Why Most Businesses Need a Podcast More Than Ever

0:00The number one thing that I would be investing in would be organic social media creative. Across the globe today, no matter what market all of you are marketing towards, the six to seven social media platforms that dominate the attention of who you're trying to reach and all of that, right? Young, entrepreneurial males who have a high propensity to play what you're doing, all the way to seasoned gamblers and gamers who might be in their 60s and 70s who grew up preferring casino life because this didn't exist and everybody in between, all of them, live within their phone. All of them. This is the production value that you need for your content.

0:48The only reason someone who's going to spend$10 million in marketing next year will lose to somebody else that's going to spend a million, the only reason is because the$1 million person invests aggressively into organic social media. Whoever in this room makes the most amount of social media posts for the least amount of cost and when something does well and gets a lot of views, then they spend media to convert that into a CAC and LTV and ROAS ad. Spending no media doing what you were accustomed to doing in A-B testing and digital and social will win 2026. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

1:34I'm really excited to be here because the timing of me being here for your industry and how it cross sections with what I do for a living, which is marketing, is perfect timing. And the reason I say that is I'm sure as I did my homework on who's gonna be at this event and what kind of companies. I'm sure it's not lost on a lot of you, especially if you've been in business for over five years that the marketing landscape has changed and more importantly, if we're being incredibly specific to your industry within Europe, when you start getting into the restrictions and the changes we've seen in Meta and Google, were really at a very important inflection point for a lot of businesses in here.

2:29Basically what I've done my whole career going back to the late 90s was trying to understand where the most attention was for the customer that I was looking for. You're looking for players, gamblers. I was looking for people that drank wine which is why it's always fun to be in Portugal because I've always thought Portuguese red wines were the most underpriced wines in the world. Fun fact real quick, I once got a medal from this incredible country because I was the loudest voice in 2007 in America about Portuguese red wine. So I feel very at home right now, so thank you for having me. When I was building my father's liquor store into a wine e-commerce business in 1997, 98, 99, what I recognized was my competitors were doing newspaper ads and sending catalogs in the mail and I outflanked everybody by doing email.

3:27Email was free, which I thought was crazy. I know there's a lot of youngsters in here, but from some of you that have gray hairs, you know, I just literally did not believe that email would always be free back in 1997 because it was so effective. It was more effective than my direct mail and then my print advertising and it was literally free. and then I was very fortunate that three years later, the day that Google AdWords came out, the day it came out and it was five cents a click, not 10 cents a click for the floor back then, I was able to buy those ads and most people in my industry did not know what that was at the time and as you can imagine, I'm sure this will make sense to all of you, that exploded my father's business.

4:10The next chapter, and this is gonna be very important for a lot of you in this room, the next chapter where my family business exploded was when YouTube came out. YouTube was a couple months old. I saw it and I thought it was profound. I wanted to be a part of it and that was the first time I became a content creator and started to review wine. When I think about that journey and all the other things that happened after that, I'm very excited to speak today because I'm aware that a lot of people in this room and the companies that are represented are very good at math. And that's great because I'm a huge believer in math.

4:53But what I know is happening right now with the consumer attention is an ecosystem that is built on art that is then followed by math. Let me explain. If I was sitting in the crowd right now, me, the human being, today, not make pretend me, me actually me because I had decided to get into the gaming business globally and for context for everyone my marketing firm VaynerMedia we have 3 ,000 employees globally in the states we've had the luxury to work in depth with DraftKings and Fanatics so this is a space I've spent a lot of time looking at 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 If I was to be sitting in the crowd with you all today, the number one thing that I would be investing in would be organic social media creative.

5:54And I want to break this down for everyone in the room of why. The reason that organic social media creative, and I want to define that for all of you, what I mean is no matter if you're in the Baltics, if you're in Western Europe, if you're in Asia, if you're in South America, this is not a regional thing. This is including mainland China where obviously they have very different apps than we do in most of the rest of the world. Across the globe today, Japan and the app line, wherever you are in the world today, no matter what market all of you are marketing towards, the six to seven social media platforms that dominate the attention of who you're trying to reach.

6:44And all of that, right? Young, entrepreneurial males who have a high propensity to play what you're doing, all the way to seasoned gamblers and gamers who might be in their 60s and 70s who grew up preferring casino life because this didn't exist. And everybody in between, all of them, live within their foe. All of them. Now, within this phone, it is scary that six or seven platforms dominate the attention. But the question is, how do they work? So let me propose something that I want all of you to debate in your mind. I believe that we no longer live in social media. The social media that I grew up with looked much more like email marketing.

