- I'm a 40-year-old successful functioning human being,
if I lost this right now I'd be like...
What?
(upbeat piano music)
One thing that I continue to want to do is
bring value in this
DailyVee strategy,
I guess this execution, video series.
No place to sit.
- [Man] Yeah, it's very small there.
- [Gary] Let's go see what Pret.
Let's go see what Pret is.
Good man, how are you?
- [Man] Busy morning?
- [Gary] I just flew in from Chattanooga.
- [Man] Oh really?
- And I had a quick meeting with the team at my house.
Marcus.
(upbeat piano music)
- [Man 2] How's it going? - [Gary] Good.
I figured that's why he's here. - [DRock] Yeah.
- [Parnev] Gary? - [Gary] Yes?
- Parnev. - [Gary] Parnev, how are you?
- I've shot you a couple emails. - How are you?
- Very good. - Yeah. You got it.
Alright, man, good to see you.
Monday.
- [Elevator] Ballroom, going up.
- Sure, yes. How are you?
- Hey, I'm Janine. Nice to meet you.
- Janine, nice to meet you. How are you?
- Thank you for joining us. - Thanks for having me.
- Yeah.
- Is there a green, hey! - [Reid] Good to see you.
- [Gary] Good to see you, brother.
- [Reid] How you been? - [Gary] Really well.
- [Reid] Thanks for coming. - [Gary] Great to see you.
Of course.
- Hey guys. - [DRock] How are you?
- I'm Reid. DRock, nice to meet you.
- And Tyler.
- Nice to meet you, Tyler, finally. Alright.
- Oh, this is not Schmidt.
This is Tyler Babin.
This is actually in my phone he's Other Tyler.
Just my State of the Union of CPG and retail convergence over
the next 20 years and how to drive those results in
whatever shape or form.
- Yep. Yep and then your same story on how do you market
to the century that you're in-- - Yeah.
- and how do you connect with those stories.
Exactly.
- Hey. And how much time do I have?
- You've got an hour.
- [Gary] Awesome and what's the max Q&A I can do?
Why am I talking so light?
I think I'm getting serious.
I think it's interesting as today's episode unfolds.
There was a lot of CPG talk.
That's consumer package goods.
My plan is to build a private equity firm on the back of my
agency to take advantage of the fact that every one of these
companies won't do it fast enough.
- [Both] Right.
- Nothing else to say.
So that's all I know how to talk about is obviously media is
where I started and all I'll leave that in 'cause that
matters but direct to consumer,
eCom, smartification of items
like that all plays, the punchline is how we are you
gonna sell of bar of (censored) or bottle of (censored).
Every one of those products, how they sell today versus how they
sell 10 years from now is an interesting conversation.
More importantly, how they can sell today differently than
they're selling it today.
This is not just a futuristic thing.
These people in this room are the people that have the most
black-and-white way to prove ROI in a company yet they're not
getting the support.
- They have to fight for resources for that.
- Is it in here? - Yeah.
- [Gary] Yeah, I'm ready.
We can walk in, right?
You know seven or eight years ago, I just really decided that
my quickest route to the New York Jets and I think the
moral of the story I'll go into my version of it but what
I want you to get out of it is look if you want
something to happen, you can't just visualize it.
This is "The Secret" shit.
You need to actually have a plan of how you're gonna get there
and, more importantly, the bigger your ambition is the more
patience you have to deploy against it.
The more work you have to put against.
It's just the way it is.
Obviously, your talent is a variable.
Great, you're gonna crush it and make it in six months, do you.
That's fine, just not how I see it.
And so the audacious wants and needs of buying,
at least from a business standpoint,
a professional football team even
back then when the Jets were worth a billion I knew this was
a $5, $6, $7 billion execution and so even though I did great
in the wine business, even though Crush It!
had popped and I was building the GaryVee thing like
and even though I'd invest in Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr at
that point, I still had this self-awareness even though
everything was showing me with my investing that I can make a
lot of money that way I still had the self-awareness that for
me what I thought was going to be my best opportunity was to go
and not start a brand, because there's a lot of that right now,
you guys know a lot of people
that are starting a cookie brand,
making a new peanut butter, making a new soap.
That's just not me.
I just don't think that I'm going to invent a maple syrup,
a honey that's gonna become a huge business.
What I thought I could do is--
- [DRock] On that, why didn't you invent an app?
Anything, you were there.
- The reason I didn't invent an app is because it just I don't
think that's my position.
