0:00

I don't even know why I bought these speakers

0:02

for probably a thousand dollars. Like that swoosh

0:04

made me do it. And Virgil Applow and

0:06

Offwhite made me do it. It wasn't an

0:08

ad. I didn't see an ad. It wasn't,

0:10

you know, marketing. It definitely wasn't sales. This

0:14

is the Gary Vee audio experience. Gary

0:17

Vee, finally. Welcome to the Ad

0:20

Nerds podcast, my friend. It's

0:22

so good to be here. So let's dive right in,

0:24

Gary. If you're talking

0:26

to a small business owner today, what

0:29

are three things that you would tell a

0:31

small business owner right now that they should

0:33

be doing in their marketing? Organic social content

0:36

specifically on TikTok, LinkedIn,

0:38

YouTube Shorts, Facebook

0:40

Reels. Really

0:44

thinking about starting to learn how to

0:46

use AI, you

0:48

know, really prompt engineering, which

0:50

means what do you enter into all

0:52

these AI apps to get good output? So

0:55

starting the journey, like don't be crippled by what I

0:57

just said. I know that sounds complicated, but this would

0:59

be like, I would it would be like

1:01

me saying get on the Internet or start a Twitter account in

1:04

2006 for Twitter or 1999, eight,

1:09

seven for the Internet. Like I don't need you to be

1:11

an expert, but I definitely don't need you to put your

1:13

head in the sand and not have ever touched

1:15

an AI tool like Midjourney.

1:17

Or even Bing has a really easy plug

1:19

in to make creative from it. So that's

1:21

number two. And then number three, doing

1:25

what you're doing right now, every business.

1:28

Needs to have a core platform,

1:30

you know, a show, a podcast,

1:34

a go to social media

1:36

series. Like everyone now is

1:38

in the business of being a media company and

1:40

then they happen to do something. They happen to

1:42

be an agency. They happen to sell flowers. They

1:44

happen to, you know, mow lawns. But

1:47

like the quicker every

1:49

small business understands that without

1:51

them making creative,

1:53

acting like a publisher, acting like a

1:55

media company, they're leaving

1:58

growth And more importantly, you're

2:00

creating the opportunity for competitor to do

2:02

it. And. You. Know Google

2:04

ads are not gonna last forever. just like the

2:06

yellow pages didn't last forever. Let your sales team

2:09

your reputation. Two boys, you know the amount of

2:11

real estate agents that of in the of the

2:13

last ten years based. Always do this accomplices be

2:15

like hey, I know you've been the queen of

2:17

the town for thirty years, but to take this

2:19

Facebook and Twitter and Youtube thing, not seriously, someone's

2:22

gonna come along and secure business. The amount of

2:24

people that have email mean less three four five

2:26

years in the real estate sector saying you were

2:28

right. Like. I I didn't take it serious

2:30

A saw you at him and I saw you

2:32

at the top three thing I saw you on

2:35

the internet. He said that I laugh for you

2:37

to buy twenty two years of market dominance and

2:39

now this kid out of nowhere. Just.

2:41

By making to talks and you tube videos has taken

2:43

a lot of my business. What do I do have

2:45

I close the gap in? I'm like well now you're

2:48

playing catch up. And so.

2:50

Those. With me think social media content with can agree

2:52

that it. Number two

2:54

tasting ai. Number three: Starting

2:56

a show with like whether it's of

2:59

radio show like you had a video

3:01

show or even like a written so

3:03

even if you're writing articles. On.

3:06

On linked and now you're acting.

3:08

Like a newspaper which is a media

3:10

company. That's fine. too short. Over the

3:12

years you know you and I've talked

3:15

about my passionate dislikes or programatic advice.

3:18

And put some small business owners

3:20

have this belief. That. They think

3:22

it's the cheapest way to build their brand. What?

3:24

What are your thoughts on? this? You.