7:38Right? I amassed an enormous amount of followers over the last 15 years, and every time I post in 2017 and 2018, a certain percentage of that audience would see my content. No different than email open rates. Today, I'm sure it's not lost on any of you, over the last five years, something I call the TikTokification of all social media has happened. Today, when you open your apps, content that you're interested in is finding you. I believe we are actually now in interest media, not social media. That if you show that you like football, your football, not my American football, then you will see football content consistently.

8:27If you interact with politics, you will see more politics. If you interact with sneakers, you will see more sneakers. This is incredibly important for every business here to understand because what I know all of you know and this is why I'm not speaking as much in my career right now because I'm quite busy but the reason I said yes to this besides the fact that I wanted to be in Portugal is because I highly respect the people in this room very much because you are in a very very competitive business and I know you all know that. Seven, eight years ago in this industry, the people that had math skills, especially inside of meta and other platforms, had a huge advantage of this room.

9:18Here's how it now works. I am posting across six to seven different platforms every day, two to three to four different pieces of content every day, and none of it has media supporting it to do CAC and LTV and ROAS. None of it. Only after the piece of creative that you put out algorithmically, you then take that creative, bring it back to your office, add your call to action on top of it or in the copy, and then you rerun that with media. So many companies represented here have spent a godly amount of dollars on media amplifying creative art that sucks. This is incredibly important. The fact that art has come to you, math, is a very big deal.

10:25For the rest of this generation, as long as this is what we're doing, until we go to glasses and new stuff happens. For the rest of the time that this is the primary device of the consumer, you will see this interest media take over because remember, for the platforms, for TikTok, for YouTube, for Facebook, for Instagram, for Snapchat, they want to keep you on the platform. That's how they make money. The way to keep you on the platform, I'm sure you all know this, because you lay in bed for three hours just doing this, is to keep showing you things you like, not people you used to follow. Understand?

11:10What this means for all of you is a very different commitment on what you spend your money on. It also does something very big for a lot of you, and obviously a lot of you are on different journeys on where and how you spend money. as you get more mature and bigger, you can't do everything on digital performance, so a lot of you have gone into outdoor media, television, sponsorships, whatever it might be. What is profound about what has happened in this social media environment today, which again, I want everyone to understand, is only a two to three year phenomenon. It started six, seven years ago with TikTok, but TikTok's algorithm today to show you what you like is 10 times better than it was 12 months ago and Meta and Google and Twitter X and YouTube have caught up.

12:08What this means is every brand and business in here and by the way, you are here at a gaming event but I'm not lost on the fact that some of you have a spouse that is trying to sell fruit or t-shirts or other things. So this is a universal thing. In fact, for some of you that are trying to recruit talent and get talent that way, employees, this works on LinkedIn to get employees to apply to your business. In fact, for some of you, this is fun to say in this room, sometimes you need a marketing plan, not for the consumer, but for the government. This works for you doing this on LinkedIn to influence politicians, other B2B partners.

12:59So we are living in an incredible time for this industry because for a very long time in this business, it was very much who had the most money was spending in the same places, and they could outspend you. I'm sure a lot of you have dealt with that. what you always knew was who could win brand, maybe you knew this, maybe you didn't, who could win brand could outpace someone who's spending a lot more money. The problem is brand is expensive. You know, in America, the big companies spend ungodly amounts of money to get the licensing and the rights for the biggest leagues or to get celebrities an endorsement.

13:47My belief is that between the rise of micro-influencers and the rise of interest media, what I just described, and how inexpensive it can be to create content for social media if you do not bring television thinking to social media. If you realize this is the production value that you need for your content, even in this blue light, I am comfortable making this ad. If you realize that, I believe it will fundamentally change the way you market and it allows somebody in this room, inevitably many of you compete with each other in this room. The only reason someone who's gonna spend 10 million dollars in marketing next year will lose to somebody else that's gonna spend a million?

14:43The only reason is because the$1 million person invests aggressively into organic social media. I'm gonna recap it because I wanna make this point and I'm gonna move on. Whoever in this room makes the most amount of social media posts for the least amount of cost and when something does well and gets a lot of views, then they spend media to convert that into a CAC and LTV and ROAS ad. Spending no media doing what you were accustomed to doing in A-B testing in digital and social will win 2026. Understood? Good. Next. What else is happening that can give you an advantage in 2026, 2027? a couple things one I think everybody here must debate for their business regardless of what you do starting a podcast or show that is done as often as you can produce it minimally once a month preferably once a week I'll take twice a month but at least once a month preferably four times a month.

