How You Build a Brand That Actually Wins in 2025 | Adweek Leadership Voices

0:00I'm Gary Vaynerchuk. I am the CEO and chairman of VaynerX and VaynerMedia and the creator and CEO of VFriends. which means everything that's wrong is my fault. Amazing, and how is VaynerMedia unique? VaynerMedia especially in the landscape of our industry is one, independent and at scale which is a rarity. Two, has media and creative under one roof. So not in a holding company environment where there's separate companies and you create a team for a client like VaynerMedia has hundreds and hundreds of employees, both in media and creative, and they work together every day. So we're dramatically more integrated.

0:45VaynerMedia is unique in that we are one of the stronger creative agencies in the world, yet most of our industry doesn't think that, meaning we think in television commercial land in this industry. So even though VaynerMedia has done many, I think 16 Super Bowl spots now in the last four or five or six years, we are often thought of as a social creative shop to many people on the other side of this camera which is exactly how we want it because we think social creative is actually the new creative AOR and that's where brand is actually built and so I don't think anybody is as committed or as talented at the creative product in social so I think we're unique there.

1:31We're unique that we're still founder led even though we're thousands of employees globally and I'm a character so that creates a unique thing. I think I'm incredibly well-parented and my mother's my hero so I think we're unique in that people don't cry at VaynerMedia the way they cry at most agencies so I think we have a better culture. I think we're unique.

1:56Those are some things. Can you tell us about VaynerX and what makes it unique? VaynerX is pretty unique too. VaynerX is the holding company. when we bought Gallery Media Group or PureWow.com more specifically before we created other websites and properties and publishing. So right off the bat, we were weird, right? When I started my holding company, I was agency, which was already unique with media and creative. And then the first thing I added was not another agency like every other company in the history of this space. We added a publisher, which was weird to begin with. So that's unique. And then we started creating other companies, a speaking bureau, unique, Vayner Speakers.

2:32our production company within the holding company is very unique in fact the name of our production company is Eva Nosadam which is Madison Avenue spelled backwards we're unique in that we try to produce at a much lower cost we think production is overpriced in advertising land we produce with creative outputs for social along with the long form video so we're really proud of that company and Andrea our new leader who's been with us for a long time in the past in the UK and has come back home and is running everything globally is incredible. We have a barter agency called Tingly Lane, which is named after the street I did my first lemonade stand in that we're excited about.

3:14We're really unique in that it's a hodgepodge that's different than just a media and creative and maybe technology credit to publicists. I think they've done more tech. But I think that's what makes us unique. It's an interesting series of companies, all with the purpose to get the thing done. I'm very passionate, and I'm very fortunate that I speak to CMOs all week long. And they come in, and you really never know where they're going or what they want. Or more importantly, I think one thing that makes VaynerX and VaynerMedia very unique is that we are very convicted and have a lot of confidence, but I would argue we have a lot of humility.

3:54We say no a lot, not because we're cool, because we're not cool. We say no because we don't think we can do it well. And we're scared shitless of ruining our brand. I don't need CMOs running around at Cannes or at the Super Bowl being like, don't work with Gary, they stink. And so we've gotten a lot of compliments the last year of how often we say no or how often we bow out of an RFP or more importantly, how often we don't even do RFPs. And so the publishing, the speaking bureau, those are some different elements. Our production company is different. We have a company named after my father called the Sasha Group, which really services predominantly now private equity-owned brands.

4:36So I would call it the Fortune 5000 versus the Fortune 500. And the Sasha Group's doing extremely well, and we're proud of that. And so, yeah, it's definitely a little different than the other holding goes. Great. And what about VFriends? Well, VFriends is a whole other animal altogether. What's really interesting is that, and thank you for allowing me to speak about vFriends in this context. I think vFriends in a lot of ways proves why I'm confident about what VaynerX does. vFriends is creative. I'm inventing, and currently it's going quite well, a Pokemon, Disney, Marvel, Sesame Street-like intellectual property that has an incredible kids book that is crushing, a YouTube kids show that is made by the people that make Cocoa Melon and Moonbug with me in Cahoots.

