VaynerMedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk made a blunt case for a fundamental marketing overhaul, arguing that large brands are hemorrhaging cash by ignoring the mid-funnel.
Touts Social Media Production
“Every brand on earth should be spending 20% of their entire marketing budget just on social media organic production,” Vaynerchuk said during his appearance on an episode of TBPN released on Friday.
He added that marketing teams at Fortune 500 companies are "wasting 93 cents of every dollar they spend," remaining focused on upper-funnel sponsorships and outdated A/B testing approaches from 2016, even as the mid-funnel has become dominant.
Using the podcast itself as a real-time example, the entrepreneur explained that the conversation would be broken into organic social media clips, allowing audience engagement to determine what performs best. Clips that resonate get scaled, going “up for brand and down for performance,” replacing expensive upfront creative assumptions with insights driven directly by market response.
China Hits $1 Trillion GMV While U.S. Brands Sleep
Vaynerchuk also flagged live commerce as a blind spot for U.S. brands, noting China is on pace for $1 trillion in gross merchandise value this year, with TikTok Shop and Meta (NASDAQ:META)-driven commerce accelerating stateside.
The push toward organic content carries real budget implications. Investor Kevin O’Leary has separately noted that content creators who once earned $50,000 annually now command as much as $200,000, signaling that committing to social production is not just a strategic shift but an increasingly expensive one.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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