This One Shift Will Make or Break Your Brand in 2025 | GaryVee Advertising Week Interview

0:00Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Gary V Audio Experience. Today's episode is an in-depth interview that Gary did at Advertising Week, where he breaks down exactly what's working and what's broken in modern marketing. Gary shares highly tactical insights on why most creative fails in today's algorithm-driven world, how to actually use data to make better content, why organic social is the most underpriced attention in marketing right now, and how live shopping and AI influencers are rewriting the rules of consumer behavior. Let's get right into it. insights you're often looked to as a thought leader and an opinion people would trust where do you glean your insights from the consumer i think what's wild about how i do it and this probably has to do with some underlining dyslexia and how i learned and why i was such a bad student all all of it all of what i talk about is based on listening to actual human beings in real life at the airport and the store, at conferences like this, not for their observations of how they actually are interacting.

1:04Meaning, some people tell me this form of marketing, I had an executive tell me something about outdoor media while I was in a bus with them to an event where they looked at their phone the whole time and I was laughing about the hypocrisy because my point was, how could it be as valuable as it was 20 years ago when the phone is, so I watch people like crazy. I've always done that my whole life. I grew up at my dad's small liquor store and when I worked in that store, stocking shelves or standing behind the register, 100 % of my favorite part was watching a customer come in and trying to figure out why.

1:42It was in me. The curiosity was in me. So I read, I read comments and commentary and reactions. Like why are people upset about AI creative? from an ideology of like this is not right because the creator of this form of style is upset about. Like I try to, why, why, why, why? And so I got very fortunate. I used to do it in real life, but that was not so scalable. I was one human seeing what I saw. When the internet came, first it was bulletin boards. I lived on them. I read every single post on the three major wine bulletin boards in 1996 to 1999, every single post. and then when Twitter came, it completely changed the course of my career because I could read everything about everything about everything and back then, you're a youngster, back then, day one Twitter, when I was there, people weren't thinking about people watching them or what did it mean, so you were getting clean insights on who's popping in music and what flavors are delicious and what's getting out of fashion and who do people actually like or not like and that started the journey and so I get my insights from the actual consumer.

2:52I do a lot of social listening, a lot of internet listening, and a solid amount of human listening. I do a lot of dinners with 20 people debating things, gathering info. It sounds like you're constantly gathering data from a range of sources. How important is data to creativity and then implementing that into a marketing strategy? I think it's meaningful, especially in the era we're in now. I would say that social media, as we knew it, is no longer here. I think we're in the ear of interest media. I'm sure it's not lost on you given what you do that the algorithms now work that content that you're interested in comes to you not necessarily who you decided to follow.

3:33In that, there's a lot. So if you are ideological about creative needs to be a very artistic journey of intuition, guessing, feel, which by the way I like a lot of those things especially intuition. and you have complete disrespect and zero interest in looking at numbers, you're going to get caught in this era because creative now creates the reach. In this industry for the last 70 years, working media has been disguising bad creative. In the era we're about to go into, I believe working media is going to amplify good creative because for the first time in the history of this industry, we can measure good creative because creative doesn't reach people in these algorithms anymore unless people like them, like the content, which is the definition of good creative.

4:26Not who wins a can lion, not if you say that that was a good TV spot, not if I say I like that idea. The scaled consumer. And so I think data matters now. And I, by the way, this is interesting, I would say, especially because I'm a businessman who loves marketing, I actually am more art creative I actually more idea intuition I'm just not disrespectful to data and I definitely when people say data informed I think it's data contextualized to start ideation right I'm not letting math tell me what to do but I need to know context and I definitely need to know how the algorithms work because distribution is a very important part of our industry.