3:28

Know I think a lot of the

3:30

problematic stuff he. Image. Tory itself

3:32

shows up very poorly as a banner ad

3:34

or a pre role and isn't actually being

3:37

consumed. So I love the concept of the.

3:39

Programmatic like a love using technology but

3:41

my question always to lot of my

3:43

friends and big companies that by problematic.

3:46

Is where's it's showing up and that is a

3:48

good ad and didn't. Work like a you know

3:50

I can see fields. Very nice to have

3:52

three dollars Cp Adams but if that's on

3:54

the bottom of. lawn mowers

3:56

daily.com and it's like a

3:58

banner ads at the bottom of

4:00

a video that you made one

4:02

video to work across the whole internet, like

4:05

you kind of get what you pay for

4:07

sometimes in life. And like if the impressions

4:09

are cheap, there's probably a reality and like

4:11

a lot of people aren't actually consuming it,

4:14

let alone no matter what the data

4:17

shows. And so the reason I've always struggled

4:19

with a lot of the programmatic inventory is

4:21

it's bad inventory. You

4:24

know, you can pay $3 a square foot for a retail

4:26

location. I have a good feeling that that's a really bad

4:28

retail location. Yeah, the price

4:30

should say it all. And plus, you know, the

4:32

integrity of your brand is at play too, because

4:35

you could be put on a site that you

4:37

don't want to be put on, like a porn

4:39

site or something. Yeah, I'll be honest with you.

4:41

I'm not overly worried about that. I think fear

4:43

positioning isn't real. Like I'm less worried

4:45

about showing up on a porn site. Like if someone's like, you're

4:47

on a porn site, I'm like, well, why are you on the

4:50

porn site? Like, you know, that's not super hard. Like

4:52

I'm not overly worried about that. I'm

4:54

more worried about, did you spend money

4:56

to make what you wanted to happen happen? For

5:00

example, you know, I often, when

5:02

I do things for wine techs.com, everyone should

5:04

sign up or V

5:06

friends, I'm usually buying things that are

5:08

more expensive CPMs because the

5:11

premium nature of the cost indicates,

5:15

sometimes not, but when I do my

5:17

process of common sense, looking at data,

5:20

it often indicates high

5:22

value awareness, like actually

5:24

consumed information. The only

5:26

reason I love social media is

5:28

because the ads are kind of

5:30

integrated into the flow of consumption. Half

5:33

the ads I'm consuming on social today, I don't

5:35

even realize it as an ad in the first

5:37

10 seconds because people are getting better at creatives.

5:40

Every ad I see on traditional internet

5:43

and every ad I see on television, I know is an ad. Right,

5:45

the minute you see it, you're like, they're trying to get me. The

5:49

last, like this weekend, I like watched full

5:51

pledge thinking it was just regular content. Like,

5:53

wait a minute, they're selling the spaghetti strainer.

5:56

Wait a minute, this is a ketchup.

