The Future of Marketing With AI and Attention | Adweek Interview

0:00I haven't had a full conversation with anybody yet this week on the record about AI. I figure you are a good person to pick their brain on. I think it's AI and less about where it's going to go in marketing and advertising, but more how consumers are overall going to feel about it and general society. Because I think you have generally been smart about how you think about the future. And so I want to start with actually looking back for a moment. You know, you made a huge bet on NFTs and eventually morphed it into Vayner3. Yep. as you saw the NFT market change and how society feels about metaverse and all that change over time.

0:41So I'm curious what lessons you learned from that, knowing that AI is also the next big thing. And I know they're different because they're a platform and this is a society-thinking technology. They're major, yeah. It's a very smart question. No, no, I think you're right. Similarities. It's interesting. Like if you look back at my content on Web3 and specifically NFTs. And you got to dissect it. And I think the same thing's going to happen with AI. And you're going to appreciate this. In a world where everything is headline reading, I'm sure that, actually, I need to start asking more journalists how they feel about most people just reading their headline and not their actual work.

1:20So let's break it down. I'll go backwards and I'll go forwards. Backwards, so much of our biggest point of view was that metaverse wasn't real, that there was nobody actually there at the day trading attention. Yeah. Comma, blockchain was a profound technology. I think blockchain's relationship with AI and deepfake videos is gonna be a really interesting conversation over the next 10 years. Yeah. Three, you know, my biggest point of view was that 99 % of NFTs were gonna go to zero and that the 1 % would be meaningful collectibles like trading cards and comic books and sneakers. Biggest learnings that I apply to where we're gonna go with AI.

2:01One, they are different because the NFT was an individual form factor on top of a technology. Yeah. That was also based on collectible speculation, which created so much of the radical ups of DAOs. Yeah. AI is oxygen. It's such a profound, overwhelming technology. But I think the parallels will be similar. For Madison Avenue, I think the biggest observation is that Madison Avenue is very different than Silicon Valley. yeah so i think the depth of conversation at ai at the conference has been really interesting it's by far the buzziest word yeah i think back to what i focus on with which is about like today yeah i think the biggest ai conversation that i'm you know what i was surprised about even though i you know it's funny you said earlier it wasn't surprised but i was surprised yeah i'm i'm not surprised but i'm surprised the biggest ai conversation currently in marketing is the algorithms of the 4U pages of all these social networks.

2:58The most significant AI that our industry is feeling is in that environment. Now to consumer. Yeah.

3:09People are scared of it. There's so much fear of like, I'm gonna lose my job. This is bad. The robots are gonna kill us. So there'll be a sector that I think will be similar to electricity when it first came out. Electricity was like incredibly demonized when it was first available to people. the most common belief at the time was there was demons in it and so you should still use candles yeah cool right yeah i mean do you know that have you ever heard i know that google it or chat gpt it back to the point perplexity or perplexity it um so so i think that's what's that that's my historical comp that i'm feeling people are very very worried about it yeah i think you'll have a a a group of that i think those we're already seeing profound profound around consumer changes.

3:55So I hate using a focus group of one, but boy did it capture my attention. My 37 year old brother and co-founder of Vayner, who runs our sports agency now, he doesn't use search anymore at all. 100 % of his search behavior is not chat, GBT or perplexes or things of that nature. So I think you're gonna have an entire generation of gen alpha and young gen Z that is going to potentially, probably gen alpha, potentially live in a world where they don't even know what a search engine is the way that, how old are you? 30 size. Did you ever use a yellow pages? Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, you caught it a little bit.

4:32I'm all, give him credit. No, but you're right. No, no, no. But you're, as you know, if you have a younger sibling under 30, like no shot. There's people 25 that don't even know. When I use the reference, they don't even know. Yeah. So I think it's gonna be the classic thing. I do think the, I do that, So NFTs was a build on top of a big technology known as blockchain. And that Providence moment of truth is about to come very handy because AI is about to make a lot of fake stuff. There's already videos of me on the internet of me saying things in my voice that I didn't set. So Providence on the blockchain is going to actually become pretty powerful.

5:09I think AI overall though is far bigger than people realize. And so what do I think? I think you'll have some early users that are going to get a lot of value out of it. you're going to have 50 to 70 percent incumbents that are going to demonize it or demonize it because they can't make money on it or demonize it because they're scared of it yeah this one isn't going to be fatty like nfts yeah this one is going to slow build like social media yeah yeah i'm in that very unique age range where i started high school where nobody had a phone i finished high school everybody had a flip phone started college maybe a few people had a smartphone and by the time i finished college everyone yeah it makes sense yeah it's a funny group Eight years went from phone, personal phone wasn't a thing unless you're an adult.