I don't get off on, excited or dream about the idea of starting
an app, a wine app.
I mean people were throwing tens of millions of dollars at me.
Start a wine app,
build the wine Facebook they used to say back then.
TheVino has done extremely well.
Great app.
It's just not, I'm not an inventor.
You know?
I'm a communicator, I'm a business builder and I think you
know the the idea of creating the next Cap'n Crunch versus
buying Cap'n Crunch when the company that owned it didn't
manage it well and wanted to sell it off,
there was just no comparison.
I was more excited about that evolution and look,
look at my career.
I jumped into my dad's business and exploded it even the first
two years ago, even though I started VaynerMedia and even
though I got us clients and was a part of it,
those first two years I was like eh.
Even my kids like those first two years, you know?
It's just the way I'm wired and so I just became very in tune
with myself of like if I've got this big of a dream,
it's gonna take a big play and
I thought the biggest play was go out buy,
build an agency, learn corporate America at scale,
meet people, eventually hire them,
build teammates, you know,
and really understand it.
I think there's never ever
enough work put into really
understanding the landscape.
I got to taste shit and so I wanted to taste it and
I was willing to burn my 30s, into my 40s on it.
I was willing to in the prime of my career put in the work,
have the humility to go and do client service, eat shit,
have clients do all that.
I was willing to do that and now I'm further along.
I'm on second, third base of like this amazing journey and
I just generally believe my ability to buy a brand for $5,
$10, $15, $20 million and then build it for three, four years
and then flip it for $300, $400, $600 is very real.
You have to understand how big business works.
A lot of you are young and entrepreneurs.
If I was to go do that, then eight years from now I'll still
be 48, there'll be billions of dollars and investors asking me
to do that again and letting them make some of the money
along the way and so this my friends is the television and
the television is the radio.
Go read what happened to the biggest brands in the world from
1957 to 1965 and go look at
the biggest brands being built during that era.
Every time there is an actual attention revolution, enormous
money is made and enormous money is lost.
(audience applause)
Thanks for having me. - Yeah. Take care.
- [Gary] Hello, can you hear me?
Yo, I'm late. I'm just getting out now.
Anything else I miss?
So, I have a 3 o'clock that I'm late for,
that's the only update? Okay.
That was good.
- [DRock] That was a really good talk.
- [Gary] Yeah.
You guys, are we gonna go in or can we sit here?
They'll probably, what do we have, five?
We just need one or two seats, right?
We've been trying to make this work the schedule.
I have to go to Helsinki in like five minutes.
- What's over there?
- There's a big conference.
They do one of the biggest Europeans digital conferences so
lot of fancy-schmancy digital people are speaking and me and
so I'll fly in talk and come back.
I'll be back Friday morning.
I'm a 40-year-old successful functioning human being,
if I lost this right now I'd be like...
What?
This is it.
This is it and the one thing we all trade on is attention.
Before you tell me how delicious your beer is or how awesome that
code is how great you are, you need my attention.
And too many companies have got away
from that very simple thing.
That sign above that taxi's is
still priced like it's 15 years ago,
yet that dude's looking at his phone.
Right, I mean look what he's doing?
That guy right there having a cigarette 20 years ago would
have saw that Blue Moon, I mean this is amazing.
Look what we're doing.
He would have saw that (censored) ad on that but he's
not and that's overpriced.
- So how do you get attention?
- You do it where, you don't get it, you just go to where it is
and you figure out how to bring people value within it.
Got it?
I mean that's it.
I mean like what's that guy doing?
I mean this is happening in our face.
I mean what do you think he's doing?
You're not selling to him on this outdoor media.
You're not.
And yet, outdoor media is up 12% in cost in the last 10 years.
Why?
Because media buying companies
(censored) they have their business to run.
To buy a banner ad on a desktop computer environment below the
fold on a website that you don't know is insane.
- [Man 5] And even so, right here, right here.
- No worries.
- [Man 5] You're gonna see it and you're not gonna do anything
about it, embrace engagement.
- By the way, and I'm being dead serious about this,
I would pay for seeing it.
I don't need to click it, I would pay for seeing it.
They don't see it.
Sure.
So, our media capabilities have ex--
Thank you.
- I'm an Venezuelan, I work in Pfizer--
- Very nice, what's your name?
- Carmen. - Carmen, nice to meet you.
- I never do this. I swear to God.
I never do this. I'm a grown person.
