- Creativity matters everywhere,
if you're running for mayor in your town
or if you're running Coca Cola.
(humming boom)
(waves whispering)
- Hi everyone here we are in Cannes,
and I am with the incredible Gary Vaynerchuk
I am so excited we have been trying to do this
for the longest longest amount of time,
and he's rocked up today in a spurs kit which my kids
are absolutely going to love.
Everybody knows everything about you,
you are a serial entrepreneur,
you set up that first business,
a lemonade business age seven.
Now chairman of VaynerX, the ad agency VaynerMedia
and we're actually going to talk today about authenticity
and how brands can create real and meaningful connections
with consumers and I'm hoping you're gonna share
some of your top tips today.
So welcome to the Facebook space, thank you for coming.
- Thanks for having me.
- So let's get straight in so tell me,
we're talking about authenticity in a brand.
What does it mean to you from a brand communication?
- you know it's, this is an interesting question,
I have a pretty for this world a pretty left field
point of view on this, and my point of view is we need
to achieve relevance I'm looking at 11, 12, 13 faces
right now and what Pepsi or BMW or Coca Cola or Facebook
means to all these people is actually different,
and so for me authenticity gets very close to relevancy.
Because when you're a big brand there are so many variables
in your world, there's so many things that you are doing.
You know some people may drink a Cola to get a burst
of energy, others it may be a reminder of spending time
with their grandmother and I think we're so literal
in today's brand and marketing world.
We're so stuck on sentences, and adjectives,
and we spend so much time on subjective things
that don't matter to the consumer on the other end.
So my perspective is much like a human being,
you and I are going to act differently as humans
in this interview than if we were with our family.
Than if we were on a weekend in Las Vegas
with our best friends,
than if we were presenting to 5,000 people.
People are always like Gary you're a little bit different
than when I see you on video,
I'm like yeah I'm on stage to 7,000 people versus
I'm here with you there's different versions,
and I think people struggle in ad land to understand
things that are multidimensional,
and so for me authenticity is actually being comfortable
in the 74 to 7,400 variations of how you show up,
and so I think that we are, that human beings, executives.
Are limiting brands ability to be authentic
because they want it to be so literal
and so safe and so PR'd and so approved by the queen bee.
That I think we live in a very non-authentic world
and I think the reason humans continue to scale
in popularity is they're a focus group
of the audience, they're an executive group of one.
And I think one of the reason real celebrities
are struggling and have lost share is they do have PR people
they do have big deals with movie studios
that they're scared of breaking,
and so I think anyone that can actually show
all the versions of themselves will win,
and I think right now the creative industry
a isn't set up to make enough creative.
B has way to much b to b DNA in it to actually show up
authentic, and this is not schizophrenia,
this is not throw up against the wall and see what sticks.
This is not being scattered, this is being true,
and so I think authenticity has a far more at its end,
there's always something that delivers at the end.
A piece of content or creative
and I think it's being far more wide than it's been
over the last 80 years.
- So who is doing it well, which brands would you point to,
go nailed it.
- One of the things that I don't do very well
is pay attention to what other people are doing.
So this is always a tough question for me.
There is something that's, you know I thought Wendy's
did a really good job over the last couple years
of engaging at scale which then lead to a voice
that gave them a lot of freedom.
But the reality is I know what's going on
in the Vayner world obviously, I know what's going on
in the broad sense but I spend almost no time auditing
what other brands are doing,
and plus if we're talking from a brand standpoint,
well has to be reflected in business results.
There's a ton of people that are going to win awards today
that business is declining dramatically
and I struggle with that.
Because the point of that creativity is to drive
a business result in this context.
Or get people to vote, or inspire a movement
or cure a disease, what's the point of output
if you're not getting the end result?
You know I don't know whose doing it well,
I would say whoever's doing it well is definitely
has business results,
and definitely has a breadth of execution.
- Okay so you've been with businesses
and you've taken businesses from you know,
very small to very big do you think there's different stages
where authenticity and creativity matters more?
- No I think it always matters, as a matter of fact
right now watching everybody pay attention
to all the sound right behind us, and to me,
and this is not a joke this is very meta.
I have so much empathy especially as DRock
and producers in my world have come into my world.
The amount of empathy I have for people that
are incredible at their skill set
and what they think about is so important to me.
At the same token I genuinely live in a world where
I think that the person that's consuming this
on the other side kind of enjoys the helicopter
or the boat or the microphone because it's real,
and it's not that my point of view is right
or production companies points of views
are right or wrong I just think that I'm
fascinated by this notion
and we're living in the meta of it right now.