5:51To the supercomputer. You had your iPhone. Yeah, whatever you needed in your pocket. But I want to ask about your point about blockchain. Are you pointing out blockchain and deep fakes from a standpoint of blockchain can track how something, the progress of something? So we'll be able to verify something accurate based on how it's blockchain. Every video I make, I'm going to make an NFT, a non-fungible token. The way everyone knows NFTs right now is a collectible. And the way they know it right this second is a collectible that was like fatty. But NFTs aren't beanie babies. Individual projects at NFT land are beanie babies.

6:30NFTs are stuffed animals. They will be forever. One of the most important use cases I think in the next decade of NFTs is going to be using the blockchain to put your content on to say all the content that I make about me is here first, then I'm putting it on the internet. So anything that you see that you think is from me, you better go see the providence because this is somebody else manipulating what I'm saying. We've lived in 100 years of believing every video that we've seen is true. We're about to go, just your eight year analogy, let me use it now as a build. We will go from everybody here sees any video they believe it's 100 % true to an eight to 10 years, everybody here seeing a video and not believing it's true yeah that is societally a big it is it is until you say wait a minute or the blockchain and then truth so i agree with you in the short term it's like whoa yeah but this is why i'm kind of uh very fascinated by the blockchain yeah yeah i've been pleasantly surprised there has been a ton of deep dates around the election yet i mean I assume we are eventually going to get there, but I guess maybe we're too far away from November.

7:44But yeah, I'm curious how you see the perception of, how societal perception of generative AI is going to change. Because I think we already saw the first bit of it with the Apple ad, where even though it wasn't counting AI, you know, it was crushing art. and I think people view AI as we don't want it to replace art. So are you optimistic that people are going to put up a fight and save arts and not give in to just, well, anybody can create any kind of content using AI? No. Do you know that everyone thought a canvas piece of art was not art hundreds of years ago? That if you did not do art on an actual building wall, that that wasn't real art?

8:32there's an incredible fight that art on canvas was fake art. One of my good strengths is history tells me the future. This is my second cool hmm. Yeah, okay. And you can see how my brain works a little bit. And this is when I see new things like this. I'm like, let me get educated. It's not like I know all this stuff. You know, I do the research, right? Sure. And then it becomes part of my life. So I think this industry, actually this is a good parallel to the overall industry. And it's the answer to your question. I believe one of the biggest shortcomings of our industry is that we like or not and the answer to your question is and there will be incredible room for originally created human art but there will be incredible room for a gendered name of art and the consumer will accept both you know why?

9:19because they're already consuming both they're already accepting both the world is not the opinions of the artists that this has met the opinion is of the 8 billion people and how they interact with the art yeah so to that point do you i mean when something like let's just talk music with ai music is going to become even easier for anybody to figure out how to make do you see society pushing in a way where someone who can play a violin at a high skill is going to get pushed out for somebody who can create whatever on their laptop on their phone using AI or do you still see a future in which both of those are going to be equally valued and that we're going to really fight hard to protect human-made art?

10:07I think both will happen. What about house EDM music? What about DJs? Yeah. I mean, everybody told us Electrot. What about Auto 2? Yeah. T-Pain fucking had every hit song for a three-year window. I'm very bullish on Ant. I think, to your point, like, I'm thinking about becoming a music artist. I talk. in the way that would work really well for music. I'm very, you know, I'm good for interviews, right? Like, it's how my brain works. Analogies, snippets, headlines. I think I can be good at music, one problem. I can't sing for shit, I'm not musical. I got that in common with ya. And me. I can play mean saxophone, can't sing.

