‘Philistine’ Gary Vee on Mark Ritson: Have you ever marketed when your life depends on it, or are you a pontificating MBA?

Unfortunately, I do know who Gary Vee is. And as usual he is making a splendid and entirely evidence free speech somewhere in the world about himself.

Gary says: “I would ask him: has he ever done marketing to pay for his family’s wellbeing?”
Yes, despite my academic title I have been working with brands for two decades and that has been my prime source of income for all that time. Its too easy to pigeon-hole all marketing professors as theory people who do not work at the coal face. The reality is that there are plenty of marketing professors – me, Galloway, Sharp, to name but three – who have been working with brands for a very long time at the very highest levels. That does not mean we are geniuses but it does mean that we are experienced and results driven.

Gary says: But there is a difference in being a marketer for the sake of being a marketer, and to grow up doing what I did, which was because my family had to pay its life based on the results of marketing.”

My understanding is that Gary inherited a multi-million $ wine retail business from his family and grew it from there. No easy feat. But don’t come the “I’m a working class boy who puts food on the table” crap with me. I grew up in Whitehaven in England (not posh). I went to a superb and entirely hopeless comprehensive school and paid my way through University to study marketing by working for a small distribution company during the Summers doing marketing. I have been doing marketing ever since with a succession of ever bigger clients and jobs. My clients are happy. I work hard. My family too were paid from the results of the marketing.

Gary says: “I do not believe there is one single university on earth that is teaching marketing for the world we live in… I just think there is a lot of pontificating from MBAs and professors, who have been professional marketers their whole lives and they never had to do it when their life depended on it like I have.”

Gary has no clue whatsoever what marketing is. He keeps mistaking communications and digital stuff for the whole discipline. He does that because has has not training and if he ever tried shutting up and listening to his peers and others that preceded him rather than banging on about himself in the back of limos he might learn that.

Marketing is 100 years old. Its changing. But before people like Vee start trying to change it I just wish they would respect some of the men, women and approaches that have been built over the previous century before he made himself the boss of something he does not understand.

Marketing is already losing control of strategy, price, CX, product development and distribution in amny firms because we are increasingly seen as the “colouring-in department” and its men like Gary that are giving out the felt tip pens.

He does not know who I am but if he ever fancies a debate it would be my pleasure to present “The Ten Biggest Fallacies of Gary Vee” at any conference of his choosing and then we can go from there. My biggest challenge will be keeping it down to ten.

I am sure Gary is a nice person and he deserves a lot of credit for building his cult like following. But his impact on marketing is disastrous.

Gary Vee.
The Donald Trump of marketing.
A lot of people agree.
Really.
They do.

*grabs popcorn*, refreshes @MarkRitson on twitter

I love Mark Ritson 🙂

Purely tactical marketing is still a type of marketing. Just a a much lower form.

…And to think people say it’s the millennial generation ruining advertising.

Who has a worse impact on marketing? The uneducated idiots who populate most major agency groups and directly control brand spend, or Gary Vee? Let’s make this a three way.

Whilst I’m fans of what both Mark and Gary have to say, I think these two are in very different camps. Gary is great at motivating people, advocating for entrepreneurship and yes, has done a great job of creating his own brand out of multiple companies.
Mark on the other hand has been around working with some of the worlds biggest brands for over 20 years as he points out above.
@Evidence, you talk about case studies, but I dare say that some of the products and brands that you own or desire to own, Mark has been a part of (Take the LVMH group as an example) and as part of this, the case study would be the ongoing success of those brands.
Digital disruption is a thing and needs to be taken into account, but the way people think and make decisions on the products they buy hasn’t changed all that much. Media and touch-points change and evolve, but people’s psychology doesn’t evolve anywhere near as quickly. Marketing is all about connecting with people in meaningful ways to entice them to buy products and services, and in my mind, digital just creates an additional way to reach people. You still have to know how to talk to them! Every media has it’s strengths and weaknesses, our job as media professionals should be understanding these and harnessing each on its own merits to both reach, and engage the audience.

lets have a coffee served by someone trained to make coffee.

ritson’s answer above makes clear he is not a snob – he might not be to everyone’s taste – but not a snob. he just thinks those challenging and changing marketing should have some training in it before they start altering things. As someone with an MBA I agree with him. It has not made me smarter or more elite but I do at least know the difference between comms and marketing unlike Mr Vee.

This whole argument sort of underlines why the marketing industry is seen as the “colouring in department”. It’s banal and completely unimportant to anyone, reflecting poorly on a ‘look at me’ industry hoping someone might notice. Get a grip.

*draws line in sand* … the battle lines are drawn. Let the fun begin

I think the reality lies somewhere in the middle – I wouldn’t really want to have a coffee with either of them if I’m being honest… They’d just both talk about themselves for 20 minutes and then I’d probably yawn and go back to work. Marketing is changing… Dramatically… But humans consume brands and products for a reason and actually, I don’t think human emotions, needs and wants have changed that much at all in the last decade.

