Dave Kelly 5:27
Hey, not for nothing. I’ve never called Guinness but I bet I broke a couple of my own records at one time or another. Close friends and family will say that guy’s probably breaking the record with how many ribs that anyone has eats, certainly within a family cookout. Hey, John, before we get into it, listen, I need to do a quick read from our sponsor. You got to pay some bills here, Dave at a pay some bills, listen. Are your clients keeping you awake at all hours of the night? And listen, like many salespeople, you probably use your personal cell phone number for work. But did you know that you could easily use Zoom for both your online meetings and phone calls. So Take Back the Night so that you can sleep better knowing that your phone won’t ring at all hours of the evening zoom phone? That’s right zoom phone allows you to keep your personal phone number separate so that you can rest more easily and be more effective during your day. And with global tech as your zoom partner, setting it up is as easy as 123. So check them out at tech.global/zoom to get started today. Back to you. Rolando.
Rolando Rosas 6:32
Awesome, Dave. hate those interruptions at dinner. I love it when they go into the proper voicemail for work. So, you know, we’ve got John Morgenstern from VaynerMedia. He works for probably one of the probably no, maybe Gary Catellus, the most celebrated or the most recognized CEO on the planet? I don’t know of anybody. Right now that’s more recognized than him. And John could tell us if that’s debatable or not, but I want to bring him up. John, you work for Gary Vaynerchuk? What’s it like working for Gary at VaynerMedia?
Jon Morgenstern 7:13
It’s a blast. Honestly, I’ve been at Vayner. Just over eight years, it was eight years in May. And so our relationship has evolved a lot. And Gary, definitely, as we all who values like putting in the time and the months, years, you know, as I’ve been around longer, longer the layers of the onion, I keep going deep Ron with Gary. And as many folks who know him best say it’s like, the closer you are to Gary, like, the more you love him, his marketing instincts are just pure. It’s like, you know, in a Good Will Hunting when Matt Damon’s character is talking about, you know, Mozart could look at a piano and he could just play like that’s what will hunting saying that he can do basically with all subjects. Gary is that with marketing.
Rolando Rosas 7:52
And I heard you say in another podcast recently, that when you all sit in the conference room, with all the folks all the heads, you know, all the trusted advisors like yourself, he’ll just come out with something so simple, yet effective, even though he’s not a math guy. And so profound that you guys are scratching your head and then realize oh, yeah, that makes sense. And that he does it over and over and over again.
Jon Morgenstern 8:16
Yeah, it’s like a Thinking Fast and Slow sort of thing. You know, Daniel Collins book feels like a type one system, whichever the one is that just like automatic, just like, boom, has that sort of quality to it. And it’s the result of a crazy number of hours, just like living in the weeds doing it.
Rolando Rosas 8:32
Always plugged in, like, like that brain has got to be going.
Jon Morgenstern 8:36
Yeah, yeah. So it’s fun to learn. He gives a lot of autonomy on to a lot of us, but also like once a lift the thesis. And so he like keeps, you know, top down, the vision remains on point, because it’s so easy to get complacent. And like just like back to the status quo, and all that sort of thing. So it’s a good check and balance.
Rolando Rosas 8:54
It’s always bringing the same energy that we see on social media with all the clips. Is he like that in the office? You know, with the folks that day to day? Is he bringing that same level of energy? Or is it just reserved for the social media side?
Jon Morgenstern 9:09
I mean, He absolutely has the same sort of energy, I’d say that social media is the more like, dialed up to 10 Kind of like characterized version to where it’s like, the most energized the most like communicative and sensitive. So you know, it’s a little bit more like, yeah, you’re in the office. He’s like, he’s still very much Gary. He’s still like, the guy you see on social media, but he’s more subdued. That’s the word I was looking for.
Rolando Rosas 9:32
He’s not on maybe he’s on eight and a half. Seven.
Jon Morgenstern 9:35
Yeah, exactly. And he has like the natural energy thing, like for sure. I’ve seen him do like, especially around fi friends launches and things like the multi all nighters, like he can still go ham on the hours when he needs to his calendar is down to like the five minute level of three admins. You know, wow, he’s in the office or going to the client meetings. It’s like, you know, clockwork, but he’s always meeting with new employees. He always wants to meet every single new employee at Vayner living the CSIS Honey Empire as we call it, a vein, right? Right,
Dave Kelly 10:03
I’d love to hear that he’s kind of living that way we share his videos and have been sharing for years, one of the things that I’m always impressed by with Gary is, he’s not afraid to record anywhere from his mobile device and a noisy environment from his laptop, in a quiet environment, and in a produced style with lighting, you know, he’s always kind of given us that motivation of just start recording, you know, don’t over plan it, just do turn on the camera, start recording, regardless of where you are. And we tried to do some of that, but watching him do some of that it’s like, alright, experiment with new things. It doesn’t have to be in the studio with the best microphone and the best lighting. And sometimes you’re out and about, I was actually on a vacation recently, and I had a new product. And it was just a perfect environment to capture a demonstration. And I hadn’t done a demo like this before, kind of in public on a ship and all those noises. And I kind of thought about gearing, like Gary wouldn’t be afraid to just take out his phone and start recording and talk to himself, you know, and I had people kind of walking around me and they were like, What is he doing? But I think he sort of has normalized that within the industry.