5:24A Topps trading card that is coming out nationally this spring, 2025. An NFT project that is one of the 15 NFT projects that's still doing incredibly well in a world where 99 % went to zero. I'm going on an offsite next week to literally make music and comic books for this IP. I think it shows that our founder and our leader is inherently creative. One of the things that I hear from a lot of people in the industry over the last 15 years, especially when I'm a can, is that Gary, you're not about the work. What they're really saying is, Gary, you don't respect TV commercials. And I say you're right, because they suck.

6:05Like this incredible company, you guys, you cover in your.com magazine commercials that stink, that the industry talks about, but no human likes. I believe in creativity. I think creative is the variable of success. and VFriends is my creative outlet because being an agency owner, we are at the mercy of the people that are signing the checks. I don't get to make the final calls. I have to service the client. I will fight like heck if I believe in something but at the end of the day, there's an old Russian saying that my dad told me a lot as a kid. It translates to whoever's paying for the music gets to pick the song and I live that life.

6:44Even though I have convictions and passion, I am who I am. I have a lot of humility in that Like I'm the service provider to our CMOs and our brands and ultimately they get to make the pick. Thus that waters down a lot of the creative things that I would hope to make that I'm sure a lot of creatives that are watching this can understand. VFriends allows me to do it my way, all the way. And Gary V, my personal content, has been a gift. I wake up every morning to dozens, which is insane. texts, DMs, or emails of people thanking me for a video they just watched in the last 24 hours. And I'm proud of that.

7:22And that goes back to my mom and wanting to do the positive thing to not just for yourself, but help others. VFriends allows me to do that to a younger demo. I was very affected when TikTok came out because my message started hitting 14 to 20 in a way that it hadn't before. And I realized, wow, you're molding people at 15 very differently than you are at 30, right? Old dogs, new tricks. So you're getting to them earlier. V Friends allows the things that my mom taught me to spread to a much younger audience. And so it's been really fruitful, really rewarding, and I'm excited about it. Can you just elaborate on what some of those things are that your mom taught you?

8:00My mom taught me purple. You know, I think the world right now is incredibly red and blue. And what my mother did, my mother is the sweetest, most empathetic, caring woman on earth. she can be tied with your mom so don't be mad at me but she's right there she's also a soviet woman you know she was born in the ussr grew up there came to america when she was 20 i was born in the soviet union so my mom doesn't fuck around like all these kids all your kids disrespecting you to your face my mom doesn't play i grew up in the 80s too so that meant when i i never even thought about it because i was would never disrespect my mother but the occasional time that she misinterpreted what I was doing as something disrespectful, it wasn't like, oh, let's talk about this and have feelings.

8:46It was minimum grounding. And if she was really frustrated, it was a smack to the face. She didn't play. And so what my mom taught me was a lot of great things. One, she taught me accountability, which is a lost art in parenting. She taught me responsibility. But most of all, she taught me compassion, empathy, sympathy, and love. the level of the level that she would react I was naturally kind I got very lucky with my DNA a lot of it's my mom's DNA so I was naturally caring and empathetic to other people but when I was the way my mother championed my kind behavior gave me trophies verbally for kind behavior reinforced me wanting to do it more so I came out with a lot of the good ingredients but she cooked she cooked it right and she held me accountable.

9:36I was a terrible student. Even though I knew that that wasn't what my self-esteem was and it wasn't wrapped up in it, when I got bad grades, she held me accountable. She never made me think I was dumb or that I wouldn't be successful with bad grades but she held me accountable for not delivering good grades so there was consequences. She taught me there was consequences. She taught me there was no excuses. I was really good at baseball from second to fifth grade and I didn't get stronger, bigger, fast enough. And one time I struck out in a big spot and I came into the car after the game and I tried to blame the sun.

10:07It was in my eyes. She shut that down real quick and it was really powerful. You know, now you got parents like going to kids' schools fighting with teachers. She didn't fight my fights. She taught me so much. That was amazing. Kind of switching gears here. Who are the types of partners or clients or brands your companies find most essential? And share some examples if you can. Clients, man, this is a great story. We're very fortunate. One of the things I pride myself in is VaynerMedia is only 15 years old. And we have almost 100 employees that have worked here for 10 years or more. This is family business.

