IN SUMMARY: I have had enough of Gary Vaynerchuk. This is someone who says things for one reason: to enhance his personal brand. This was someone who told us that we absolutely, have to be on social media not too long ago. Are there that many brain dead marketing people who are devoid of an original idea?
I am just floored when I see the people who worship Gary Vaynerchuk. This guy has been wrong about so many things in the past yet people are willing to reward him with hefty speaking fees and follow his every word like it was gosphel.
Gary Vaynerchuk is wrong about media
According to marketing week, “Gary Vaynerchuk is so frequently wrong. And that fallibility multiplied by the fame he now enjoys means that his wrongness echoes around marketing and media circles like a giant, ongoing thunderstorm of bullshit”.
Like most of the digital marketing industry, Vaynerchuk confuses communications and tactics with proper brand strategy. It’s wrong to recommend a media strategy because to instantly prescribe any tactical solution without first pausing to consider the strategic requirements that precede the media decision is dumbness personified.
Vaynerchuk is convinced that literally, no one is watching TV anymore. Ignoring the amateur hour that goes on at every Gary Vaynerchuk event for a second, we have a mountain of data to show that marketers are far more digital and social while far less likely to go home and turn on a TV than the average consumer. But marketers are not the market. And they are meant to know that.
While brands continue to shift dollars to online I remind them that the 7th cavalry followed Custer into a losing battle. Nielsen continues to report that the two best ways to reach consumers are with TV and radio. Traditional print and TV ads still have plenty of reach. Despite the increasing number of cord cutters, plenty of folks still watch regular old TV — almost five hours a day, in fact. While that number is lower than it was a few years ago, it is still incredibly high. We’re talking over thirty hours a week, and this is just through one medium.
Among women over 18, traditional live TV remains the largest component of their media consumption, with an average of 4 hours a day spent watching this medium. From 2015 to present, this demographic has consistently spent an average of around 30-plus minutes per day with time-shifted TV. (Source: Nielsen).
Gary Vee is good at promoting himself and his personal brand, that’s all. Follow him over the cliff if you want to but do it at your own expense.