Jon Morgenstern 11:12
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s some videos of him like on a plane, like in his phone audio, and you can like barely hear it. And it’s still Yeah, if the value is there, you know if it’s useful, yeah, no big time. Yeah, one sec would say like one is better than zero. It’s like, don’t let those obstacles get away, at least making something don’t worry about it being like this level of professional on pointless when you’re just getting started, like one is better than zero. Yeah. Yeah, he’ll also will do stuff like he’ll do voice messages, and just text them to me to try, you know, boosting on Spotify ads studio as like digital audio, just like record on his phone, like, Hey, can you throw this up, put, you know, some media buy dollars behind it and target these people. And then let’s measure it this way. It’s like that scrappy,
Rolando Rosas 11:53
wow, that is scrappy, he’s not afraid to mix it in, and really just push the envelope. And that’s kind of what I asked him next about from a pushing the envelope perspective. What at the moment, would you say is the most exciting thing? Or are you most interested in that you’re nerding out on right now?
Jon Morgenstern 12:14
Yeah, I’ve had my little mini foray including things like this into creator dumb, which has been fun. It started off. As for the VaynerMedia handles like a bunch of us, you know, veiners PR crew led by Harriet Ford, he was awesome, featuring more Vayner leaders on like, the social accounts in general. And I did a poster to was like, what are the things are most looking forward to in 2023? And it was posted, you see it do decently? Well, you see the comments come in, you’re like, I should reply to these comments. Like, this is exactly what I know to answer. Like, this is my thing. Reply to some comments, you see a clear topic merchant video you want that makes sense for you to do you do it. And once you get a little taste of not virality. But just like, yeah, when you’re adding value to people getting DMS getting views, it’s expensive.
Rolando Rosas 12:57
And I’ve seen that John, on your Instagram, for example. I went back and looked at it. And it was just mostly your personal posts, like you know what you do, and you go here and there. And then you shift into, like, it was a lot more social media Vayner stuff, tactics, hacks, you know? And then it seems like that’s where you’re laying you are at the fall in your lane, or you’d like, like you said, you have a taste of what people are really curious about that. They want to ask you.
Jon Morgenstern 13:24
Yeah, I’ve only been doing it like six ish months. And it’s been fun. And like Gary said, to talk recently, like paid media, which is obviously my core thing has papered over like so much core strategy or like poor creative, especially in social, and like earning the views organically, versus just buying them with paid. It’s like training at altitude sort of thing. And so it’s been really cool. I have more empathy than ever, honestly, for creators and like, ad agency creatives, too. That’s been cool. So that’s, that’s one that’s like top of mind and like day to day, I’m tinkering and playing around. But obviously, AI is one as much but it’s almost cliche at this point. And it was ridiculously huge at the Cannes lion creativity festival in France, two weeks, but
Rolando Rosas 14:05
that’s where Gary Vee mentioned that by the way, he saw that clip. Yeah, that the one you’ve
Jon Morgenstern 14:09
already kind of like counterpunch to that being like, hey is like, it’s the first inning. Many of the entities here are not tech companies per se, but he believes in a too big time. But it’s kind of like, hey, think about where the consumer is at the second versus the potency of things. And he said in the talk like the industry is very romantic about yesterday. Let’s talk about tomorrow and like under appreciates the now that today and social media, things like this. The Tick Tock application of all things is like still crater economy. The second is still like massive
Rolando Rosas 14:42
and growing. I saw your post about that creators are now especially with Amazon, jumping into the creative space and how you can’t sleep on that anymore. Whereas maybe a couple years ago was just, you know, some craters over here doing their thing. Yeah, big companies are getting behind this as Well,
Jon Morgenstern 15:01
yeah, yeah, it’s like the kind of evolution from influencers to creators. And what it kind of means for like the modern, creative agency, and robbing away our chief creative officer, he’s been like steering the department in this new direction of, it’s gonna look different. It’s not going to be like your classic Madison Avenue shop of like copywriters, art directors, creative directors, to then make the thing, whole production ecosystem tied to the content, the cost of making content has to go down a lot, there’s to be a way higher volume of it has to be with increasing numbers of you know, social digital Tik Tok natives.
Rolando Rosas 15:34
And that’s the push pull. Right? You have a lot of debate, and a lot of people, you know, they want to scale. I mean, this is our own challenge. We want to scale, but native on the platform gives you some benefits, you know, pushing it everywhere gives you some other benefits. And so what do you see when you’re talking to clients that, you know, they come to you guys, here’s the budget, $10 million? What should we do? Yeah, native everything, or we’ll just gonna blitz everywhere, using, you know, the apps and the API stuff.
