The Mid-Funnel is the Biggest Opportunity in Marketing

0:00Gary Vaynerchuk:There is no logic. If you understood what's happening in Meta and ByteDance and Snap and YouTube and Google, if you understood how these algorithms are written purely for relevance, the thing that we've been chasing to measure our whole lives. For a hundred years, marketers like us, the bane of our existence has been trying to understand the creative before it goes into market. Focus groups, fake reports, politics amongst seven important people in a room. We've been struggling with this deep knowledge that we know, which is if the creative isn't right, we lost. I ask for a lot of you is take your hat off of being a corporate animal and understanding how your organization measures everything and put your human hat on and listen to it and understand it.

0:42Gary Vaynerchuk:There is literally no reason to waste marketing dollars anymore. We don't have to guess. Like, do we really still have the audacity to think our subjective opinion on a 30 second video or a picture is gonna drive the business? Every single brand in here's biggest issue is not awareness, it's relevance. And if you're small and you need awareness, you can only get it through scaled relevance. This is the Gary Vee audio experience.

1:07Jon Evans:This is an amazing opportunity to have you in the room, Gary. Thank you so much, mate, for doing this.

1:11Gary Vaynerchuk:Thank you so much, everyone, for being here, really.

1:13Jon Evans:So I've got a few questions I want to put to Gary. I had the honor of meeting him actually at the wine library, which was really special, man. It was kind of cool to see you there because I noticed when we finished filming, You were straight downstairs doing a wine review and you were straight on the phone with like, okay, ring this number, everybody, put your orders in. I wanted to start with maybe an unusual question. You're obviously at the forefront of so much change and what's going on. What hasn't changed? If you put yourself back in your wine library days, what hasn't changed that has underpinned your success?

1:46Gary Vaynerchuk:It's actually a fun one to start with, especially for this crowd. I'm aware, even just had a quick interaction, that people think that a lot of mine slash our company's theories are maybe in contrast to what's been classically understood or known. The thing that has not changed is that relevance leads to consideration, leads to purchase. I think that is just so uncomfortably classic and so true. I think that where information is being consumed and how relevance is defined and how fragmented relevance actually is and always has been. But the media landscape has changed enough for allowing us to all take advantage of it.

2:32Gary Vaynerchuk:That's different. But what is tried and true, we did that podcast at my father's wine store where I kind of grew up and built. And as soon as we were done, I went downstairs. and what you're referring to is I made creative ads for social, which we ran in a 10-mile radius of the store, and we use video and social media to replace what we did with direct mail, and it converts better. I would be thrilled to do direct mail today. I would be thrilled to do outdoor radio. I would buy TVC and television, my great challenge that I always push against, if the price was appropriate. I don't really have feelings other than I want to buy attention at a proper price, not overpay for it.

3:21Gary Vaynerchuk:And I would like the creative to make someone do something. It's not complicated. I just think that the industry, especially this market's industry, is very good at holding on to yesterday. I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy.

3:43Jon Evans:Well, one thing I loved actually, so me and my producer, James, we turn up with all our cameras, our lighting, our sound equipment. I got outgunned on that day, didn't I? I'd set up in your wine library, then you brought your crew along. It was like cameras on cameras on cameras. I mean, we had so much content. But something you are exceptional at is just making content wherever you are, whatever you're doing. How do you fit all that in? How do you do the thinking and the creative and the content?

4:09Gary Vaynerchuk:Intent. you know I think I've had a very productive year I don't know how everybody is 26 is going but reflecting at the end of last year I didn't feel 2025 was my best year on the field you know I think of business like sports and I'm not crippled by a year where I don't think I've done as much or as well as I've wanted to because you know some of the greatest athletes of all time have had seasons that are not as great as others that allowed me to really sit down in between between Christmas and New Year's and come up with a framework for myself this year called intentionality and impact. Just being very clear with the many businesses I have and the many key teammates that I have and creating really tight intentionality frameworks and how are we going to measure that impact.

4:57Gary Vaynerchuk:That allowed me already, I would argue this is true, that I feel I've been more productive in 26 than 25 already and we're just getting started. But to answer your question, And the reason I brought that up was with the hope that it might bring someone value and you may want to think about that. But for me, I've always had the intent now, what do you mean, 2026, for about 12 years now, I've had the intent to think about every single day as a production day. Right? And now much of what I do for a living, I work with a lot of people here, this will not be lost. 80 % of my day is not something I can put out in the public.

