Why IRL Experiences Matter More than Ever

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Hey everybody, it's Gary Vaynerchuk, Marketing for the Now, CAN 2026. And this wonderful lady to the right of me is one of the great marketers in the world and she is about to drop the most wisdom ever dropped by a marketer ever. Please my dear, tell the audience who you are and what you do. Thanks so much Gary for that introduction. Of course. I hope I live up to it. To the hype? Yeah, I'm Laura Balache and I am the CMO of Adobe. There's so much I want to go to. Before, you know, this is the can edition. Before we go into the AI of it all or all the random cliche things that everyone's talking about and obviously being at the forefront of Adobe, you have a front row seat to both sides of the equation.

0:48But any early observations, we're now kind of in it, we're in the eye of the storm, it's midweek in can. Has anything surprised you on the chatter at the event has there been a theme? What are your kind of hot takes observations? Yeah, I think there's a couple things that have surprised me is in the beginning with AI there was a lot of trepidation so and I'm really seeing we've gone from fear to competence. I'm also very optimistic about AI so that's probably my bias there. But second, experience maxing. So much of IRL in real life is mattering more than ever, and it's just, and again, it ends up on the phones and becomes a virus.

1:38But experience maxing has been a big takeaway, because that's what can is too. First of all, the fact that you're using maxing just continues to show how cool you are. But it's funny, just to piggyback for everybody who's watching, because I know this will be on LinkedIn and Substack and all that, but I couldn't agree more. We've got the farm on it. Our Vayner is now fully integrated as an experiential agency that does analog IRL work as a production day for social. 100%. So you're getting social creative production as an added value, kind of like when Jason used to, and now train Follow Me Around the World, I'm living my life, but I'm vlogging because it's content for social.

2:15It's just all in one fall loop. I agree, that has been a huge theme. Oh, 100%. And it is visceral when you're here, right? Because for me, I'm marketing from individuals to creators to aspiring creators, everybody's a creator today, all the way to the biggest enterprises in the world. And they're all here. Technologists are here. But it's actually just the in-life connection that is, people are craving it. And so it matters that it does go digital. You know, all those flowers I gave you up front were grounded in just my admiration for your career. What do you think is different today in this space or this week than let's say five or ten years ago?

3:00Yeah, and at this point in my career, it's all pattern recognition that I pull from because you always have an experience that may be totally orthogonal to what you're experiencing, but there's a nugget there. This is seismic shift. Full stop. It is profound. faster than the previous ships from on-prem to cloud, desktop to mobile. What I think is so profound and is so different, and we've talked about it, but now it becomes more real than ever, is brand. Yes. Brand informed by humans and just insight. And the human matters more than ever because of the empathy and the connection. and you're gonna hear that a lot but I really believe that and this is coming from a company that is creating tools that are AI driven and we are still saying well that's because at end scale for all the marketers that are watching you remember six, seven years ago big data, big data, big data and everyone thought that big data internet of things internet of things I mean there's a million of them but big data really played out here was the thing that most people didn't anticipate at scale it became a commodity not an advantage like I don't know what everyone's thinking that's watching on the other side of the screen.

4:19Over the next half decade, the tools will get commoditized. The humans, how they use them, will be the variable. It's always been like that. 100%. And look, the tools take all the repetitive tasks and all of the things out. When we hire creatives, they don't say, I really want to resize all the assets. We have 151 static assets across the Palais. We have 170 films, videos. There's, you know, when you add up the amount of aspect ratios change, it was like over 200. That's all done by Firefly. It's all done by machines now. We have our AI Firefly that, all in one studio that did it. But the creators are now energized by that.

5:10Yes, of course, because Firefly is doing all the things that they don't want to be doing so they can do all the art. And what was in their mind's eye is now out. Yeah, that's huge. It's just so 100%. Agreed. Go in a different direction for me here. What about kind of the fears or the trepidation? Where do you see people on their back foot? Is it Mark Homs? Is it creative directors who think AI is going to take? What do you sense to really allow people to be thinking about it more thoughtfully knowing the vast amount of marketers that watch this. Yeah, without a doubt, we have found that our creative group, our internal creative studio group, was one of the first to kind of have trepidation about our own AI-driven tools.

6:00What does it mean for me? Yeah, because a lot of them came to us, they loved the craft, they'd been using Photoshop as an example all their lives, the layers, the filters, the radiation the pixels they love that and so the idea that a machine would do that like there is this fear that it's going to take my job away of course and that's human and we have to respect that so the the message has been in lean in try it then they start to see the automated tasks go away and they love it but but we have to respect that and we also do encourage you know we have a digital academy that we offer for free for everybody yep but we want them to use that and and we want them just to try because it's human nature.

6:42Well, it's funny. I think a history lesson would help a lot of people. I had one person on my team at Vayner, very concerned early on, and I said to her, I'm like, you do know that Photoshop is a fairly new invention. I literally Googled for her in the room, old forum discussions where people were mad about Photoshop. I love that. And so I was like, you do know this is like, it's like this hyperbole. Yes. That the machines are going to take everyone's job is so misunderstood. Exactly. But what is very clear, just like people that were great at Photoshop, outflanked people that were doing it on old Microsoft products or on paper, Yeah.

7:29People that know how to use Firefly is your problem, not Firefly. Yeah, and look, now we do have an agentic layer Firefly AI assistant that sits across all the tools, Illustrator, Photoshop. So for me, I never learned layers on Photoshop. That's why I like to hang out with creatives because I love the stuff, but it was too... It was above your pay grade. Yeah, it was too complicated for me. Yeah, same. Totally. And so now I actually can say I can use Photoshop because it has the prompt that allows me to then ideate. And so, but if I have one of those people who really just wants to have the Photoshop that they knew, they can use all the functionality and we keep adding fabulous features to it.

8:15I still create with paper and markers. Yes. You're allowed. Yes. Yes. And for sure. And look, this is a democratization moment. No question. And again, we have to have optimism because optimism begets optimism. It's also historically correct. 100%. Like if you look at history, all the pessimism of profound technologies washes away because convenience is king, evolution is the flight of man, it is what it is. And that leads me to a good last question. A lot, and I mean a lot, of young marketers watch this show. There are so many individuals, I'm sure, especially young women that are watching this, who deeply admire you, want to be you one day.

9:02as you sit at the highest levels of one of the biggest companies in the world, what have you learned in your career and what nugget or two could you tell an associate brand manager that's watching this on LinkedIn right now who dreams to be you one day, what should she be thinking about? Oh, be a learner, be curious. It's all about grit and resilience and tenacity. I had so many footfalls in my career I went sideways I went down to go up to gather more tools in my toolkit and so jungle gym around jungle gym in your career and I honestly never give up like if you want it get it and never get you're gonna have to cause once you give up it's actually over yeah and honestly I can tell you like this my career was not up and to the right linearly well you you did something and you mentioned it I want everyone to hear this I'm gonna double click on it most people in corporate America marketing do not have the humility to take a job at a lower title to take one step backwards for three steps forward and it is often something so many should do because the org or a risky job that everyone in the hallways is like why'd you do that?

10:20she took that job but it was high beta high return and even if it was it's a two way door I walk through it I walk back through it you know I'll go to the next thing so yes sorry to interrupt No, no, I'm sorry. I'm just jamming. It's too fun. Any last final thoughts? Just awesome to talk to you. Thank you. It's so good to see you. Great to see you too. Do the experience maxing that we were just talking about with you and I right now. So thanks, Karen. Thank you. Bye, everyone. We'll see you next time. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded.

10:53I appreciate your attention. And thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.