Jon Morgenstern 16:03
Yeah. I mean, this was cool, having a whole media side of the house and creative side of the house. And not that every single one of our clients that does both with us, but the majority do to some degree, we’re like, all social, creative, and paid social is kind of like the wheelhouse but, you know, these days, the fastest growing channels for us are things like retail, media, connected TV, all those sorts of things. But it’s funny when we get like classic, pure media, you know, RFPs and briefs, and it is that kind of like, here’s 10 million, here’s our business objective, what should we do? And it’s kind of like, okay, here’s the media dollars, here’s the objective. Here’s some audience insights like planet, and we’re like, what’s the creative going to be that we’re serving on these channels? And the industry is still so much in like this siloed insert creative here to the media plan, it’s playing in a vacuum. And us it’s like, what’s the creative? And then we’re like, what do you think the creative should be? And a lot of that’s where the magic, we think happens, the alpha, quote unquote, happens. So we never want to be divorced from the creative side of the house and what the assets are. And obviously, if we can impact them, great. If not, that’s a very common scenario for us to. But it’s always a combination of like, client comfortability with change. But yeah, it’s always a level of like, Hey, here’s the existing media mix. That is what was delivered last year, how was measured, that’s almost always some form of starting point. Even if there’s collective agreement, the client, us, the platform’s, that it’s way off, you only want to steer these, especially in Fortune 500, lands to the ships so dramatically. And it depends on the CMO. And, again, how aggressive they want to be sometimes they’re like, Gary always talks about the industries that too, I come in at a 10 hoping to move it to a five. And sometimes, you know, client marketing work, or like, no, we want to seven or like, amazing, but you’re always navigating, like the yesterday, the backwards looking, you know, regression analysis side of things, media mix, modeling side of things, and that tomorrow,
Rolando Rosas 17:55
that’s the hard part. How do you measure success? You know, do you have your own measurement for success? Now, I want to get back to the creatives in a moment. But I want to ask because you’re touching on something that is, as a business owner, myself, you’re always measuring the ROI, what are we getting for it? And so do you redefine success? Or is the client coming to you with the metric for success? When you’re engaging, you know, a new client comes on board?
Jon Morgenstern 18:24
Yes, it makes it both, you know, they of course, expect us to help dictate what some of the KPIs key performance indicators are our measurement recommendations. But depending on the client, you know, if it’s like a huge complex, you know, financial services company or company that is like deeply in the CRM, you know, first party data management game, they’ll of course come with like, CDP DMP, like some existing ad tech infrastructure. And sometimes it’s pretty prescriptive, and like, Hey, this is what we do. And a whole separate team runs it. So like, you’ll be working through it, you know, things like closely measurement with those partners and other things come up. But they’ll always want our input at least for like, social, digital, real time. Media metrics. What can be tracked in near real time will obviously anything like lead capture related lead scoring, obviously, conversions around purchases, order value, all those sorts of things? Well, we want to have all that hygiene in a perfect place, privacy, conversions, API’s, all that good stuff. And other than that, you know, there’s also examples where they’re like, Hey, we had this media mix model a few years ago, we imploded it we want to start fresh with this brand tracker that like wasn’t our brand tracker would say we’re doing better and better in terms of like top of mind awareness and brand equity, and our business was going down the entire time. So we’re detonating everything. What do you think? And then we’re like, yeah, and then we have our like, you know, from the ground up sort of measurements that we hold analytics crew, shout out JC Bonilla, our chief analytics officer, but yeah, it’d be some form of it. cross platform real time dashboarding with the best possible down funnel tracking, you can have everywhere conversion pixels, SAP SDKs. Convergence. So you
Rolando Rosas 20:08
have, so you can be as sophisticated as the client wants to be so you can measure it in their terms, or they can come in to you, but you say, hey, look, this is the way we think we should look at this based on your objective.
Jon Morgenstern 20:20
Yeah, exactly. And that at some level of third party specialists, and you know, in house clients stuff in house Vayner stuff, and everything in between,
Rolando Rosas 20:30
I want to get back to the discussion on creatives, because the future of creatives is changing. And just even six months ago, or a year ago, some of what’s available today is just mind blowing. And I know that you follow this the deep fakes and generative AI and how it’s evolving the ability to be hyper realistic. I think that’s the terminology creatives used nowadays, hyper realistic, in what you’re delivering is unreal. I think the next evolution is how can I use this character to create the entire video? And I think that’s the next bridge to get to, because you could do this live, right? You’re the actor and overlays, in this case, Tom Cruise’s face, which is what we’re showing here on the video for those that are following along. And it’s just an amazing time. Where do you think this is going?