5:33Gary Vaynerchuk:It's client information. It's internal information. but understanding that creative and content was the variable of success and that the new distribution channels had been reformed you know i started you know as some people in this room know from 2014 to to covid i filmed every aspect of my life and only a small percentage of that was able to go out but that allowed me to produce dramatically more content than the market and um And I continue to do that today. To answer your question, it's just the intent. It is my strategy to produce content every day. It is my strategy to use technology and people to post-produce that content.

6:15Gary Vaynerchuk:It is my strategy to understand which platforms to post that creative on. It is my strategy to post-produce that content to maximize organic reach. It is my strategy to understand once that creative has been validated by gaining organic reach, which is only achievable if the creative is relevant, then I will use working media dollars to amplify it. That strategy for me became the framework of our creative agency and production company, VaynerMedia, as the forefront and the reality of what's actually happening in the consumer landscape. So for me, there's a lot of value in me focusing on my creative because it becomes the blueprint for what we do for, bless you, what we do for clients around the world.

7:03Gary Vaynerchuk:The thing I'm most proud of, the thing that allows me to sit here, the thing that I think makes me different than many people in marketing is I'm a practitioner of the craft. I am not a professor. I am not a pontificator. I am not in university or politics. Every single day of my life for the last, what am I, 50 now? For the last 32 years, every single day of my life I have spent working media dollars to make a sale and build a brand happen every single day and so that makes me very comfortable to talk about my things because I've only been taught to measure based on sales and brand when I was building my father's liquor store the only two things I knew was that my mom was so remarkable that I needed to build this business for my family as a payback to her and two that I would leave that company someday because I knew my dad was never going to give me any money.

7:59Gary Vaynerchuk:And I had to have my own life. This is real though. This is very profound. As a 22 year old child, I knew that I wanted to build a very large business for my family. I was incredibly motivated. As I've gotten older, I realized how rare what I cared about is. I was obsessed to build a huge business for my parents. But I also knew that one day I was going to have to leave and do something for myself, which meant I had to grow the business. My dad only allowed me to spend marketing dollars if he understood what the ROI was at the register. I wasn't trying to win a can lion. Sasha Vaynerchuk was not interested in a brand lift study.

8:39Gary Vaynerchuk:But I also knew I was going to leave. And the other thing I knew was my dad was going to fuck it up after I left. And so I thought about brand. I renamed my dad's liquor store from Shoppers Discount Liquors to Wine Library. I focused on building the brand of Wine Library, but I focused on building the brand of Wine Library by driving sales daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly by winning on relevance to so many different wine consumers that I had people that were buying$5 ,000 bottled wines, but also bringing people in that were buying$15 wines for the weekend. I didn't know what I was doing in the context of this room.

9:16Gary Vaynerchuk:I was just building a business, one for the short term, one for the long term. When I got to this world, I was flabbergasted by the currency of the Fortune 500, Fortune 5000 brands in the world. Everything was incredibly corporate. So many people make decisions based on reports, not business truths. The politics within your organization. No one could explain to me what an MMM or an MMA was. Nobody could explain how a GRP was really measured. people spent all their working media dollars on potential reach not actualized reach common sense had no permission to be in the boardroom this has been a very interesting journey for me the last 15

9:57Jon Evans:years um let's start with podcasts right um why are podcasts well i'm just making an assumption here like asking for a friend here but why are podcasts so undervalued do you think well they

10:08Gary Vaynerchuk:could be very overvalued i i would say that social media all the way to television and everything between influencers, direct mail, outdoor, everything could be overpriced and underpriced. Right? So podcasts are misunderstood a lot of times because I think people don't understand how much audio is being consumed every day. However, I'm sure not lost on any of you, if the ad in a podcast is some generic 30-second recording of a different voice than the host, no one here is converting. If the host mails it in because they just want to rip you off for a million pounds as the sponsor and they could give a shit and they just read it like it's a burden, you also are probably going to overpay.

10:52Gary Vaynerchuk:If the host is very clever and she or he is thinking long term about what they're building and they give it their all to that read and help convert that audience, it might be grossly underpriced. So I think podcasts for me is an incredible opportunity because people buy from people and podcast hosts, especially once humans have tremendous opportunities to convert their audience if they build something meaningful. I think it depends on how good they are at integrating the sale.