First of all to answer your question directly
because I wanted to clearly make that point.
Creativity matters everywhere,
if you're running for mayor in your town
or if you're running Coca Cola
and I think if you look at what's happening.
Look there's a lot of politicians I desperately
don't agree with but in their authenticity
of being crappy they get an audience,
and I think we have to learn from that across the board.
- Now earlier this year you set up another new business,
The Sasha Group all focused on small businesses,
now what one piece of advice would you give
to a small business out there that's looking
to find its voice or its personality?
- That's a great question, lean into your founder
whether she or he is introverted or extroverted.
Because they either are extroverted
and charismatic enough to drive your business
and you're a small company and you need something.
Or they're introverted buy they actually know
their craft very well and thought they may not be
the most dynamic on film they may be incredible
in podcast form educating people how to do refrigeration
or how to sell tires or whatever it may be.
So lean into your founder and make as much creative output
as you can for the platforms that are dominating
the mobile device.
The Facebook and Instagrams, the Snapchats and LinkedIns
the YouTubes of the world is where the world is now playing,
and making content in written, audio,
or video form for those platforms is imperative for an SmB.
We were getting tens of thousands of inquiries
at VaynerMedia from SmBs and we couldn't take them on
because we're too expensive for them.
Because the business I built is to service big brands.
But I came from SmB and I almost felt,
almost like a hypocrite slash you know
the reason I named it directly after my dad Sasha
is 'cause that's my roots and I thought we were ready
to help that world, and it's been very.
I would tell you honestly, it's been far more fulfilling
helping these small companies,
I mean there's a nail business in Toronto
that was in deep, deep, deep trouble.
Because their main distributor was about to,
they thought they might cancel them
and sure enough a year later they did.
But we helped them build a direct to consumer business
through leaning in to their founder,
I mean I give advice that actually I watch happen.
We leaned into the founder, we made a ton of Instagram,
Facebook, Twitter content and the business is up three x
in revenue, you have to understand I lived it.
Taking my dad's business from three mil, four million
to 60 million do you know how life changing that is
for a business?
I bought my car at a garage sale for 500 bucks.
My brother got a Lexus it changes when you build
a business like that, so you know we're doing
incredible work with Chase and Budweiser
and all this great stuff, but when you're helping an SmB
and look let's call it what it is.
Being at the Facebook pavilion, my point of view
from the outside, the small and medium sized businesses
of the world have figured out Facebook far far more
than the biggest brands in the world.
Because the biggest brands in the world deal with audacity
and fake and SmBs can only live in the truth
because if they live in fake they go out of business.
- Okay so any favorite you've mentioned a few,
any favorite platforms or tools that are really good
for helping these businesses to build their connections?
Podcast, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat,
LinkedIn has exploded in the last six months,
LinkedIn acts like Facebook did six, seven years ago.
Organic reach on LinkedIn is shocking, so there's that.
Instagram story ads is the most under priced ad
in the world, buying Instagram swipe up story ads
that take you exactly to where we want you to go,
for two to three or four dollars CPMs
and they're actually being seen?
Unheard of so those are some of the things
that I'm excited about.
- Okay and what about your own channels,
your own podcasts-- - I'm dominating, yeah.
It's going great. - You're own social.
How are you learning to express,
not that I think you have any troubles with this
but how do you think you're learning, or tips that
you can give about how you express yourself personally
and what you're able therefore to transfer
into the brands which you can communicate for?
- Look the single thing I'm most proud of sitting at Cannes
is there's not a human here, not one that makes more
creative output than I do on a daily basis
and collective period, that is an audacious
but factual statement, there is not one person here.
That makes more content than I do
and I'm a CEO of a company, not a creative,
and in that you can imagine a world where me
and my team are producing 40 to 100 pieces of content a day
across all these platforms, there's a practitionership
that allows me, I mean the amount of mistakes
you know it's funny I have DRock here
'cause he's on the text chain with me and my team.
We change our mind seven times a month,
I constantly shit on my own self once a week,
I emphatically on Monday say all about this
and literally next Tuesday go if we every do that again
we're finished I mean this is real life,
this is the truth-- - you're testing
and learning with yourself.
- At a scale that is unseen right now,
and should be replicated by everyone.
Which gives me much better insights to what the consumer
is reacting to, and then obviously I'm a human
with a certain kind of flavor so that doesn't math to Doug
the same exact way so there's macro things that we see
that we deploy and then we see how it plays out,
it's never literal from me to I'm a human,
I'm a 43 year old man there's a lot of things
that don't navigate.