Jon Morgenstern 21:26
Yeah, I mean, this is such a wild topic. I could talk about this for hours. There’s actually a good Black Mirror episode on this recently on if you’ve seen the new season at all. I have no the episodes called Joan is awful. And like Salma Hayek is licensing her deepfake for this like, stream Barry. It’s like this fictitious Netflix. Netflix is very, like kind of self deprecating, yes. on it, which is pretty funny. But yeah, there’s one the world of, oh, hey, you’re Tom Cruise, you can’t do a certain film, they want to use you, you let them license your digital likeness to quote unquote, star in it. And like, what ultimately happens there. And the same with like, brand deals, you know, you like Licensed Clinical them, even though they might not be involved. And it creates a lot of heavy questions with it. And so there’s obviously, you know, that world and if it will materialize, I mean, think about like the Tupac hologram concert, I think was Coachella years ago. And like, what could happen there? And it’s kind of cool. But and John Mulaney was talking about this on a hot ones episode. He was like a recent guest. And it was about, you know, the writers strike, like the Writers Guild and how they’re on strike, you know, to Warner, to Netflix to all the big studios and everything. And a decent part of the why is the threat of AI. And these writers just becoming more and more cutthroat AI, possibly even like lifting a bit of what the writers have done and using it as an input, potentially. But a lot of the time, you
Rolando Rosas 22:49
still need creativity, though, right, John? Even though you have that image, you would still need it. Even with chat GPT it can do some of the lifting. I’ve heard Gary talk about this. Yeah, the fact that it’s more of an assistant. So if you’re a writer, you know, you’re creative. Sometimes the hardest part is the first sentence or the first line. But if you have 10 ideas based on what your input is, now that oh, yeah, like idea number two, let’s expand on it. Right? So yeah, can be just as powerful when used as an assistant to boost that creative process, rather than it’s gonna get rid of everybody.
Jon Morgenstern 23:26
Totally like that’s, you know, complimentary, you know, augment enhance humans and how to, like, take a lot of the most menial, tedious stuff, the least like stuff and handle that. And so you can be more purely creative is very exciting. And there’s that whole side of things. There’s the marketing implications of that. But there’s also the piece of like, an Laney, was saying this on the show. This human factor and like human nature, if there’s a stand up set, and just the mere fact of knowing an AI wrote it versus a human being, will it still be as funny, knowing it, Nai wrote it?
Rolando Rosas 24:01
It’s to be determined. Yeah. I mean, we’re still we’re still we’re still in the first inning or the first set of a tennis match. Right? Yes. Oh, completely. So there’s a lot more script that needs to be written in order for us to determine where we’re going to get there or what’s going to happen.
Jon Morgenstern 24:18
Yeah, in my wife, we’re debating this she works at Ark invest, you know, Kathy woods, ETF company. And so she she knows her stuff, big time, especially in like self driving autonomy, kind of mobility. She’s a beast, but they were debating it. And she was mentioning how like, when Microsoft Word first came out. You had to cite like, Oh, hey, this document was written using Microsoft Word. Because it was that novel and weird. And how like, with AI, there’s like that sort of thing happening. And like Now obviously, you wouldn’t think twice about it. It’s like yeah, this is ingrained in everything. And it’s like, how much of the AI is just that? It’s like the internet you wouldn’t say like, I use the internet.
Rolando Rosas 24:56
Source internet.
Jon Morgenstern 24:57
Yeah, so like there’s a lot of that but the biggest think it’s gonna be the right side of it. rights owners.
Rolando Rosas 25:03
I think that’s got to be sorted to get all the legal stuff out just like when we had e signatures, right? We didn’t have electronic documents to sign for people wanted that for years. And now there’s laws that just you know, you do a DocuSign. It’s just as good as you signing it. Eventually, I think, once the lawyers and the attorneys and in this case, creatives and actors and people in the creative process are allowed to know what legally you can do and represent, I think it’s going to clear the path for all of this,
Jon Morgenstern 25:33
for sure, for sure. All shut down.
Rolando Rosas 25:36
Absolutely. I want to ask you some I want to jump into something I want to switch gears with you a little bit. We have a little mashup, though I want to show you, because I want to get a little nerdy peel this onion a little bit that you’re the master strategist over at VaynerMedia. And I want to understand a little bit more of what we’re seeing. Because it may not be so obvious to some folks, but I’ve got some questions on specifics about it. So already, go ahead, roll the mash up that we have for Jon,
Gary Vaynerchuk 26:05
if you’re in your 20s Watch this video. The number one thing at this age that you have to do. Someone who’s 22 years old knows the father, no tick tock kids listen to, you want to know the answers you 54 and thinking that you’re wrapped up because you have 24 year old children biggest mistake 18 to 22 year olds make is the relationship with time, think about taking risks in your 30s I’m turning 32 and I’m a fan of it. I messed up in my 20s spending any time judging yourself about your 20s is a waste of time. I actually believe one of the biggest reasons the world is anxious is we’ve gotten away from accountability. I think for a lot of people colleges, right? I was a D student.