10:52And we have a similar thing with clients. We have a very good retention rate. And I have a pretty good feel of what kind of clients we like working with or the kind of partners we're looking for, we're looking for people that are honest. Like, this is all real stuff. Like, as great as we are, in my mind, we make so many mistakes. We're human. It is what it is. It's life. And so, you know, I think the thing that I've always struggled with is when people aren't upfront. You know, like getting caught off guard. Like having a meeting in September and everything's great. And then like getting an email from that person saying we're not renewing in the upcoming year.

11:34It just feels not authentic. And by the way, let me be very vulnerable. Candor, for people I care about and like, has actually been the kryptonite of my career. So I actually have never really gotten mad about it because I would be a hypocrite. But as I've changed my behavior over the last five to seven years and gotten much better at being able to deliver kind candor, it makes me yearn for it on the other side. So I think authentic partnerships where you can talk about the good, the bad, or the ugly, I think is something we really look for. We also really look for people that are smart. We have a fun joke internally.

12:10Like we win with winners and we lose with losers. Like, you know, what it refers to is we're different. And I think a lot of agencies say it. It's been really fun. We're growing very fast. So we're hiring a lot of senior people right now. And I literally had drinks this Tuesday with three of three, five people, three were very new. and I was like so what's up and they were like you know what's up is when I was interviewing with Gary because I tend to interview at that level you would talk about being different but that's what every agency has told us or me and this is the first time I feel it we are religious about our craft but our craft is not the production value of a commercial our craft is knowing all the skills both quant and qual that are required to get creative and social to get organic views very different a lot of science in our art um and so i think that we we are very unique and our clients sometimes sign up for us and then want us to be droga or mischief or widen or starcom or social code the next week.

13:21And we remind them you hired Vayner. And that's tough. I had a company-wide meeting last week where I compared all of us in the company to chairs. I said, you guys are all, we're all being a bunch of chairs. Most of the company could tell by the chat had no idea what I was saying and I was slow playing it because I wanted to make a point. And I said, we at our worst are folding like cheap chairs when we get pushback when we know we're right. I think we're looking for clients that have the appetite to deliver on the hyperbole that they tell us up front. Clients, and this, for everybody who's in Agency Life watching this, you know this, clients always tell us, we want you to push us.

14:05We want you to push us. We fucking push. And a lot of times when we push, they don't like it. And so we're looking for clients that are open, who are curious, and who are finally ready to stop acting like it's 1996 and are finally willing to act like Don Draper's not the most handsome, even though he's fucking handsome. And we're looking for them to understand the truth, which is our industry is often delusional and insular and the real world is changing. And the reason so many brands took social in-house is because big agencies couldn't deliver on social and we couldn't get to everyone. And so if we don't bring value, we won't exist.

14:50And so we're looking for clients that are ready to live in the year that we actually live in. Can you tell us a little bit about your founder journey and what prompted you to build your company? It was a fun story. I was thinking about a lot of different things. I had built a large business for my father as my first chapter. So I spent 22 to 34 those years. When I was 22 to 34, 1998 to 2006, building my dad's business. I really revolutionized the wine business. A lot of good Google search results to this. I launched one of the first e-commerce sites in the country, one of the first email newsletters, period, let alone in wine.

15:33I was on Google AdWords day one, changed my dad's business, and then really popped off on YouTube. I started a YouTube show within the first year of YouTube's existence called Wine Library TV where I got internet famous. I was much less famous back then than internet famous is now when they're the real celebrities. And it exploded my dad's business. I was a first mover on Twitter and an early investor in Facebook and Twitter, which really changed the course of my career as you can imagine financially. But also from a brand awareness and a personal brand standpoint, I started getting known. I was one of the first 25 people to have a million followers on Twitter in the world.

16:10that led to brands in 2005 and six excuse me six and seven and eight reaching out to me seven and eight to reach out to me cold on email or twitter like literally to my wine library email hey gary the wine guy we're pepsi we're reebok we're nike we'd like to learn like what why do you have a million followers on it was literally like why do you have a million followers on twitter and we at 54 and we're Nike and you're some random kid in New York, in New Jersey doing wine. So I took a couple consulting gigs. The one that really popped off was ESPN. I did a meeting at ESPN. They paid me$5 ,000 for an hour, which blew my head off.