10:49Can you? Can you? That's pretty cool. So I got nothing. Yeah. Other than I think I can write hooks and have bars. and I think I will use AI to actually make hit music. I really believe that before I'm done. And so will some people say like, what the fuck, fucking Gary V's now? Of course they will. 93 % will. 7 % will say like the same thing, you know, is Avicii good? Some people think Avicii's the best. Other people think that he just took other people's shit. So is Andy Warhol the best? At the time he was the worst. now we think he's the best some people think he's best something and so i i really i'll go back to my and i think that and uh let's talk about technology i couldn't believe more in social and the phone do i believe that now that we've had 15 years of it that a lot of people enjoy putting their phone in a safe for a week and not being on a phone i sure do it's pendulum swings yeah technology in technology out you know and so this you know look at fashion yeah every 20 30 years are we supposed to wear tight jeans or loose jeans yeah you know like so that's i think that's what's going to happen with music and entertainment yeah i mean i think we've seen it seem to an extent with social media i mean you know if you would have told me 10 years ago that by 2024 I would have pretty much given up sharing any part of my life on social which is a thing that a lot of people are starting to buy into I think you I would have said you're crazy but I think we eventually also just proved tired of sharing our lives gone so late I I lived the life the whole time people are very confused when they I don't think people realize how I played it I've never shared a single thing about my personal life yeah I it makes so much sense to me why would I want to give up my privacy.

12:41There's nothing more valuable. My relationships, my family. I'm one of the most prolific content producers of the last 15 years. With zero of it being about my personal life. So I understand that. I saw that coming from a mile away. Putting my children in my content? What if they don't want it? Putting my relationships so that the world... Didn't anybody see what they do to Brad and Angelina? Why are you giving the world... Obviously we're not all famous, But if you're by the way when your life is small when 30 40 people your relatives and your friends are your world Their judgment on your relationship is powerful.

13:18Yeah Yeah So let's let's start to bring this a little back back. Yeah market it. Let's do it Have you when you talk with your clients if you're brands in general this have you started to see brands? figure out where the line is on where they want to use gen ai one more time my friend have the brands your clients started to draw a line in terms of where the line is on gen ai so for example dove dove has said we'll use gen ai gen ai but we will never generate a human got it got it uh no we we think that our recommendation to our clients is don't jump out too fast yeah that would be like there was clients that's buried in history now that said they would never use influencers.

14:06They only believe in real celebrities. No, we've our conversations with clients, my conversations with clients are very heavily predicated on the following which is you don't need to make an official statement yet. That's right. This is very profound technology. Many of the Bill Gates said the web was a fad. he's a smart man you don't you know you don't need to be out in front you know like you know like let's take a beat and so that has been our recommendation and I think that's the right thing like it's early ready for this? I'm on the record that saying Dove at some point in its consumer brand journey will make generative people because not that I believe that anyone at Unilever is a hypocrite or a stupid or is wrong, but in 27 years, when it's a different regime, and generative AI human content is incredibly important, I don't think that Dove is gonna wanna give up market share.

15:12Okay. You know, so like, I'm sure it's, and by the way, I know that it's well-intended. It actually comes, you know, I think most things are well-intended. Like, eighth place trophies were incredibly well-intended. Yeah. But I think looking at history, it's not gonna be viewed as a positive thing for kid development. Yeah. Dove talking about real beauty, that's a beautiful, like it comes from such a good place. Yeah. On the record, I don't see any scenario that in 35 years they haven't done it because there'll be a competitive disadvantage to a business. Yeah. I mean, even in instances where, so I was talking to the CEO of, he was CEO of OKRP and now he's part of Fruckley OKRP.

15:54and he said you know i have restaurant clients who they'll let us use gen ai for anything except the food 100 because they their chefs they only want to show things their chefs can actually make and even if they use gen ai to perfection nobody made that let me let me take the counterpoint yeah every single commercial that burger king shows the whopper looks nothing like the whoppers I get at Burger King. That's a good point. Yeah, food styling is a thing. No shit. I would argue food styling and commercials is more fucking AI than AI. Yeah. I haven't seen a fucking Whopper in my life that looks like the ones on TV.

16:40Yeah. Do you have a sense with brands that they even have their heads wrapped around Gen AI that well? because I was talking to Sir John Peggerti earlier today, and I asked him pretty much the same question of, you know, have you seen Brandon Stroll the Line? And he goes, well, no. I mean, it's so early days that most of them, I think he said, can't fucking wrap their head around it. I forget exactly what he said, but, you know, he basically said, they don't know what they're doing. As someone who came into this industry and has been in and out for 15 years, I'm so glad that Sir said that because I've always liked him a lot, actually.

17:19I always have. He's a smart guy and he's right. That's absolutely my take. I said, I think, it earlier, Madison Avenue versus Silicon Valley. Like, with all due respect, and this is an incredible community, deep technology knowledge is not what's happening here. This is sales and marketing. And so, yeah, no, I don't think they have their heads wrapped around it. And by the way, there's a lot to get through with copyright and trademark law. Yeah. This is probably one of the more conservative stances we've taken as an organization. We want to really understand like where the content's coming from.