Rolando Rosas 26:46
He’s just so raw with emotion. It’s just unbelievable. But when I started really like just examining I’m like he is specifically saying, hey, 20 year old, a 50 year old. And one of the things I asked my team was let’s look at our numbers and demographics. And when we looked at Tik Tok, and we looked at Instagram, and we looked at Pinterest, no matter what the creative was that we delivered, the audience always skewed younger, even though our target demographic for what we’re selling is not 18 to 30. It’s 30 plus. So my question to you on that is, are we supposed to I remember, we I mean, collectively creators, or I should say b2b companies. Now, this is what I’m directing our b2b companies who know their target audiences older. But the folks consuming their own content on younger should they create content that is algo specific, because I’m saying, hey, 20 year olds, and we know the algorithms and pick up on that, or should we be delivering content? That’s for our target audience, even though the demo consuming the media is not the folks that we’re going after?
Jon Morgenstern 27:57
Visited i, this concept of like creative is the new targeting is like really gaining momentum and Metis talking about it more. And it certainly is, by definition, the case in the organic platform algorithms, like when you post them on tick tock, real cetera, because you can’t, there is no page element. And so like we were depending on who the algo thinks will like this the most is where it goes. So creative as the targeting. I mean, there’s obviously the hook side of things. And Gary is a mastermind and all that. And, you know, his team is always doing tests of all sorts. And at some point time, I’m sure they figured out that giving an exact age year just in general, like a 20 to 54 versus Hey, millennials, hey, boomers work better, as well as the audience analytics of hey, on tick tock Sq, the youngest on Facebook, reals SQ the oldest. So let’s make sure we have a content strategy that kind of maps and delivers to those people while also trying to, you know, expand into other territories. It’s all really smart. But for you guys, there’s this interesting challenge. And we see with a lot of brands, too, which is you’re talking about your business, you’re putting out organically. You’re hoping that and it certainly happens to some degree that the recommendation algos hit your target? Because it’s like there’s the nexus of yeah, they consume it, they’re into it, and yep, you deliver it. But to what extent are the algos doing that and how much of it is, the algorithm just isn’t that great? And like you have to reverse engineer all of its flaws to try them, hack it and serve it to the folks who wish or actually How perfect is the algorithm like a tick tock or like, whoever it serves it to is who was most resonant? Even if you’re talking about your b2b realm, by definition that I want younger people is that like, you have to rejigger it through to older people and then like you will, so there’s always this like, how much of it is double down on the content we have but algorithm hack and how much of it is like, hey, we really need to think through and really like try new things related to how we start our content, maybe even where to post it because sometimes people are just on Instagram and Tiktok and it’s like hey, you skew older Facebook real should be like your number one. On or try YouTube. It’s like the platform mapping, understanding of any Algo flaws, as well as when you need to kind of like shift gears and try different things when you’re just like, we just still keep hitting younger younger folks on this platform. And we know this platform has old people. So which we do, and that will be unlocked and answered, by the way, is also always and as we would say, Evander like, it’s not in horror he’s doing with the Hey 54 Hey, 22, like, of course do that. And like, they’re very well, maybe a hack at any given time in terms of how LinkedIn picks that up, or Facebook reels picks that up versus other platforms that, you know, look more deeply into the video. But also try or look at all of your content, which one, if any, really did scratch the itch to filter folks and then like reverse engineer the why it did and double down on that,
Dave Kelly 30:45
when you’re analyzing some of these videos, and you’re looking at who is watching who’s viewed and consumed this? Are you ever surprised that you’re creating something you’re introducing it? Hey, 20 to 28 year olds do this? Are you ever surprised when you go back to the analytics and seeing Hey, this hit right on, we actually, we brought new people in from an older demo, maybe that wasn’t the best way to do it. What’s surprising to you, when you write the creative, it’s super
Jon Morgenstern 31:15
fun. I mean, you have like your hypotheses. And you have like, from reading the algorithmic tea leaves and your audience insights, like what you’ve seen some success with, you try to harness what’s worked from it. And that’s fun, it’s always very satisfying, when you have a thesis, to reach a certain audience, you do it and it works, I would say that, like, it’s pretty close to, to call like 6040 of like, your design targets and playing it out. And like cracking the code as intended. And the 40% being, like, happy accident of we see this all the time of like, you’re trying to go younger, and you actually end up going older than ever, because there’s something about like older people wanting to consume content about youth and like, weigh in on it and the comments or something that then trigger the algo. So like, there’s so many counterfactuals that happen in all these ways, too. And the best example of this is like when people screw up making content and post it by accident, and then that content ends up doing the best, because people are like, Oh my gosh, they didn’t post the final version. Like I’m seeing a glimpse into the process. There’s the virality of that. But then there’s also like the authenticity and realness of it. Yeah, we have this concept called like the mystery box, we have cohorts like designed targets we’re making content for and they’re like very nuanced, like 15 to 25 year old, like diehard Dodger fans, in LA, LA and LA County, that are also into like street culture is like one example of that sort of cohort that will be relevant for certain business to crack will always have like a mystery box cohort of just like, hey, don’t not make a piece of content you want to make for the brand that’s on strategy. If it doesn’t, like directly hit one of these cohorts, because getting out to the open, it might actually do a great job of hitting them or unlock a new cohort, like the algorithms can help unlock. Like happy accidents all the time. And like, there could be a content best practice a hack that works, but then everyone flocks to it. And then a week later, by definition, it doesn’t work. Because it’s oversaturated in the feed. So it’s like, you can only ever try to like get so prescriptive on what exactly worked in why? Because then it’s like, okay, but people moved on, there’s a whole different thing going on anyway. So, you know, while you
Rolando Rosas 33:26
have a short half life, is that what you’re saying? Like? Wow, well, we, you know, speaking of half lives and short half lives and the future of what’s happening, and then to the minute, there is a special guest, Jon that wants to come in and ask you a question. There he is. Special guests making an appearance here. What’s your question for Johnny? Mo? Hello, John. Can you hear me?