16:51I thought it was the most money of all time. I got out of it. I enjoyed it. I always knew I was a marketer, but I was also an operator and a CEO. I was a businessman and a marketer and I just realized that there was an opportunity that nobody knew what was about to happen with social from what I could tell in advertising and I thought I did and I wanted to go all in. I called my brother. He was still in college after the CSPN meeting and I said, I think I have an idea because we knew we were going to start a business together. We'd always been entrepreneurial together. We were going to start a fantasy sports site.

17:27We're going to start a deal of the day site like Groupon, which probably was a good idea. We should have done that. We started VaynerMedia. What we did at first was brands like Campbell Soup and the NHL and Pepsi Co. My brother's laptop literally created the Facebook and Twitter accounts for those clients. Our original premise of the business was create social media accounts and community manage. Reply to people leaving comments on the wall because Facebook didn't have the feed yet. It was just a wall, like MySpace, if you remember. And so when people would show up on the NHL's wall, we'd be like, thank you, or watch the game tonight.

18:04So it was a lot of community management at first, and then obviously it evolved into what it is today. What principles or mantras does your team have? What principles and mantras does our team have? There's a lot. I think the biggest one is underpriced and overpriced attention is a big conversation at Vayner. Like, for example, I love doing TV commercials when it's the Super Bowl. I like doing social creative when it actually gets views. I love spending media dollars. We have a huge media department spending billions of dollars. I like to spend on actual reach, not potential reach. So, you know, we have a lot of like those nerdy business mantras.

18:42I think organizationally, culturally, we have something called the honey empire that has really helped the company understand what we're about. We call Vayner the honey empire internally because we like to treat each other with honey over vinegar. It's a very big mantra here. Kindness matters. Kind candor if you have to deliver candor back to what I was talking about earlier. But we're also not an institution that is like a fifth generation hedge fund where we could just burn money. So we want to build an empire. And it really helps. It goes back to, you asked me what my mom taught me. She taught me purple.

19:19I think a lot of times employees within companies think the company's either too red or too blue, right? It's either delusional, like we're saving the world when you're like selling like random shit or it's like all about the bottom line and there's no humanity. Hence, by the way, I'm just gonna go on a side tangent. We must eradicate crying at agency life. Like we gotta get nicer. Holding co's, come on. Get nicer. Anyway, we're the honey empire. That's a mantra. We wanna be honey over vinegar, which means a lot of humanity, a lot of kindness, a lot of feelings. Good stuff, but don't go too far where it's delusional and ridiculous because we're building a fucking empire and we want to kill everybody.

20:01Not really. More like competition, you know what I mean. We want to win. And so we're excited about that. That works. Another big mantra internally for my leadership is I want wartime generals, not peacetime generals. What that means is, of course, everyone is happy on the team when everything is prosperous. When the money's flowing in and we're having fun and let's do the Super Bowl, show me what kind of leader you are once you become an SVP in this company when shit's hard. When the client is nasty as a leader are you then passing that onto your team and scaring them? Or are you blocking that as a shield and making it safe for your team?

20:40I really love leaders that understand fear is not a motivator and so I'm looking for wartime generals. People that can stand up and be the bigger person when it's hard not when it's easy. those are some of the things that really run our world. How do you feel about trends? Are you a trend watcher? Are you more inclined to ignore them? I'm obsessed with trends. I think trends matter. I think trends are demonized in our industry because a lot of people want to be slow. And I think a lot of people want to be industry-centric, not consumer-centric. I think our industry, a lot of people have demonized trends to try to claim that they are short-lived and not meaningful.

21:22but I think it's because we're overweight athletes that are retired we don't want to play the speed game we don't want to play the real game I think trends matter I think relevance matters I think a lot of brands need to figure out how to be authentically engaging with trends and I think it's a very important part of culture and pop culture and it's what leads to consideration for millions and billions of people around the world. And yes, sometimes it's for a little while and sometimes that trend becomes real and becomes foundational. I remember when I was told sneakers in work environments were a trend.