5:16When the radio was invented, that was the distribution and how you wrote copy for a live read as a radio host, that became the game of why somebody would buy Budweiser or whatever they were buying. When television became the distribution, we all had to learn how to make a 30 second video. The first commercials were all radio spots. It was a picture and it sounded like a radio and so I was fascinated by that. we are now in the era of social media and we need to know how to make pictures and videos that get actual views the creatives and the strategists in creative agencies who disrespect that have become dinosaurs with creativity and the importance of context how does that fit with the ethos and psyche of being social first and why social first i you know it so the first part of your question is for everything like right like like no matter what you do if you're trying to convey a message that is part of it whether you were writing a book right after the printing press was invented or whether a new social network starts tomorrow and i'm trying to figure out how to make it work there the reason it's different now in a social first environment is it now is the primary device and distribution center these seven or eight platforms linkedin YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, they have a staggering amount of the consumer's attention.

6:47And the way that works is different than television. Television worked where if you and I started an agency together in 1984, and we wanted to be the best creative agency of all time, we knew we had to write scripts for a 30 second video that would come in after people were watching a show, and we needed to win in that. today it is social and here's the difference you and i as a creative agency we could rely on him and him and her to spend media dollars to make sure it showed up there today when we make creative organic first we have to be at the merit of actually making creative that matters and oftentimes we don't have the ability to have the media hide our bad idea and even more importantly when we do because that happens all the time you can waste 10 million dollars on social like that make four pieces of content that you're guessing and spend 8 million amplifying it but you can see that it's bad and on television you couldn't and on billboards you couldn't and on newspapers you could you could see it a year later to measure the business results but it was all mucky and hard and that's why we have MMMs and all these things in our industry but that's why this distribution, and I will tell you a secret.

8:10That's why so many people don't want this distribution to win. It's too merit-based. Yeah, you can't hide from the numbers. You can't hide from the, and it's so fascinating. You can't hide from the truth of did humans like it. It scares the living shit out of creatives in our industry. I think creativity for so long has been subjective but the problem is with social as a platform is no longer strictly subjective it is objective you're getting the data and I would argue that everybody who loves creativity should be thrilled you know once they get over the hump of they can't disguise through the gift of gab I say this all the time to my contemporaries I'm like I would have loved the 60s me?

9:01with my gift of gab? over a cocktail in the middle of the day? I'd have the biggest agent. I would make Don Draper look like crap. Once you get over that it's not that anymore, a funny thing happens. You actually get more creative. Do you know how many creatives are frustrated by their account people change it, the client changes it, when they give it to a production company they don't make exactly what they thought, then you get a fancy director who makes commercials and they add their two, and by the end of the time it comes out, it's not theirs. I actually encourage creatives to get over the fear and realize this is the golden era of creativity.

9:40It really genuinely is. Some of the stuff that we're doing at Vayner would have never been approved if it was in a TV format. And some of it's been the most impactful work that that brand's ever felt because when you get 20 million organic views, people saw it. People saw it. You also get the consumer insights from all the comments. there's a lot to this this industry likes to look at social down here it is way up here so a two-part question why is organic social important and is it under threat from reduced fact checking on social media um first part social organic is so important because it can mitigate the risk that has always been in for the last 70 years of marketing, which is the creative variable.

10:31Period. I'd like to think, I'm now looking at camera, I'd like to think you understand what I said. I'll say it one more time in a different way. It allows us to see what consumers actually like, and then we can make informed decisions to level that up into campaign work or amplify it itself through media, and that drives more business results than every other thing we do in advertising. Is it at risk for lack of fact checking? I would tell you that most of the stuff that is going on in mainstream media is become so politicized that the level of trust on the end consumer of what they're seeing on the left or right news or on all the websites where, what, are you gonna buy banner?