Jon Morgenstern 33:52
Yes. Hello, Mr. Roboto.
AI 33:55
Hello. All right. So I have a simple question here. As someone who advises fortune 500 brands, can you fill in the blank for me on this statement? When using social media, you should never
Jon Morgenstern 34:11
I would say you should never write a platform off as quote unquote, not working. Especially the platforms that like you know, your audiences on like, any social platform can work. But either if it’s an ads pay to play game or organic, it’s just like, you have to find a strategy that’s worked. Like Gary would say, what’s the ROI of a basketball? Like for LeBron James, it’s a billion dollars for Morgenstern. It’s nothing. It’s like, it’s in the operator of it. It could be things could be all sorts of things. So like, anytime there’s like this categorically doesn’t work or like a hot take like that. It’s like almost naive to me. It’s like of course it can work. There’s like huge businesses happening in your sector that are being built off the backs of this. It’s just not working for you for all sorts of legitimate reasons that have to be figured out. And is the juice worth the squeeze to by the way to figure it out? But I’d say the second using social media you should never like, take your eye off the ball. If you’re trying to drive your business, like people that just started getting into trend chasing, and like virality, or going on a platform, when like, in reality, their target customers like, pretty much not there at all. Don’t lose the script of like what you’re ultimately trying to do. Here’s another one, I would say.
Rolando Rosas 35:22
Wow, wonderful. Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Roboto, for joining us today. And posing your question to John. Thank you. Bye, guys appreciate that. If you got into a little, you started just scratching the surface a little bit here with some secrets. And I want to jump into that with you. So go ahead, roll that Ori.
AI 35:44
Well kept safe as well. Secrets. Gotta keep them safe. And sound well, let’s see for secrets are just like diamonds.
Rolando Rosas 36:01
John, you came ready to play today. And one of the things that I really want to just uncover some of those things that are under the radar that are not getting the attention they deserve. And specially for smaller brands, you talked about that earlier? What are some of those secrets that can be deployed from those larger brands that you guys are talking to at VaynerMedia? On a regular basis?
Jon Morgenstern 36:27
Yes. Yes, that’s a good place to start on this. So the Dunning Kruger effect it’s a it’s a quick Wikipedia, it says like psych bias, where if you are not knowledgeable on a given topic, you have a bias towards assuming that like anyone else around you, especially people that that say that they’re fluent in a given topic are knowledgeable, basically, that they know more than you, including people that like like an any stranger whether or not their experience maps to it. And it just goes back to like, human evolution, my thesis and just like going with the herd and all this sort of stuff. Right? Is that really applies. We see this a lot with like, small grants versus big brands of like, oh, well, the big brands putting like media dollars and resourcing aside, it’s a whole different conversation like the creativity they have access to the paid media chops they have access to or like we’ll never be able to compete a certainly on like a meta or Google or Amazon, you absolutely can. It’s a game of like practitioner ship who lives the closest to the keyboard, often like, upstarts can be more agile and be quicker to things and then big brands can. And some of the best, very best purebred media buyers I’ve ever met, like, start off doing it on their like family, small business, and like every dollar had to work like 50. And so they became like incredibly adept at it.
Rolando Rosas 37:41
Because they’re like trenches that sounds like this, because they’re in their trenches, and they’re living and breathing it.
Jon Morgenstern 37:47
They’re in the trenches and living breathing it learning. And it’s like, every dollar has to work so hard, versus when you just have like a huge war chest of dollars. And yes, of course, it has to be on strategy and work hard. But the level of depth that sort of SMB person can get into can be really valuable.
