is like, or the cronut or, or mad happy is a hot hoodie. Like she'll know culture. What she won't know is that on Instagram right now, it's better to post a two post carousel than just posting a video. What's a two post carousel? You know, when you post on Instagram and like there's multiple pictures or videos in it with posts. Yes, yes. Yeah. Okay. what she won't know is i'll show you my account you know you look at my account my grid and it looks like schizophrenia yeah but that's what this is what drives everyone crazy about me from the outside that doesn't know anything about social media they think that this is off brand it's all no that's brand that's your brand because that's where you're going to the all these different places and you do you you sometimes you're a psychologist sometimes you're a business consultant sometimes you're just a sports fan and all the above you know that's right what i also know is that 90 % of the content is being 96 % of the content is being consumed in the grid individually not people going to my profile and consuming the grid that's really interesting yeah what was that what movie was that from let me give you this so like this I also know that I have to use my trending sound on Instagram and the carousel has multiple quotes because it will show up I know I know that me talking about a green screen of something because that picture went crazy from the Knicks game.

26:28So I talk over it. This format does well versus just posting the picture. I know this one does well because I'm asking people to ask questions and answer questions. Watch this data, Donnie. You're gonna love this. So this is a post that I've created recently that's really working. Ask one group to ask a question. Ask the other group in my community to answer it. This post has 2 ,298 responses. the post prior the post prior to it has 313 right that people engaging with it shows the algorithm that there's interest which will show it to more people you're going to love this one for the first time in marketing history the creative is creating the reach yes that's well put you know for you and I that's like absurd Yeah, yeah.

27:22It's a free platform. You know, there's an irony, because to the average outside observer of, quote, marketing and selling, they would probably say, oh, I think it's the reverse now. It's being driven by the system and the pipes and that it's basically, everything is technology now and everything is the media, the media is driving the content. And ironically, more than ever, it's the content driving the media. As you know, somebody had to say yes to the Donnie Deutsch show. Yes. Somebody had to buy, you know, So you had, Deutsch, when you were running it, you had to buy the media to get that 30 second video of a big client of yours commercial.