5:58

Like people are starting to. to

6:00

like what I believe and that's exciting

6:02

to see because shit, that's

6:04

the way I'd rather buy stuff. I'd rather

6:07

buy it by being entertained or educated by

6:09

the creative. So, you know, one of

6:11

the things that I like to talk about are branding,

6:13

advertising, and marketing. I like to call it

6:15

BAM. Thank you, and thank

6:17

Emeril Lagasse for that. But it's like the

6:19

trifecta of growth for businesses. Does one have

6:22

more long-term value than the other in your

6:24

eyes? Of course, brand. Okay,

6:27

tell me why. Well, because I don't even know

6:29

why I bought these speakers for probably

6:31

$1,000. Like that

6:34

swoosh made me do it. And Virgil Applow and

6:36

Offwhite made me do it. It wasn't

6:38

an ad, I didn't see an ad. Wasn't, you

6:41

know, marketing, it definitely wasn't sales. It

6:44

was the brand. Brand

6:46

is everything. You know, if you're doing sales, it's

6:48

only because you don't know how to do brand

6:50

because once you do brand,

6:53

you don't need a sales team. Gary, can

6:55

a business go all in on brand and

6:57

build a successful, healthy, financially stable

6:59

business by just focusing on brand

7:01

100%? If

7:04

it has a good product, yes, of course, for

7:07

sure. I mean, that's, you know, that's

7:09

what we're seeing in a lot of these

7:11

social brands, right? Like, you know, Dollar

7:13

Shave Club sold for a billion dollars on brand. There

7:17

was one viral video. And then listen, it's unfair for

7:19

me to say yes, because the reality is like everything's

7:22

a mix. Like, if

7:25

you had a viral video for your product on TikTok,

7:28

like it's still smart to convert that to

7:30

a performance ad. It's

7:32

still smart that if you sold a million units

7:34

of it to hire a sales team to get

7:36

into stores, like I, you know, it's funny, I'm

7:38

backtracking because I hate the idea of all or

7:40

nothing. Is it possible? Of course

7:42

it's possible, it's happening. Sure. There's

7:45

a lot of people who just, organic, social, do

7:47

brand videos, sometimes run

7:49

ads, sometimes just go on the algorithm of the

7:52

creative and they grow to a certain point.

7:54

Now, usually they'll raise capital or

7:57

they'll take their profit and then they'll

7:59

start integrating. marketing and

8:01

sales but like brand is the

8:03

holy grail. That's why the biggest, Coca

8:05

Cola and BMW and Nike, they

8:10

do brand for a reason. If

8:12

they thought that they could get

8:15

more out of just sales, they

8:17

would do that. Like, you know, and

8:20

so there's a reason brand. I mean, like

8:22

why we buy diamond rings. It's

8:24

all about an emotion, it's brand, yeah, totally.

8:26

Brand, brand, brand, brand. And

8:28

that leads into the next question

8:31

perfectly. Organic versus paid. So

8:33

many business owners think that they can

8:35

only do organic and others think

8:37

that paid is gonna get them to the promised land.

8:40

What's your take? Where does the mix have to

8:42

come in? In

8:45

today's algorithm-based world, I think it needs to be

8:47

great. You need to be great at organic. And

8:49

when things go viral or over-index, you turn them

8:51

into paid. That is the new model, in my

8:54

opinion, in iOS 14.5. And

8:56

you know, things changed. Cooking

8:59

and privacy eliminated

9:01

a lot of the values of, you know,

9:03

paid the way we knew it

9:05

for a decade. And then organic got way more

9:07

important because algorithms now give you a million organic

9:09

views if you put out a good video. And

9:11

so, you know, the reality

9:13

is for me, it's strategic organic

9:16

content. And then when things work,

9:19

turning them into paid ads. Brand-formance

9:21

is how I think about it. Makes sense.

9:23

Gary, finally. If Gary

9:25

Vee had to start from scratch

9:27

today in a 2023 environment,

9:31

how would he do it? What

9:33

would be the goal? You're

9:35

gonna grow a brand new business. Let's say

9:37

everything you have right now, VaynerMedia, VaynerX, all

9:39

of them. Gone, you start, you're literally starting

9:42

from zero. What would you do? How would

9:44

you do it? I

9:46

would make unlimited content on the

9:48

10 social media platforms. LinkedIn

9:51

and YouTube, Shorts for

9:53

VaynerX, Instagram and TikTok

9:55

for Vee friends and Wine Text. You

9:58

know, I would just fully commit. as

10:00

many hours as possible to make content. Final

10:02

thought, this is important. Social

10:05

media platforms give you

10:08

free reach without them charging

10:10

you. Think

10:12

about this. Think about how you and I

10:14

grew up. I couldn't go to the New York Times and say,

10:16

I've got this great wine ad, will you just place it because

10:18

it's great? People

10:20

are always like, oh, the platforms, fuck the platforms are

10:23

giving you unlimited free attention. It's the number one commodity

10:25

in the world.