Rolando Rosas 38:06
No doubt, no doubt. You’d also talked about this with us earlier about that history repeats itself, and somehow learn from history. And there’s some insights in that. Go ahead and share what you have to say about Yeah, history repeating itself.
Jon Morgenstern 38:23
What I mean by that is like, what happens in advertising marketing, like it’s all happened before? Yes, the players are different radio, TV, social, etc. But it’s fundamentally like entertainment and creativity and advertising and like, how enjoyable it is, or how interesting it is, or how useful it is, like its value. And then there’s like those consuming it. And those are the basic ingredients were in the Golden Age 50s and 60s, you know, you would have folks like General Mills, they would like Rocky and Bullwinkle General Mills, creative in exchange for the commercial rights in between the content course will break through the content. And it was much more seamlessly tied to the content you’re watching and extension of that product placement was like epic back in the day. And it was all very, like consumer oriented and rooted in adding value. And I think that in recent years, the eye has been taken off that ball a little bit in terms of like, oh, this the MediaMath target ability the arbitrage you know, effort to market these ad auctions
Rolando Rosas 39:23
versus urgency that before about about the arbitrage. That’s the gameplay and to some extent finding where you can stretch that dollar, right? If you’re talking about paid media, if you’re gonna only get 1000 clicks, and it’s gonna cost you 100 bucks here, you can get 1000 clicks and pay $25 over here and just get the same value. Right? Isn’t that the play right now? With values?
Jon Morgenstern 39:45
Yeah, that’s, that’s a lot of what I and we focus on and that’s like short term important and gives you an edge, but like long term, if you’re not building brand having a value exchange, even if you have this arbitrage is like You won’t be able to build the biggest building. So it’s like a balance of it. That makes sense. It makes
Rolando Rosas 40:05
sense. You’re playing the long game, if I were to paraphrase what you’re saying, and just doing CPMs is not going to get to the long game, right? Yes,
Jon Morgenstern 40:14
exactly. And also, like, here’s a great history lesson, like the first TV commercials in the waning of the radio era, were like radio spokespeople, just reading the same script, but in front of the camera, because they were just like, how do we? How can we take advantage of this new medium, and you’re always playing catch up to what the medium can unlock. And that always continues to repeat itself for now, like the TIC tock era is that new thing where brands are still trying to do like, digital video, the old school way, in a way that can no longer compete as well. So again, this happened many times throughout history.
Rolando Rosas 40:47
And it’s crazy, because probably the folks that are making the decision when they were getting started, that’s the way they knew it. And that’s when he I want you to use this right? Because that’s how it worked for me. But yeah, exactly. And so but when when we’re looking at this new landscape, it’s still not too late. And I think there’s the other point, you’re talking about what is earlier that the best time to start with that new strategies now. Now, it’s never too late.
Jon Morgenstern 41:13
Yes, totally. Like there’s always this idea of like, oh, we missed, we missed Tiktok. Or like, now the field is heated up so much in this place. Like is it even worth it? It’s like, yeah, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now it’s like, be on in as many of these places where your consumer is and where you can reach them and drive business as possible. Be unromantic about as they change, and don’t be like, pissed if you jump on and then six months later, like it is no longer a thing that’s part of the game.
Rolando Rosas 41:43
But it’s a feature, not a bug. Yeah,
Jon Morgenstern 41:46
yeah, exactly. Like there are people in the 70s saying like, Oh, TV is overplayed out and people look back now be like, Oh, my God, the 70s TV like you couldn’t lose. I wish we like quadruple down then. And there’s always those tensions I thought it was played is held to tick tock. I started doing it like six months ago, when Gary was talking about it in 2017. Not at all.
Rolando Rosas 42:07
Yeah, and it’s working for you. And I love the lives that you do on tick tock and whatnot, because they’re just so like, rich with information. You know, I’d be selfish. If I was Gary, I’d be like, hell no, John, you’re not going to talk about these secrets and given them away. We’re keeping it to him. So yeah, it seems like Gary encourages you guys to do that.
Jon Morgenstern 42:28
Yeah, within reason. I mean, he built a model of like adding value. You know, the hard part is execution. Ideas are cheap. So it’s like, hey, post for tiktoks a day. That’s like a secret I’m sharing. It’s like, the whole hard part is doing it. Well. So yeah, that is, that’s important. Yeah. You know, some clients are paying for some strategies we have to be for everything I share, there’s much more that is under the surface not shared. But now Gary’s called Upsourced stuff, he built a model many ways he,
Rolando Rosas 42:54
he kicks ass to it. So I know your time is precious. And we want to wrap up with you here. Let’s go to the rapid fire so we can get that out of the way. I know, John, maybe Gary’s on the other line saying get to work and stop playing around a podcast and whatnot. So I’m going to give you it, I’m going to give you a word. And I want you to tell me what’s in your head, what the feeling is whatever you think. So there’s five of these. So creating content and niching down. Yeah, versus posting whatever you like.