22:03Just looking around real quick at your team that came here, you're all wearing sneakers. All of you, all three of you on your team would have worn dress shoes if this was happening in 1989. Some version of it would have been inappropriate to wear sneakers. so sometimes trends become culture and so i'm constantly looking at them because i look at trends as insights to what's happening with consumers why are we all cutting our hair why did we go from tight jeans to baggy jeans like why why why and why usually sends you down a very good path of coming up with breakthrough work and marketing plans and so i laugh when people shit on trends, especially when I pay close attention to what they do for a living, they are always someone who's either lazy or tired.

22:55You like that one? It's so real. It's so real. Please don't cut this part out. This industry needs to get real with itself. You know what my favorite part about this industry is? Is when we say that we set culture. Can you clip this? Can we once and for all all agree? I'm just gonna make this very clear. Your fucking 30 second TV spot that runs on fucking midday television isn't doing shit for culture. Can't wait to see which Super Bowl spot, Super Bowl spot, from this Super Bowl, sets culture in 2025. Our industry's delusional. It's lost its way. It's not 1964 anymore. We gotta get our fucking act together.

23:42That was great. What's one myth about marketing, social marketing, and brand building that you want to bust? Yeah, that was it. I really walked into that. I think the myth is that, I think the thing that's very clear to me that I think is starting to gain momentum, and I'm appreciative. By the way, all this energy I'm bringing, it's because I love our industry. It's because I don't want people to get fired. Does anybody know that there's a merger of two holding companies? Does anybody know there's rumors of other companies going private? Like, we're not winning. And like, what happens to a 48-year-old creative director that gets out of a job right now and can't find another one?

24:22Like, I worry about our industry. Like, I'm going to be fine. Like, I worry about our industry. And so, the biggest myth is that I think most people who are watching this, if they're really deep, stuck in the old world, think brand is built on a television spot. and I think brand is built in social. Right? For example, I love authenticity. Right now as I'm speaking, everybody behind the camera is worried about the sound that's coming outside the room. I don't think that sound outside the room is gonna fuck you up watching this.

24:56That is what I believe. You recently talked about live social shopping and your predictions for that space. Can you tell us more about that? Thank you for giving me the platform for this because I'm gonna clip this in six years and say I told you. Live social shopping is, please, even if you're watching this to find something to make fun of me for because you want to razz me and don't like me, please get serious about live social shopping. The QVCification of social media is here. It's coming and it's gonna come harder. And by the way, I'm not some genius or know what I'm talking, like this has been happening in China for eight years.

25:29TikTok shop is a monster, obviously a band, but this is a global platform, so there'll still be a one. But Whatnot is a standalone app that's doing serious numbers. And I can't imagine Meta and YouTube just sitting idle and letting TikTok and startup apps take this market. You would be flabbergasted if you look at what's going on on Poshmark Live, on eBay Live, on Amazon Live. But some of those big ones like eBay and Amazon are still small because they haven't figured out their product. TikTok and whatnot are monsters. Monsters. Back to vFriends. Just to give you context let me make it very real.

26:08I did a three hour conference room sale for vFriends selling hoodies and t-shirts and socks. We did almost$200 ,000 in revenue in three hours. This is a big deal. People need to learn about it and I believe that it will be a substantial advancement of why we spend even more time on social media. And to remind everybody, if they believe me, QVC and HSN still do staggering numbers. Staggering. On cable. Selling ridiculous shit. It's gonna be huge. And what about your predictions for AI? Specifically AI influencers and how AI impacts social marketing. AI is gonna impact life. people are going to be marrying AI bots in like 30 years so yeah, I'm sorry you might dump Lou for an AI human AI is going to be a big deal and in fact our industry, it's already affecting it we're seeing creative be made for a lot less, that's very important but to your question I'm very obsessed with AI influencers I think influencer marketing is a monster and I think just as it's getting into its heyday, I see the next thing that's going to disrupt it, which is I'm predicting that the combination of what Disney does, right?

27:34Intellectual property, Snow White, The Lion King, Cinderella, and what influencers do, Alex or old Mr. Beast, is gonna come into one. Fake people, AI people, are gonna be some of the biggest influencers in the world in 10 years. And companies and humans are gonna own those people. And it's gonna be huge. And there's gonna be so many of them. There'll be more AI influencers than there are humans, meaning attempted AI influencers. In 10, 15 years, there'll probably be way more than 8 billion AI humans all trying to become influencers to monetize the way influencers do, and that's gonna be fascinating to watch.