16:04A show, I'm sure this is not lost on any of you. I saw the body language from the crowd. Hosts, could be you. You know, CTOs are not usually very charismatic but if you've got one that's fine by me. Whomever in your organization can speak to the content that is relevant to what your business is doing. whether you have to hire it from the outside, whether it's literally interns on the inside and everything in between, that show on podcast and YouTube form is very important for two reasons. Number one, and most importantly, I wouldn't even care if that show did very well and got a lot of views. When you do this show, it becomes a production day for the content that I need for you to put on social media for the first part of my speech.

17:04The reason a long form show is very strategic for everyone in this room is it's very inexpensive to produce in 2026. It's literally camera, sit down, talk. Of course people overproduce and I watch companies spend a million dollars for something four people watch and that's classic mistakes. But it's a very low cost and it gives you weekly or bi-weekly content that you can cut down to 20 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds that is feeding this machine that I am desperate, desperate for all of you to build for your business, which is the organic social media machine. God willing, the show is decent and it becomes something that a competitor cannot replicate so easily.

17:58If you have a hit show, and I'm sure this is not lost on you, you do not need the show to have millions of views for it to be very good for your business. What's amazing about this business, in my opinion, is you get 500 to 1 ,000 real players, you've got a business. So maybe you make the show for your high end, for your whales. Maybe you make it for the long tail, onboarding new. You're gonna decide the content, but understanding the strategy that you need a weekly, and this is, think about this. I grew up in this industry over the last 20 years. A gaming app in 2011, if I was standing here and said, you need a weekly show, would be laughed off stage.

18:46Some of you may be dismissing what I'm saying right now and not thinking it's practical. I respect you being wrong. but I know that you don't think it's crazy anymore because of how the last 10 years have gone, right? I'm sure it's not lost on you that Barstool sold for a lot of money and got into gaming on the back of only content. This is an incredible opportunity. It really allows you to have a scalable model that you can get comfortable with because the problem when I, let's go back to the first part of the speech. The problem with the first part of the speech is I know what I told you is the thing, but if you're sitting there and you're saying, how the hell does my app or my platform make 12 pieces of content every day?

19:35What are we gonna make? What do we post? The ideas and the execution becomes the hard part. This is why I'm so infatuated with you all doing a weekly show because that is gonna give you five to seven to 12 pieces of content every single week. speaking of which the next place that I believe all of you will be competing for attention on over the next five years is live streaming. I'm sure it's not lost on you because one of the biggest live streamers in the world is a humongous Ronaldo fan. I'm sure it's not lost on you that iShowSpeed and Kai Sinet and Aiden Ross and Twitch and kick is starting to eat up the attention of the youth.

20:27If you are a 16 year old, which I know we're not marketing to just yet, but they'll be there soon. If you're 16, 17, 18 years old, social media itself feels like an old platform. You are living in streaming. You consume your content watching people in real time live across these platforms. I believe, notwithstanding understanding what the legal ramifications are within your markets, that this is an extraordinary opportunity for the businesses in this room. And we've already seen it. I'm sure it's not lost on you. We've seen what stake has done and things of that nature. This is not new for you.

21:08It's not like so out of bounds. The question becomes, are you dabbling with it? the concern I always have when I go to conferences like this or when I'm in meetings one-on-one with some of you is that many of the things I've already started talking about as I'm talking, you're coming up with the reason you can't do it. It's an incredible human behavior. I've been talking for about 20 minutes and many of you sitting here listening to the content are thinking through why you can't do it. My friends, the difference between the businesses that really, really grow and the ones that get chipped away at and decline is binarily based on how many people in this room have been sitting and saying, well, Gary doesn't get it, we can't do that in Croatia.

22:04That doesn't work in Indonesia. Gary doesn't get it, legally we can't do that in the EU. My friends, I have 900 employees in the EU. We spend a billion dollars in media in the EU. I know all the bullshit that the EU has. There's a lot of ways to do it the right way without dealing with what you can't do. I need all of you to take a step back and listen to what I'm saying. I'm old now. I've been doing this for 20 years. A lot of you have watched me for 15 plus years. I'm not guessing here. Everything I just talked about has already happened. I'm asking you to figure out how to do it. For example, let me tell you what's happening with my biggest clients in performance, in performance.

22:55Which is what you are all in when it comes to marketing to get new gamers, you're all in performance. Most of my clients in the last six to 12 months that are purely in performance are taking money away from working media dollars, taking it out of Meta and Google and putting it into content. Not all of it. If they're spending 10 million in media and they were, before they started working with us, spending a million in content production, it's just 7 million in media and 4 million in content production. But here's the secret all of you will learn if you go down this path. The 7 million in media is converting higher than the old 10 million in media because the punchline of all this marketing is the creative.