Jon Morgenstern 43:22
It’s the nexus of both. If posting what you like, it usually has a niche to it. Maybe not. You need both like, the more specific you can be. I think that’s valuable. I saw a post the other day that someone who has like a soap opera blog became a millionaire off of soap opera. But you have to love it too. So it’s like you have to like the niche. You have to actual energy, otherwise you’ll give up
Rolando Rosas 43:46
Gotcha. Ultimate throw down here between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who’s going to win in the octagon?
Jon Morgenstern 43:59
If it was in the metaverse, Zalk would have a huge advantage. I mean, Zalk seems like he’s one he’s like younger. And he’s like, he like really trained for this stuff. And it ends
Rolando Rosas 44:11
with whoever ends up bloodied in the nose first, that’s what I say.
Jon Morgenstern 44:15
Yeah, they’re way too valuable to actually get hurt.
Dave Kelly 44:21
But how does this affect the stock prices? into the ring?
Jon Morgenstern 44:27
Yeah, I mean, it still seems totally not real. But who knows if your biggest pay per view in history? Probably. Yeah.
Rolando Rosas 44:33
Yeah. Oh, totally. Walmart versus Amazon.
Jon Morgenstern 44:40
Oh, it’s interesting. I would say that, like, Amazon has evolved and built out like a more of a Deathstar quicker, especially as pertains to full funnel digital ads. But Walmart is like, slowly but surely catching up and like Walmart Connect is really, you know, has a lot of like the core of what the Vantage the Amazon ad but m&a activity will be so interesting or whatever happens where, you know, does Walmart acquire Roku or does Disney acquire Walmart? Does Disney acquire market? You know, like all that stuff is kind of percolating in this crazy way.
Rolando Rosas 45:15
Media and commerce are gonna converge. It’s gonna be interesting to see that interesting. No, it’s gonna be interesting. I am fascinated by that. And the last one I think is an on a real light note, who is the best Gary Vee Impressionists and I have a sample video and you tell us which one’s the best go ahead or rollback
Gary Vaynerchuk 45:34
playing outside I gathered up a bunch of snow and converted them into snow cones. Flipping it on eBay you oh my god you making content? Where are you posting? You posting on LinkedIn? LinkedIn, yeah, but I know I know. underpriced attention are you posting on MySpace? No, not yet. Nostalgia row will be been bro Gotti I have been here the whole time. Training Camp y’all. I’ve been focused with my team. Are you making content bro? Like coaches from school? Okay. Okay, do you love okay, we love NF Ts. Oh, bro. Any advice for me? How old are you?
Jon Morgenstern 46:29
I love second guy. He cracks me up more personally like the high voice.
Rolando Rosas 46:33
Yeah. Oh, you keep cats that?
Jon Morgenstern 46:35
Yeah. Do you like blueberries? Doc, they open V Con last year they came on stage and like open V con is Gary. So he’s like, he’s flattered as hell by that. He’s like impersonators who are good. It’s hilarious.
Rolando Rosas 46:51
I love it. I love those guys. But yes, Nima NAS is what he goes by on tick tock. And he’s, he’s hilarious. Hey, John, I want to just open the mic here. As we close anything you want to say anything you want to leave us on? If folks want to follow you. And you know, they want to more insights, anything? What do you want to say?
Jon Morgenstern 47:11
Thanks for having me on. It’s been cool to start doing the content thing a little bit and like living like the podcasting video organic posting thing. It’s hard. I have more respect and admiration than ever for everyone doing it in the trenches. Yeah, I’m gonna try to keep posting on tick tock, at least somewhat consistently. Everyone who engages as comments messages asked for like advice on things that’s always, you know, enjoyable for me to try to add value on when I can. But other than that, hope you guys have a good summer. Thanks for having me on.
Rolando Rosas 47:38
Oh, no, we’ve loved it. And John, he’s under Johnny Mo. And Tiktok puts out a lot of good stuff there. There was a 20 more things I want to ask you. But I would extend an invitation for part two, because there’s a lot more we couldn’t get to because of time. And we’d love to have you whenever you can. Come on again.
Jon Morgenstern 47:56
Awesome. That sounds good to me. Yeah, that there’s so much going on
Rolando Rosas 48:01
there. And I’m sure six months from now, there’ll be some new stuff that we haven’t even scratched the surface. So we’ve been talking to Jon Morgenstern of VaynerMedia, head of investment of VaynerMedia works for probably the most celebrated CEO in history. I’m gonna say that I said that. Not Gary, not Jon. But I said that because I love Gary and I love what he puts out. And if you want to hear more interesting guests with depth and knowledge that can help you grow your business. Go ahead and check those out on circuitloops.com or wherever you consume your podcast. Thank you for joining us today, and we will see you next time.
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