11:17Like, what happens with the money? Are you gonna buy banner ads on websites? Like, what, are you gonna buy commercials on BBC or NBC or CBS or Fox News? like I it's even funny when you just ask that question it's funny how hot the topic of like fake news and social was it's almost like everything's fucking fake which is devastating right that and by the way I actually have an optimistic view on this I actually think humans now have to critically think which I actually think like you know it is one step backwards two steps forward I've always thought in 10-15 years there's a good to a lot of what has happened I don't see any indication that it's at risk but I will say something that I'd like you to know I am not overtly passionate about social media I'm just obsessed with where people's attention is today if tomorrow Zucks comes out with the glasses and we all leave the phone right that would change distribution I'm not crying I'm actually pumped because I know it's going to take people time to figure out what works that's a strength of mine I've been good at historically I'd like to think I'm not washed up yet of moving fast and understanding the context of distribution of the creative and media but if I was doing this interview with you in 2000 I would be talking about search the way I would talk about social or email marketing I have no romance to where the consumer decides to give its attention I just have no romance to what they used to give their attention to and I think that's a big scarlet letter of our industry yeah you're just a realist that's adapted to the times?

12:54Because I got taught marketing through the fear of not having it work for my family business, I didn't come up academia, I didn't come up agency or brand marketing training. I came up of this has to work. And I also had, I got very lucky, I didn't realize this until maybe even five years ago. I also knew there was going to be a day I was going to leave my dad's business because it was his business. And I was doing everything for him. and I was getting paid very little which I have feelings about dad and you know but I love my parents so much and I wanted to leave it in good shape so I was doing something that it was so much smarter than I realized it's what everybody wants for me here in Adland I was driving sales while building brand I knew that my dad was gonna measure everything I did by did the cash register get the money and I don't know if you can see this but I'm getting a lot of goosebumps I just don't innately I understood I was gonna leave and I had to build Wine Library I changed my dad's store name to Wine Library and I built Wine Library and it transpired when I left the business it declined but it didn't collapse and that was because the brand had value and that's what everyone's asking of me they want their numbers quarterly these are all fortune 500 companies that need to report but they do want to build brand and I think that really helped me And to your point, I'm a realist because I know what marketing is supposed to do.

14:23Not be an outlet for my below average creativity that I wasn't good enough to go to Hollywood and do the big boy game. It's a function to drive a business. And I keep that very real. So slightly moving on, are you excited about the rise of social shopping? And who should brands be learning from? I'm obsessed. So this is always funny. I would, I like to, I'm glad I'm getting to say this on camera. I get too much credit for predicting things. I just talk about things that have happened, right? I'm just a big fan of what's actually happened. What I'm about to talk about has been going on in China for 10 years.

15:11The Chinification, the QVCification, the East coming to the West is happening with this. Live social shopping is the next frontier for social media in Europe, in the US, in LATAM. TikTok shop, whatnot, is an app that has completely exploded as an independent. I can't imagine that Zucks and Meta are sitting around and saying, yeah, let them have all that money. So I think you'll see Google and Meta get into the game, Twitter X. Brands can easily look at this. if they literally Google or GPT, show me 10 examples of people that are winning a live, you know who's done a great job? Abercrombie & Fitch has resurrected their business on the back of TikTok affiliate and live shopping.

16:00So I'm very passionate about it. I have a separate business called VFriends, which is my attempt to build a Pokemon, Marvel, Disney, Sesame Street world. And it's super creative and fun. I'm building my whole business on live social shopping. selling trading cards, collectible pins, building community. There's a concept I have called commerce-tainment. I'm seeing a behavior in these live shopping where I think people are buying things in a subconscious form of a tip for the entertainment they're getting. You know how you and I would pay 150 bucks to go see a comedy show because it's an entertainment.

16:37I think people are getting some of those elements in live shopping so I'm obsessed with live shopping. Do you think the revenue to be had there is through volume? Are people making these purchases because they are low risk? That's a great question. I would say yes-ish. I'm going to be overly transparent. I bought a$20 ,000 trading card last night on live social shopping on the way to the airport. That is true. so one of the first movers in live social shopping in Europe and America is the collectible space and those are big ticket items I've watched people buy a$45 ,000 comic book on live shopping but I think your point's well taken for our fortune 500 set I do think that they are it's more common to buy an$85 hoodie or a$15 nightlight than let's say a$500 ,000 ring however I do predict comfortably that this will go through the same thing that social media did when I was there in 2007, 8, 9 everyone's yeah but will people buy expensive stuff and I don't think it's lost on anyone there are people who bought million dollar watches on one post on Instagram and again this is where I'm not guessing in China there's a handbag lady who's doing 8 million dollars a show selling 40 ,000 dollar handbags one second at a time So yeah, I think people buy big ticket items on this.