23:44The organic creative converts itself when it does super well, but then obviously when you put the media against only content that is succeeding, it completely takes it to a different place and your cack goes down. The problem is, and the problem in all businesses is this, it's the biggest problem in this industry. This industry is mathematically led. I come from a world where other brands are overly led by art and complete bullshit opinions. I like this video, let's spend all our money on it. Right, that's all the way over here. But this world, you fuckers love math. And I love math too. I just like math after I've proven that the art mathematically is interesting to the consumer.

24:40And so this is a huge shift. So back to live streaming. This is where you have to get creative. Most of you do not have someone internal who works on knowing where the attention is on streaming and then reaching out to those individuals and figuring out if there's a business development opportunity. I understand that. However, that is what is required. And again, I don't really care who does it. you the founder, the CMO, somebody in finance because they just like it. I don't care. It just needs to get done. So I think streaming is a major opportunity. Next, this one's a little bit more left field, but I want to put this deposit in your head for the future.

25:25This is going to be fun to say out loud. I believe all of you, for your companies, need to create an AI human to be the face of your company. So I believe some of you who are closer to my career because I see some faces may know that in 2014 I started the first influencer agency in America and I was very bullish and thought that influencers would eat up the oxygen from actual famous people. I show speed is more famous than Ronaldo. That's crazy, right? What I think is coming next, and this is not tomorrow, but we're close. And for people here that are thinking three, four, five, six years from now, actually, how many people here think that they, whether you own the company or you work at the company, think that you'll be in the company you're in right now in three years, raise your hands.

26:22Just raise it high. So for everyone who just raised their hands, you need to pay attention to this. I do believe that in 36 months, that influencer marketing, which by the way, all of you, I did a lot of homework before I came here to the business scenario, almost all of you are massively under-investing in influencer marketing. Almost all of you. Again, art investment versus math. My friends, with Facebook and Meta and Google and TikTok, you can only squeeze so much from a stone when you do media. You understand that, right? When it's, again, where everyone got caught, when I was on this stage in 2014 yelling about Facebook, the media was so underpriced, it didn't matter what your content was, it converted well enough for your business.

27:16Now it is mature. That's why so many of you are struggling with that. So the stone is dry now. Now you need the art. There's many ways to do the art. Influencer marketing is one of the ways to do the art. They can make the content for you, you can amplify it. Now by the way, I want you to listen carefully. You can waste all your money on influencers and they can suck. I'm sure plenty of you have tried influencers and it hasn't worked. It's not a universal statement that all influencers work. too many of them are overpriced now. You know, you could spend a million dollars on it, one influencer, and it could be remarkable because she was worth 10 million.

27:56And you could spend a thousand on someone who's worth six dollars. And then obviously the other way around. Anyway, back to my point that I want you all to think about. Influencer marketing is going to get very attacked by AI influencers. and what's good for you is you own the human. With influencer marketing or with celebrity or athletes, you're renting but if you as a company are able to build up a person that looks like a person but is not a person on social media, that becomes an asset, that becomes a moat, that becomes something you can really rely on. In fact, what I said earlier, your show, your hosts in three years are gonna be AI influencers.

28:45I know you're gonna have emotions about it. I know people have all sorts of feelings. Watch this one. This one always gets a lot of people's feelings. I believe, I believe that there are people in this conference right now whose grandchildren are going to marry AI robots. 100%. 100%. Right? So it's going to happen. regardless of how you feel about it. And so, as I see my times wrapping up, what I'm very passionate about is with the AI thing I just talked about, with the live streaming thing that I'm talking about, it's around the corner, 2026, 2027. What I must and what I flew from New York to be here for, to put a flag in the ground, what I must have you all realize is you are wasting your marketing dollars fighting for the same customers against each other and the only winners are Google and Meta and TikTok.

29:46And I need you to understand that if you take some of that money and you put art, art that is measured when you post it organically, for example, whoever's, I just wanna be very detailed, someone's gonna be inspired by this, is gonna go do it, they're gonna post a video, the first one, and it's gonna get 11 views and you're gonna say, and fuck you Gary Vee. But the 30th thing you post is getting 150 ,000 views instead of your normal 4 ,000, and then you're gonna take it back into your AI or Adobe or whatever you use. Slightly change the funny video you made about football or boxing. You're gonna add your call to action and your offer, your match, after whatever you do that best performs, you're gonna rerun that video now with a banner or with copy that tells people what to do and how to work with you and it will become your single best performing ad.

30:44And then you're gonna say, I love you Gary V. Thank you very much everybody. Everybody if you enjoyed this podcast please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.