# Gary Vaynerchuk on Why Creative, Not Media, Is the Real Growth Engine

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/frontier-cmo-podcast-by-think-with-google-7619785/gary-vaynerchuk-on-why-creative-not-media-is-the-real-growth-engine
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/frontier-cmo-podcast-by-think-with-google-7619785/gary-vaynerchuk-on-why-creative-not-media-is-the-real-growth-engine.md
Podcast: [Frontier CMO Podcast by Think with Google](https://stenobird.com/podcast/frontier-cmo-podcast-by-think-with-google-7619785)
Published: 2026-01-29T09:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/PDP9417736932.mp3?updated=1769621481
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/PDP9417736932.mp3?updated=1769621481
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/frontier-cmo-podcast-by-think-with-google-7619785/episodes/gary-vaynerchuk-on-why-creative-not-media-is-the-real-growth-engine
Duration seconds: 2006

## Resource

Brands are currently caught between two realities: the pretty strategy deck and the real world where attention is the currency. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia joins Josh Spanier, VP of AI & Marketing Strategy at Google to discuss why traditional brand models are failing and which channels remain the C-suite’s most misunderstood growth levers. Gary argues the bottleneck isn’t media—it’s creative slowed by excessive approvals and organizations built for campaigns rather than culture. To win, brands must collapse the walls between media and production, treating social as a daily operating system. This is a candid conversation for any leader ready to bridge the gap between boardroom theory and real-world business results. 00:00 — Creative vs. Media: What Actually Drives Results 01:38 — Practicing in the Trenches, Not the Decks 02:38 — The Real Role of the CMO in 2025–2026 03:51 — Performance vs. Brand CMOs: Why Both Miss the Mark 05:13 — “Day Trading Attention” and Measuring Real Outcomes 07:28 — Creative Is the Variable of Success 09:49 — LinkedIn Is the B2B World’s TikTok 11:21 — Relevance at Scale Beats “Matching Luggage” 13:49 — Why Production, Creative & Media Must Merge 15:05 — Who Wins in an AI-Powered Marketing World 18:42 — Rebuilding an Agency for the AI Era 21:06 — Brand Means Different Things to Different People 26:07 — How to Pitch Marketing to the CFO 30:41 — Rapid-Fire: Metrics, Media & Buzzwords 32:05 — Field Notes from the Frontier

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