18:07What sets Advertising Week apart from other industry events and why do you think it's a must-determined? There are many events, actually that's not fair. One of the great things about Advertising Week is it's one of the few events that actually gets the entire industry together, especially at the highest levels. But of those events, which are few and far in between and worth the cost of admission for anyone who's thinking about going to this, it stands out in the caliber of the amount of people at the event. Just the C-suite leaders from brands, from agencies the serendipity, the business development if I'm being honest a lot of you should go just to get a new job.

18:47There's business to be had and also this is important I do feel that what I've always felt from this brand and I highly appreciate this because I associate with it there's always optimism. even when there's been issues and challenges in the industry there's always a level of like offense and hope and optimism that i'm very attracted to it's what gets me into this seat with you right now for you personally attending what do you look to get out of advertising there's a lot of things that go through my mind when i go to advertising week first serendipity to be honest you know just even walking in between these interviews somebody saying hello or me saying hello to somebody that used to work for us, catching up.

19:30You know, obviously, at this point in my career, I have enough of a presence and awareness and notoriety that people may come up and want to have a conversation with me, which is always business development or karma. For me, both are actually, it's, I'm so grateful for how I was parented. It is equally exciting to me if somebody comes up to me out here saying, I want to give you our money and work with you as it is saying, hey, can you quickly make a selfie video for my nephew? He's a big fan. Or hey, can you get me a job at this company that you're an investor in? So these kind of events really work for me.

20:09And then, you know, I like sharing my subjective, potentially wrong, occasionally right points of view on our industry, what's happening in marketing, the state of the union. and I like sharing, you know, I don't hold our company's secrets in. I like being part of this community. You know, it's been a journey for me. I was very much an outsider and a loud one and was very convicted in something most people didn't believe in. So 15 years in, events like this are enjoyable because of the journey, you know? Just fruitful conversations, fruitful opportunities and honestly learning. You know, as much as I love yapping, I would tell you that most of my yapping comes from a lot of listening before I decide to yap so listening to people's different points of view I'm actually always scared to be delusional or high on my own supply so listening to other talks or things in the hallway you know I like changing my mind and an event of this caliber often is a place that begins the seed of me changing my mind Perfect I think it's refreshing to hear about not being afraid to be wrong and willing to learn and share those experiences.

21:23I would argue that I'm predominantly wrong and occasionally right. You know, I think it's a game of maybe and adjusting. I think adaptability is important. I'm not unaware of what's happened in my career. I know that people, you know, look to me. I've got a good track record of being right. It's because I actually don't talk about a lot of things. I spend so much time before I get to a conclusion and I spend almost all of it on the counterpoint. Currently I'm infatuated with AI influencers, right? Influencers that are not real. I believe it's gonna be a very big market. Almost all of the reading and thinking I'm doing right now is the social pushback against fake people but I'm also 49 now.

22:14I remember when online dating was taboo and humans looked at that very negatively. I'm also a historian. I know when electricity was considered demons and humans thought electricity should not go in people's homes, we should continue to use candles. So, you know, I think there's a lot of pride in saying I'm sorry or I was wrong. I don't want to do it. I think it could hurt your credibility. I think you could suffer reputational value if you're consistently wrong. And things also change. a lot of times, Gary, you said this. I'm like, yes, in 2016, when this other thing didn't exist. So, yeah, I think humility is not very obvious in the way that I communicate, but I think the people closest to me know that that tends to be one of my strengths.