17:56Like, because we have to indemnify our clients. Sure. So I'm like fucking, like, are you kidding me? I'm not looking to battle Disney if they claim that the elephant that was made from this was inspired by the Dumbo IP. Yeah. So we got a little ways to go. I think he's right. I think it's early. Again, especially after four glasses of rosé, a can, People like to pontificate about their knowledge about AI. It's not, this is not the epicenter of AI. This is an industry that will be affected by the epicenter, which is the technology sector. Yeah. You brought up algorithms earlier, and I know we've talked a lot about Gen AI, but with algorithms, it's also a very good point because we've seen how quickly society has fractured, how content has fractured in terms of audience.

18:44my tiktok fee is going to be drastically different and yours definitely different that's right harriet's and so we're losing a sense of community because we're slowly growing into i'm fans of these people you're fans of these people i would i would no idea i would i would i would argue that that is a false pov in this society right now okay let's take it back pre-social media you chose to watch vox and i chose to watch cnn you chose to read the new york times and i chose to read But the options were much fewer. Yes. There's a million different influencers and 72 may end up in my feed and you might have two of the same ones.

19:22Just because the options were fewer. Do you know what the average amount of channels people watched when they had 36 channels to choose from in prime cable era in the 80s? Three. The options were fewer. Yeah. But I still didn't watch food TV. I watched ESPN and I watched when the Jets highlights were on and I turned off when the Broncos highlights were on. I think that this is a demonization of modern technology that is a misnomer of human behavior. Yeah. The fragmentation has existed forever. Yeah. People always read the books they want and read the newspapers and watch the TV and listen to the radio.

19:59Yes, to your point, absolutely on fewer options. The misnomer is we didn't take advantage of those fewer options. I'm not quite on that point's not landing for me. You know, if back in, say, the 90s or 80s, when you had fewer options and cable TV's first exploding, we saw, you know, the amount of people who watch a program far higher than today. So as you went into the office, you likely had a number of people who you could talk to about something. And so what I'm saying is more is fragmented so much that I could go in the office and there's no guarantee that any. That I'm a buyer. That I'm a buyer.

20:42I'm a full buyer. I'm a full buyer. But I would I would say the nuance there is that that the genre of it would be within the same realm, meaning you may know of a hip hop artist that's emerging that I don't know. Yeah. But we may both like hip hop. yeah right and i would actually say the discoverability of that game is real but to your point the extreme fragmentation is well taken yeah and i'm a very big believer in that um i don't think it's focus groups of one yeah but we've definitely to your point gone to smaller groups of interests yeah but the and so i think we're gonna find out what that all means yeah to your point we all watched mash yeah now we all watch humor in 87 pieces of mash that add up to one mash yeah and to your point that i think you're making is that has the potential to make us not be as connected yeah and i think that's real yeah uh i know i get excited when my wife shares a tiktok that i've already seen because it's like almost a shared experience of like oh i've already seen this and i can laugh at this already yeah um where's it gonna go from there so do you see do you see a tipping point in which at some point we are all driven back to maybe more communal i hope i think so yeah yeah i think so i don't think but i don't think in the short term at all you're 36 yeah you know back to like guessing this i definitely don't know but if i if i'd have bet the farm you're like gary i'm sorry you have to bet when you're 68.

22:24I think we're in the, actually, I think we're still in the very beginning of fragmentation at scale. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I do think loneliness is a big concern of mine at fragmentation at scale. Yeah. Absolutely. I believe that there is absolute early indicators to that. But I also think that requires human accountability to be more multidimensional. Yeah. Like to be more selfless, not selfish. I have my interests, but let me be curious and selfless and open to my friends interests so that we connect It's it's an in this is a real i'm very fascinated by this combo And I spent a lot of time thinking about this It's actually by the way why I think everyone has marketing wrong the idea that you're gonna make a 30-second commercial And you're gonna pump it on television.

23:09Yeah, and it's gonna work is fucking delusional in the truth of the world Yeah, but final question as we're pretty much at time here is just you know with with streaming TV and the ability to really understand who that person is you're showing. Have you guys begun thinking about using AI to create God knows how many versions of that ad to show each person the way you're already doing with your vein and volume, both your social and everything? Yes, we have, but we do believe it is still a trademark and copyright issue. And we will not go full generative AI over production until there's more class.

23:46And this goes back to why I think Dove is well intended, but a little premature. Yeah. It's early and we have a lot of things to figure out. Yeah.