The Next Big Marketing Trend For 2026

0:00Before you go to the podcast, I've got a big announcement. I know several years ago, a lot of you bought 12 books of 12 and a half to get the NFT, the book games NFT. I also know that a lot of people have dropped off on their journey with VFriends, which is a massive mistake. Because what we're doing on Burn Island and what we're doing on base with book games is remarkable. So you need to go to vfriends.com slash old books with an S. You will go to that landing page and we will help you explain if you are trying to figure out where your NFTs are, how to bring them over to the website, and how to start activating them so that you can start using them for all the incredible exchanges and draws and raffles and experiences that we're doing for people that actually own the book games.

0:41So please go to vfriends.com slash old books where you can start your journey on reactivating your book games journey. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. One of the biggest marketing opportunities that most people are sleeping on in 2026 and beyond is using collectibles and collectible strategy to enhance the relationship with their current consumers, opening up new audiences, and finding new revenue streams. And what's most exciting is whether you're a mom and pop single creator or one of the Fortune 50 and everybody in between, PE backed, VC backed, or listed on the New York Stock Exchange, this matters to you.

1:21And this isn't new. For example, in the 1990s, Capri Sun put Nickelodeon trading cards in package to drive sales to be relevant to their consumer. Hostess, yes, the cupcakes, in the 70s were putting baseball and sports cards in their packaging to sell cupcakes and now some sell for thousands of dollars. Local breweries, big shout out to my dad, Liquor Store Days, have teamed up with artists, local sports teams, and other IP to create limited edition bottles and cans, many that sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars on eBay today. And my brother AJ and I in the late 90s and the early 2000s were scouring every garage sale and flea market for Starbucks mugs because their limited edition local mugs sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars on all the collectible sites today and have drove repeat business for their locations.

2:11But here's the difference in 26 because I can give you another thousand examples like I just did. Collectibles, collecting, is now joining the lifestyle ecosystem that music, fashion, sports, food and travel sit in. Collectibles as a lifestyle genre is now going from the minor leagues to the major leagues of the other big ones and that will have massive, massive impact on every consumer brand in the world. Reason number one, communication and the way humans communicate. Why did fashion get big? Over the history of the last centuries, we use what we wear to communicate to others. Communication's most misunderstood thing that humans do.

2:51We need it. We thrive for it. It's why social work and it's why fashion works. When you wear a certain pair of sneakers and someone sees that that's in the know, if you know, you know, they give you the little hat tip, the little wink. When a woman sees someone walk by with a very rare handbag, they both know. Why do we wear our things? Why am I wearing this hat? Literally every piece of clothes you wear. Why do we post where we vacation? Why did we want Mercedes-Benz and BMW cars when we drive around? We've been badging for communication. Why do people put bumper stickers like proud mom of a straight A student?

3:25What are we doing? We're peacocking. We're communicating. Often around insecurities, which is another topic for another video, but occasionally around tribalism and fandom. Why do I wear Jets stuff? Because I want to connect with my other Jets communities. Why does everybody go to Comic Cons? Because nerds fucking unite. Collectibles is the new stature. It's the new thing. like paintings in a home, your sports card collection, your rare toy, your little boo-boo hanging on your bag. Collectibles are now a communication engine the way that automobiles, art, and fashion have been. Collectibles has now joined.

4:05Let's just use examples. If you're Delta and if for a month I knew because you communicated through your marketing, predominantly social, that if you book a first class airline ticket, you get this limited edition DVD from Bon Jovi that's a rare collectible and only the first 10 ,000 are sold. And then when I go and I get to my seat and it's there for that month or that week, there's also some content from Bon Jovi on the first class video play. You're starting to build experience. You're giving people differentiation. As someone who flies every airline because I'm always booked by the people that have me speaking, this becomes a reason why I choose Delta.

4:42Maybe I'm a Bon Jovi fan, maybe I'm not. But this is where I'm going, everyone. the fact that I know there's a collectible and everybody's so into this flip life or sharing what they have that no one else has or you just want to collect it and you are like me, a collector because so many people are. In fact, leave a comment of what you collect in here. Watch how many different things there are in there. Anyway, that becomes an example. Now that's an airline. What about if you are a cereal? Remember the toys when we were kids? What if you are a commodity? A deodorant, a shampoo, a razor, a band-aid, a Vaseline?