11:24Jon Evans:Makes sense. Now, you've been ahead on quite a few trends over the years. Start of 2026, what are you looking at with interest in terms of what you think is going to be hot?

11:33Gary Vaynerchuk:I think live social shopping is the most important conversation for anybody that sells any single product on earth. It is very clear that the West is now starting to have the early indications of following what's happened in China. It is a$600 billion GMB market in China. In the US, last year was incredibly important. Both Whatnot and TikTok went out the gates very hard. We've already seen Twitch. There's rumors of Meta. There's so many other people entering this space. So anyone here that sells a bar of soap or really cool pants or anything else in between needs to really focus on what's going on with live shopping.

12:17Gary Vaynerchuk:I think live social shopping will be a point of differentiation for the people that outflank their competitive set in a similar way to what social media was in 2015.

12:26Jon Evans:I'd love your perspective on the difference between the US and UK mentality. because I'm really having spent a lot of time in the U.S. as I do now, I'm really struck by the way we see business and the different mindset. What's your perspective on that?

12:40Gary Vaynerchuk:My perspective is it's a little overrated as a conversation point. Like, of course, I mean, there's always going to be, you know, stereotypes and generalizations. Of course, whatever. I mean, look, in the U.S. we have a state structure, right? Forget about the U.S. versus Europe or U.K. Within America, doing business in Florida versus New York versus California. There's so many things to that. Here's what I would say. I spend zero seconds on it. 0.0 seconds thinking about it. If I was an entrepreneur trying to build a business, I would think about it more. If I was UK-based and I had an opportunity to go to Silicon Valley or to the U.S., the U.S.

13:23Gary Vaynerchuk:laws for entrepreneurship and building tend to be a little bit more opportunistic than, let's say, parts of Europe. But again, still generalizations. There's unlimited opportunity. I will say the thing I do spend time on, which is why I'm here, is I really think there's a big difference in marketing. I think I am shocked and I say this respectfully and I actually don't think I haven't put in the homework to understand how deep or what the nuances are but my world which is how can you not be spending more working media dollars in social if you know how to do it which is invest in the mid funnel let the creative validate then put media behind it the opportunity in Europe specifically in the UK is extraordinary it's easier to win here than it is in America, because in America, I'm competing with Mr.

14:14Gary Vaynerchuk:Beast and Alex Earl and late stage, you know, venture capitalist startups. There's a lot of people that actually know what to do in the U.S. They tend to be human beings or VC-backed startups. The corporations in America don't know what to do either. But there's more competition for the feed in the U.S. on these seven platforms. Here, it's remarkably, remarkably sound. I think, you know, I take on some of that responsibility I think I could have been a better CEO for VaynerMedia for what we do here in the UK and in Europe in general over the last seven or eight years I don't feel like I've put enough effort or flag in the ground I feel over the last three four months we've put in the infrastructure in place to really start to put pressure on the market by delivering remarkable work so I think about that but I think there's a bigger Delta in the marketing industry than and there is in the startup community in Europe, specifically the UK, I think all the things that bug me to no end, which is the romance about bullshit that this industry loves is a seven out of 10 in the US.

15:22Gary Vaynerchuk:It is a 10 out of 10 here. We just continue to validate rewards, fake reports, and headlines in magazines as good work, and we're wasting an extraordinary amount of money, an extraordinary amount of money and production and working media in a world that does not exist. And I think it needs to change, and I'm incredibly motivated by it, so much so that I flew to Atlanta before a huge snowstorm in New York to get here this morning, shower quickly, and sit in front of all of you fine people.

15:56Jon Evans:That's real, actually. My producer can't get back to the UK because he's stuck in New York, so I know exactly what you mean. So, okay, you're a UK marketer. You're sat in this audience. What are the top two or three things you'll do with that insight you've just dropped there?

16:09Gary Vaynerchuk:It's pretty simple. It's incredibly shockingly simple. We live in a world right now where the mid-funnel is the biggest opportunity in marketing. And the mid-funnel is the way we define it is organic social media creative. I do not believe this room, and I'm generalizing, but I do not believe this room. And when I say this room, I'm talking about the market. I don't believe the market understands how profound what I'm about to say is, at least from one man's point of view. statement number one I think it is insane to spend one dollar of working media on creative that has not been validated in social there is no logic if you understood what's happening in Meta and ByteDance and Snap and YouTube and Google if you understood how these algorithms are written purely for relevance the thing that we've been chasing to measure our whole lives for a hundred years marketers like us the bane of our existence has been trying to understand the creative before it goes into market.