I'm so excited and I can not even touch the camera.
- Thank you.
- And I look so awful! - You look amazing.
- [Woman 2] Cheese! - Cheers.
- I believe everything you say. - Thank you.
- Never complain, I work very hard and we immigrants,
we get the job done. - You got it.
- Bye. Bye-bye.
When we start a toothpaste company and our direct to consumer
business is doing $80 million in five years 'cause last mile
delivery is there and all this, (censored) is gonna care.
And they're gonna be like shit, we have to be direct to consumer
and they're gonna say okay, now we have to be director to
consumer but the problem is Walmart and CVS and Walgreens
are gonna say you can't do that 'cause we make money on the sale
so they're gonna say (censored) well we're doing this new
toothpaste and Walmart and Albertsons and Publix
is gonna say no way.
If you do that we're gonna eliminate your core brands from
our store and there's gonna be a conflict and it's gonna be a
game of who blinks first.
Meanwhile our little startup continues to grow.
That in the next 20 years is gonna be why so
many huge brands die.
This is what always happens.
Brands turnover all the time. Nobody sat around thinking Nike
was vulnerable to Under Armour, that's not what we think until
it happens and this is happening very, very, very quickly because
the punchline is and this is the one that you really need to
debate for yourself, your living your life one way as a human by
the show of hands that you had but then you put on your
business jersey and you have your business card and you work
as a brand and your acting
and allocating dollars in a different way.
You're eliminating the comments of, many of you in this room
have said to me but Gary my target demo isn't on these
platforms yet you are the target demo and you are on these
platforms and so are every single person you know.
Do you not live in the world?
Do you not go out like this is happening.
This is happening at scale and everybody is stunned and so
listen what's gonna happen is, the real punchline is the
Dollar Shave Club is what's gonna happen.
Every company in here, J&J, all of you,
you're gonna go and do M&A.
You're gonna buy these things and you're gonna spend way too
much money on something that you had way more money then to begin
with and all you needed was a slight culture change.
You can reach more people,
more targeted at a lower cost than
running a commercial for 30 seconds
in between an event on television.
And that's it.
Sunday night football is $670,000 in media
to get a 30 second spot that nobody watches.
So, you know, I think what's gonna happen is entrepreneurs
are gonna continue to build things, they're either gonna
sell to bigger companies or because of the way democracy of
distribution of information and sales will change, they're gonna
hold out longer 'cause the stakes are gonna be higher or
big companies and to spend more money on brands like you guys
that pop and it's gonna be the same old thing with a different
version but the opportunity has never been greater.
- This is huge now, right? - What's that?
- For anyone that wants to start, it's massive.
Today-- - This is it, man.
I mean this is it.
Like I'd literally rather somebody right now
come up to me and punch me in the face and
steal my wallet but as long as I have
my phone, right, like it's crazy.
It's good to see you.
Talk to you soon.
My man, great to see you.
- I appreciate it. - My pleasure.
Alright, I'll see you guys later.
Yeah, nice to meet you.
- It was a pleasure to meet you. - [Gary] Real pleasure.
I'll talk to you soon. - Definitely.
- [Gary] Yeah, bye guys. - Safe travels.
- Which one? This one?
(light music)
- Putting yourself in the best position to succeed.
I know I can do it.
I know that I can buy Lucky Charms,
Peter Pan Peanut Butter,
KSwiss sneakers,
Bridgestone Tires,
like a brand that exists
and make it 2018'd out, 2019'd out
and explode it's top line growth.
It's what I do.
I'm great at seeing something already, understanding what it
did to get there and knowing exactly what to do
to go for the next place.
I know how to do that in marketing more than anything and
marketing of a product is what comes most natural to me.
It's what I do best.
Good at speaking.
Good at making videos.
I can play a little ping pong.
I'm good at stuff.
But I'm great at storytelling, marketing.
Understanding the arbitrage and the whitespace in the marketing
world and selling shit.
This would be very satisfying to watch this little rant episode
whenever this is one day when
I'm in execution mode in that
and so that's why I did it.
And that's why today's talk is important.
Some may watch today's talk, you'll see a good chunk of it
and you'll say oh he did that and it was smart.
He'll get clients from that.
True.
Way more important, I'm weeding out the people that agree and
disagree with me about where the world is going in the next
10 years and I'm building relationships with the ones that
agree with me because they can become integral pieces and parts
of building this ultimate machine.
(light music)