5:16a rice, a pepper, a cupcake, a bag of apples. You start adding collectibles inside these packages. You are both getting the affinity of people that collect Pokemon, VFriends, He-Man, Labubus, Hello Kitty, Lisa Frank Art. You're getting that, but you're also getting, and this is the key, because before we're like, oh, we're gonna tap into the IP of Pokemon and get Pokemon people to eat our candy. you're now getting collectors. For example, I'm a little collector of Pokemon. It is not my driver, but if I knew in an aisle that I'm getting a collectible Pokemon sticker and buying this cereal versus that cereal, that becomes a differentiation for trial.

6:01Now, I might have never had that cereal before, but I got it for the Pokemon, but when I pour that cereal and eat it, notwithstanding people buying a bunch and just throwing away the product for the collectible, yes, there's some of that, and don't get caught up on that. But if I try that cereal, I'm like, wait a minute, I like this cereal. Now I've used collectible as a trial lever to create that. I know this happened quite a bit in the 50s, 60s, 70s and somewhere around the 80s and 90s and really the 90s and definitely into the 2000s over the last 25 years. We've gotten too academic and fancy in marketing and we've looked at it as like cheesy tchotchka when in reality, it is now the biggest opportunity for anyone selling something to attach themselves to a collectible to widen it and especially if they're a brand that understands they can do many different things and it's not just one niche.

6:46So here's a collectible for moms on the coast and here's a collectible for youth in middle America and here's people that are into skateboarding and here are people into cooking and you become a brand that's fully collectible oriented similar to the marketing I push which it needs to be relevant to as many different consumer segmentations. Collectibles is an overlay to bring consideration and affinity into your product is a massive opportunity. Warning, warning, warning. here's what I'm worried about. No bullshit QR code scratch, redeem, all that friction you guys create. Invest in the cogs, the cost of goods.

7:20Put the product in, make it easy. Ulta Beauty has a limited edition collectible beauty thing like at the store, in the bag. All of you get cute with this. You're trying to drive down the costs. Meanwhile, you're happy to waste a ton of money on bullshit television or all this other random stuff. Like make it easy for the consumer to get the collectible. I don't want to see QR codes. I don't want to see passcodes, I don't want to see scratch off and get the code. Fuck the friction, make it easy, let them get the thing. Next, why is this another huge opportunity now and not before? Have you heard about interest media?

7:54Interest media is the actual term we should be changing social media to. All of you know, now in your feed is things you're into, not who you follow as much. It's evolving. So, play with me here. You make a deal with Tony Hawk and you do a limited edition figurine of Tony Hawk, there's 50 different ones to collect and it's in your box because you're trying to get that 50-year-old skater, surfer culture, especially on the West Coast, and Tony Hawk is of that age, like the 50-year-old, but you're also trying to get some of the 18-year-olds that look at him as a legend, blah, blah, blah. For whatever reason, Tony Hawk's the right person.

8:28You make 20 of them, they're limited edition, some have his hat on, limited edition, the gold version. You got the little figurines in it, right? Here's why it's important. When you do your marketing on social, like hey we sell butter but you can get the Tony Hawk thing in there literally people that are into Tony Hawk and skateboarding will see that content you are using marketers pay attention you are using the creative collectible overlay as an opportunity to create relevance and interest in your product and awareness in your product because the algorithms on social media actually know to put that content when you post it organically in front of people who have a high propensity of eating butter or liking Tony Hawk or skateboarding or the X Games from ESPN.

9:15That is insane. Using the collectible campaign strategy to get to relevance to more consumer segmentations, to get consideration, to double down on heavy users or audiences you've never reached before. Wow. I might not over-index to non-entrepreneurial expecting moms, right? So if you're non-entrepreneurial, expecting mom, maybe Gary Vee isn't your number one influencer. I think we can all agree with that. If I make a diaper of high quality and have a boo-boo-like collectible there, that is gonna put me in front of those people. That is like a personal brand. I'm limited. When you're Pepsi, when you're Procter & Gamble, when you're a clothing brand, when you're Reebok, this is a huge opportunity.

10:00So the social media era going into the interest media and allowing you to reach people that care about the IP, the collectible, that don't know you and don't follow you because of how social works compounds this massive opportunity of using collectibles and that affinity to drive purchase intent and trial. So why is this all happening? It's called the internet. eBay did in the late 90s and got me into this stuff, but now StockX, live shopping, whatnot, Fanatics Live, eBay Live, content at scale in social media, YouTube channels breaking on trading cards and comic books, the boo-boo influencers wearing something and blowing things out.