17:08Gary Vaynerchuk:Focus groups, fake reports, politics amongst seven important people in a room, technology that we've been sold by holding companies that's complete bullshit. We've been struggling with this deep knowledge that we know, which is, if the creative isn't right, we lost. So I think what I ask for a lot of you is take your hat off of being a corporate animal and understanding how your organization measures everything and put your human hat on and listen to it and understand it. There is literally no reason to waste marketing dollars anymore. We don't have to guess. And we should definitely not be posturing in boardrooms.

17:53Gary Vaynerchuk:Do we really still have the audacity to think our subjective opinion on a 30-second video or a picture is going to drive the business? every single brand in here's biggest issue is not awareness it's relevance and if you're small and you need awareness you can only get it through scaled relevance so what are we doing here

18:15Jon Evans:um avery where are we on time by the way just keeping i want to make sure we get lots of questions perfect all right i want to make sure you've all i'm sure you've got loads of questions

18:24Gary Vaynerchuk:i want to make sure you get a chance to we're getting dangerously close to 58 minutes yes i

18:28Jon Evans:I can't go back on my promise. Well, maybe one more question from me, and then let's get out to the audiences. You meet so many marketers all around the world, lots of very influential people. What are the traits of the most successful marketers that you come up against?

18:42Gary Vaynerchuk:Lack of losing their job. The lack of fear of losing their job is the number one thing that I see in someone who's doing a good job. You know, for a Fortune 5000 marketer, there's no one in this room, if they're in that size company, that isn't dealing with a company that has measurement wrong, has allocation of funds wrong. It doesn't exist right now. And so it takes real courage to be a good marketer in a big company right now. to be able to bring common sense and actually speak what you believe in in a boardroom when you know that that is not being rewarded or that's not how the system works takes a lot of courage and so you know we joke a lot at Vayner that like we only get called when shit's bad you know like people really don't actually want to you know it's profound that we've been able to build this company I've been selling something that nobody wants to buy for 15 years and so we're very grateful for the individuals we find along the way that know the truth of the consumer and are willing to fight for that in the face of the false cities of the corporation and it takes courage

20:04Jon Evans:that's spot on by the way the amount of CMOs I've met and the ones that are closest to their customer and don't fear Yeah, 100 % they're the two combinations. It's wild.

20:15Gary Vaynerchuk:I said this last week in an important meeting. By far, the people that believe in what we're doing over in Vaynerland are CFOs more than CMOs. By far. It's not even close. There's literally no CFO meeting that I don't have, which I'm doing more of lately because of this reality, that within the first 45 minutes, she or he's like, okay, yes, this. um we just have a lot of romance in cmo land i would argue that cmo land and i geez i'm very fortunate i'm incredibly close to many of the fortune 500 cmos and we cry about in c and i feel i'm closest to cmos i'm a marketer um we cry about like the lack of respect or the short tenures of the cmo and i remind some of my dearest friends people that went to my wedding like I remind them that it is their fault I mean it I think we need we need a recalibration of our industry we're losing credibility I spend most of my time with the boards of the companies that you work at we are losing credibility as marketers by showing up to these meetings with fake data we must destroy fake data in our industry and our industry is, if anything, great at creating fake data.

21:41Jon Evans:Although we're talking a lot about marketing, hiring is the biggest thing for me. Getting the best talent is the fuel of it all. You talk a lot about hiring and firing quickly, which I think is completely true, and I'm a big backer of it. You also talk about being kind. I'm wondering how you deal with the balance of those two things, especially when it's more down to talent than application and how you see that change from a day.

22:10Gary Vaynerchuk:There's many things there. So a lot of people hear my content around hire fast, fire fast, but they always skip the part that I also say promote fastest. Right? So like one of the ways that this whole system will work is if you also focus on when you're fortunate enough to hire someone good to start really building an actual relationship with them, interacting with them, speaking to them, moving them up as quickly as you can afford to. That's number one. Number two, I rely on the truth of my humanity. I just ranted for 20 minutes that subjectivity in marketing is our problem. Hiring and firing is completely subjective.