But there's a lot of truths that we navigate that we test
and learn there and that we scale,
so it is the ultimate test lab.
- Okay so you, a few bold statements there.
But I can say you are the only person in all the years,
and I've interviewed a lot of people.
That has ever walked in with your own microphone.
'Cause you're literally just blogging and recording
and observing the whole time.
- And listen when I hear that sentence my brain goes to
charlatan, self-promoter, audacious I mean that,
and I'm saying that because I want the audience
to understand when you're innovating you're gonna
be misunderstood, when we decided three
and a half years ago to film everything.
I knew that that wasn't gonna be so easy to navigate life,
I mean this is, at least this setting is somewhat normal.
How 'bout in your normal day to day when you're just
going to a normal meeting and you're being filmed?
People are gonna cast judgment
and I don't want to come across that way.
It's just that the value of content at scale
is the cost of entry for success in my opinion
of this next decade and yeah that's why we do it.
- So you have famously predicted many trends
that have some true so we couldn't be here
with the helicopters, planes, boats going on.
What is the next big trend that you're looking at?
- I think that Alexa and Google Home is going to be
a major major factor over the next decade
and I implore since were here, I always think Zucks
has some secret lab when he's working on this.
'Cause I can't imagine Facebook not entering this foray,
the attention of the end consumer's everything.
- You've tried portal.
- Yes I have I have you're right I have,
and to that point that's a solid counter.
I think that voice activated decision making
is going to be a big deal because consumers care so little
about privacy and so much about saving time
and nothing saves you more time than sitting
in your living room deciding you want to go to a movie
and it is far faster for me to say Alexa Portal,
Google Home, whatever Microsoft's got
and whatever some Chinese company's got.
Alexa, what movies are playing?
That is faster than grabbing your phone
and searching Fandango, and in that speed
and getting your answers will be enormous disruption
over the next decade so I'm extremely bullish
on voice activated devices.
- Okay we're outta time you've got a million places
you've gotta go to but we have our Facebook tradition
of the quick fire round don't overthink it just say it.
- Do you guys normally play awesome music right now?
Do you post produce that way?
- You'll post produce that and put it in
and then we want fire and fireworks
and everything in the background,
so first one Cannes or California?
- Cannes, man I really don't like California.
(laughing)
- I mean you're honest.
- I love California's social point of view on the world.
- American Football or Baseball.
- American Football.
- Tottenham Hotspur or Tottenham Hotspur?
- Both.
- Okay good answer. (Gary laughing)
Cardio or weights?
- Cardio. - Okay.
Podcast or Vlog?
- Oof.
You just literally asked me what child do I love more?
By the way real quick on that every parent has
a favorite child. - That's not true!
- This is absolutely true. - You're gonna kill me with
my four kids, it's not true. - It is, four kids
I promise you, you may not wanna know this
but your mom definitely has a favorite.
I'm sure all four of you actually know who it is.
Like for example in my family everyone knows it's me.
- Whose interview is this?
(laughing)
- I will go with Podcast, I like making decisions
I think that audio is passive consumption
and I feel like even a lot of people who watch my Vlog
actually only watch it with the audio while they're driving,
working out so I will go with we are in the rise
of the next decade of audio.
Because we've got faster, technology's caught up.
We wanna consume information but having to pay attention
to the video versus listening while
I do something else, not as valuable.
- Okay and just for the record Gabby, Danny, Sam and Zach.
I love you all equally don't listen to this man--
- It's Gabby, it's Gabby. (laughing)
- Final very important question, Cola or lemonade?
- You know what's interesting, Cola and this is funny
with a lemon in it. - That's cheating.
- I only-- - that's cheating--
- No it's not cheating, what's amazing about
what you asked, actually let me be even more transparent.
I've stopped drinking Cola as much over the last five years,
but I've kinda re picked it up in the last six months
because I've missed it.
I only drink Cola with lemon and lime in it, only.
I actually dislike, so much so I don't like regular Cola
anymore, fresh lemon and lime not when they spice it.
I need to do it, the little pieces
and then I bite the actual lemon and eat the whole peel
and everyone freaks out.
It's a whole to do. - These were supposed to be
the don't overthink it, most people just go
Cola or lemonade, not Gary.
One message that I take out more than anything,
is experiment, experiment try it.
Don't be afraid be more authentic,
more creative things will happen
and crucially more business results will come.
Thank you for being with us.
- Thanks for having me. - I really appreciate it.
(wind rushing)