10:37The landscape of flipping has changed. So many of you, and put it up here team, the 2017 Flip Challenge. Give me, team, give me nine to 10 good seconds of this little commercial break. Watch this 2017 Flip Challenge. That's right, nine years ago. I have this really interesting 2017 challenge. It is my belief that everybody has a ton of tchotchkes, ton of former clothes, ton of electronics, iPhone 4 sitting in your closet, a Ram man. Here's my big belief. My big belief is this, my friends, the 2017 Flip Challenge is this. I believe that if you amass the hours that you allocate to, you know, an iPhone game for three hours here, to when you're on the bus commuting for an hour instead of just reading, but if you want the$21 ,000 that I think you'll get at the end of the year.

11:24Alright, so what I saw in that opportunity was people could take advantage of people not realizing how easy it was to buy and resell Flip Life. That's what's going on now on steroids. Like with live shopping now where all of you can literally do a show from your house and do a virtual garage sale and just ship, ship, ship, ship, ship. Like the markets are there, the maturity of eBay and now soon with eBay Live. Twitch, one of the most important live streaming channels, now has a live shopping thing that they just launched with Health Cosmetics, big shout out to them. This is massive stuff, the friction.

11:53My poor brother when he was 18, 20 years ago, had to take a digital camera, take out the disc, put it into his desktop, all this stuff. Now with AI and a phone, you can list something on eBay in what, I don't know, four seconds? Lack of friction, technology scaled, liquidity, so much demand for collectibles. Ugh, what an opportunity. All right, let's now go into a lightning round of like, for instance, because I think this will help. I know if I was watching this video, that's how I would learn. Let's go into for instance, team. Voice of God, please. John Deere wants to reach millennial home buyers who romanticize farm life and I'm blue collar today.

12:28Yeah, I mean, here's what I'm doing in this scenario. I'm either going to, first of all, John Deere itself, their caps and everything is collectible. If I'm trying to reach that world, I'm probably going to a couple country singers making a limited edition cassette because the cassette becomes the collectible. And I probably make, you know, 100 ,000 limited edition cassettes in a pack. It's like a trading cards. There's the regular cassette. There's 1 ,000 that are silver. There's 100 that are gold. There's one that's platinum and signed by the artist that I bring in, the country artist that I bring in.

12:57that country artist with that gold one also will let you come backstage and see them front row at a concert and then i market the living shit out of it a small local gym in austin texas that wants to reach older gen z that currently go to larger chains like plant fix you know this one's pretty fun i probably go to five fitness influencers i dm them national ones say hey i want to make a sticker with you on it like literally a sticker uh with you on it and what i want to do is this is literally the DM I sent to thousands of influencers on Instagram, probably 100 ,000 to 500 ,000 followers, because if they're too big, they're not even going to look.

13:32That's the range. If there's some potentially big fitness influencers that live in Austin, Texas, that's even better, because you can do an in-gym appearance. But you do a little sticker pack, cost you less than a buck to make a pack with the influencers on it, and basically reach out to them, pay them a couple bucks to do a couple of autos, and sell a a pack of stickers of fitness influencers exclusively you get for free. If you sign up in our gym, you get a box of these influencers. And by the way, if you sign up for the membership and you get this free box, also all five influencers in three months are gonna be part of a stream, a live Zoom, and come in and you get one hour Q &A with these five influencers, get their collectible.

14:11What happens in that scenario is the influencers are flattered because they only have 300 ,000. Now they have a collectible sticker and autographs that sell on eBay. They also are excited because they're building their brand through your marketing because now you are running that video to people within a 10 mile radius over and over and over and you're pounding that local area. You turn these influence, these business influencers into celebrities because they have a collectible sticker and packs and that's what I would do there. Let's say J.Crew wants to reach Gen Z customers on the West Coast interested in quiet luxury.

14:42For that to me, I think what J.Crew's doing in that scenario is probably making a limited edition live social shopping collectible product. Like whether it's a t-shirt or a handkerchief or shorts. They can pick any item. I'd probably go with a quiet luxury influencer to be live on TikTok shop or whatnot or eBay live. And really just do a thousand units. Film a live shopping show. Sell those thousand out. but then clip all the clips from the show and use it for my performance marketing to build a halo effect to all the other products that J.Crew sells. So you only sold 1 ,000 of that limited edition or 10 ,000 of that limited edition item but the creative from that live show is giving you a halo effect to make J.Crew cooler to quiet luxury enthusiasts across all their products.

15:27A local hair salon in LA wants to expand and we shouldn't see men in the area that are interested in trendy haircuts. Yeah, I mean on that one I probably go with like a high school football star in the California area who a guy like me, Gary, would see that and be like, oh crap, that kid's gonna be good one day. This collectible is actually gonna be their rookie card, like this weird rookie card from a hair salon. So again, a card, a sticker, a comic book. You could go that route. You could go a comic book with a trendy barber, Vic Blenz. You could do something with. There's just a lot of things where you're doing NIL, IP, collectible item, and then you're incentivizing behavior.

16:04Come and get a haircut here or do a punch card. come and get three haircuts here and by the third time, we give you the collectible. Again, what people are doing there is they want the collectible. You're building an affinity. Whatever content you put there, whether you use an, you know, again, if you use a famous IP like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Spongebob or Doug from Nickelodeon, it's expensive. So you want to go to humans, influencers, emerging athletes, retired athletes. Notice how I didn't go in the middle. I didn't go with a current player like Otani because it's millions and they're probably Fanatics exclusive.

16:33I'm going with a retired player, James Worthy, or a high school player. You're playing on the edges, creating a collectible, and you're getting people who are into this collectible thing. They want the collectible or they want to flip the collectible. That's the key understanding to all these random pitching from my hip ideas that I'm making in this video. Chevrolet wants to reach road trip enthusiasts in SoCal, Texas, and Arizona. I'm probably going with a car influencer from Southern, you know, the Southwest. And I'm probably doing something where I'm signing a deal with that person to do eight appearances at tier three, like Chevy, you know, car lots, and got probably 500 collectible items.

17:16In this scenario, road trip, maybe I would do a throwback old map. Remember maps? Like people collect those, like the old road maps. I'd probably do a retro roadmap with a car enthusiast influencer. First 500 people that show up to our lots, I'd probably get someone who's really emerging who'd be willing to do eight to 16 appearances, pay him like 100K, like emerging, obviously not a big dog, and make these limited edition roadmaps, like the old maps, 500 per location. First 500 people that show up get an autograph map. He'll autograph it with you. What that's doing is why would somebody, like think about it, if I run that ad in a 10 mile radius, five mile radius of those car dealerships, the 16, the people that are gonna go and wait in line for 45 minutes really care about this culture.

18:00They care about that road rules, this kind of like Winnebago cross country culture. So this influencer, notice what I'm doing, I'm putting a personality there, is gonna mean something to them. Otherwise, if it's just me, Gary, and I just wanna get something for free that's free, and I can sell it on eBay for 20, 40 bucks, that 40 minute time is gonna make me go, I'm not doing that. So you're getting very deep enthusiasts, and while everyone's in line, you're reinforcing the Chevy brand to them. That's my random idea for that one. Retro roadmap autographed by influencer in road trip culture. every influencer exists road trip culture tattoos kung fu making mushroom barley soup influencers exist nil of emerging influencer or or retired used to be iconic and they're a good price play on the edges physical items comic books roadmaps magnets coins and social media marketing within the awareness both organic and paid that's the framework you just heard for the last few minutes.

18:58I hope this inspired someone to understand that as we go into 27, 28, 29, 30, collecting is continuing to grow. Every Fortune 500 company should worry about this. And every small business, local pizza shop, hairdresser, really think it's harder for you, less resources, might be a distraction, but it's worth flirting with because once you learn, you learn. See ya. Big announcement. As you probably heard at this point, because I had John from Stan on the show, I am an investor advisor to an incredible startup called Stan, stan.store. I'm sending you right now to garyvee.com, garyvee.com slash stan.

19:38Go check this out. We've done a Gary V. Stan Store challenge, which actually has a weekly call with me. This is built for everyone who's been affected, honestly, by my overall content. The tech stack, all these features and the minimal costs per month that Stan Store has built is really the tool that was needed for this world that I envisioned when I wrote Crush It, when I wrote Crushing It, and this overall thing I'm thinking a lot about lately, which is the individual empire, right? This creator entrepreneur slash entrepreneur creator economy that I think is going to eat up the oxygen, very honestly, the thing that so many of you want in your life, and the reason so many of you are not there yet is you've got the strategy for me, you've got the ambition within yourself but you don't have the tools for you to fully maximize it and I believe you can find that at Stan store Stan dot store but specifically I want you to sign up for it through my challenge because I want to get access with you and plus there's a bunch of cool things so if you want to go see those cool things go to Gary V dot com slash Stan s-t-a-n