It’s a shame the personalities are drowning out a pretty decent point about the readiness of marketing graduates for today’s marketing departments.

Personally, I think the answer is totally down the middle. No matter how much they try, no university will be able to stay on top of the changing nature of technology and the subsequent networks and possibilities they sprout (to a decent academic degree anyway).

Having said that though, the underlying principles of marketing (including the spotting of trends and maximizing on change) is something a lot of marketeers would benefit from. As is the exposure to analysis methods (and trying to translate analysis to insight and forecasting).

The ideal marketing course (imho) would involve a heafty chunk of time on technology and general business (because far too many marketeers have no idea how to align to business objectives).

What’s marketing?

For every action —- —– —– there is an equal and opposite reaction —- —- —- … and a social media overreaction.

Some might say that Gary V is street and Ritson is a prefect? Both possess skills, experience and can offer immense value to clients.

It would be great to have both V and R on stage debating; be a thrill to watch.

Please make this debate happen. My core skillset is digital tactic manipulation and is closer to Gary Vee’s offering but a Ritson would bring incredible value to a campaign. Both skillsets are essential for a world-class campaign.
All the people shouting about evidence – do you realise that not all evidence can be published?

… is that Mark’s article has several typos. Not good.

Mark, I am sure you are a wonderful person and it would be exiting for me to sit down with you and spend time together, I meant zero disrespect to the question and I hope if anyone watches the video they would see I was responding to the comment more than you personally. I hope we cross paths, it’s silly to put people against each other, makes zero sense and I genuinely wish you nothing but health and happiness

Gary, absolutely no personal insult whatsoever. You seem to be a thoroughly engaging person and at no point did I feel anything you said was intended as a personal jibe.

But, dude, you have to stop shitting all over marketing.education. Its disgraceful. You were in Canada recently and this is what you said to one father asking if his daughter should study marketing:

“I would tell you that there is not a school on earth, not a university that exists, that is even remotely equipped to educate you properly on communications and marketing….I’ve traveled the best Universities in the world and I have literally thrown up all over myself listening to the horseshit those professors are shoving down those kids throats”.

So while I take no personal offence I take HUGE PROFESSIONAL OFFENCE at what you have been saying. Don’t even get me started on the huge array of other statements and speeches that you have given – all very dynamic and well presented – that are so incorrect they border on professional incompetence.

I appreciate you have built your original business into an empire but you need a crash course in market orientation, strategic planning, brand equity, qual and quant research design, media neutrality to name but five topics.

Before you start ripping up marketing and claiming it needs a whole new structure and approach and repeatedly shitting all over every marketing department and scholar on the planet, you should pause and consider whether there really is quite a lot you do not know that actually would help inform your approach and make you more successful. You know… learning from others and the men and women that did what you did for 100 years before you did it.

I say this with respect for the way you have built your business. But, dude, you are doing enormous harm to marketing and your influence is gigantic.

I’d be delighted to sit down with you and walk through these points, one at a time. Lets plan a date next year in the US and do a two handed event at a US conference of your choice. I will walk through all the many flaws, holes and errors in your thinking with appropriate references back to the existing marketing corpus and explain why what you are saying is not just technically wrong, but will have a detrimental impact on businesses you work with. Then you can have full and complete right to reply to explain if anything I have just said is inaccurate in any way.

I’m pretty busy Q1 (consulting not class), but from Q2 onwards lets find a date and I’ll come over and show you just how “irrelevant” and “out of touch” marketing professors are. It will be fun. And you might just learn something.

Before people jump all over me, I have looked for case studies of Mark’s work so I can actually judge for myself if he can do more than talk. I looked on his website, articles, presentations, awards shows, but I just can’t find any. No luck with Google. No example of work and results. Can someone show me where I can read about examples of his work.

Can we all agree the Gary is the best practitioner and Mark is the best pontificator?

Sorry Mark but Gary has a lot of fair points – Marketing @ uni is made up of very vague, generic ‘concepts’ that are not actionable immediately and for a lot of people – common sense

Whereas Gary preaches techniques that anyone can implement from anywhere in the world. He has inspired millions & through what he teaches has transformed lives with the online space.

Instead of teaching branding as ‘strong, unique, favourable associations’ – whatever the hell that means, and also without any indication on how to influence the associations apart from spending big $$ on a celebrity endorsement or sporting event, Gary provides actionable advice that anyone can implement for themselves no matter who they are, what education they do or do not have etc.

Hey Mumbo. Love this thread. As an aside, given that anyone can post here without validation – how do we, as Reader’s know if it’s actually Gary or Mark writing comments ? Any chance in the future of a ‘verified by mumbrella’ icon, (next to posts from those names who want to ensure the comment carries weight) ?

Thanks.

Brinkworth ✔️

The arrogance of Ritson is appalling here, and the fact that he’s written 3 essays worth of comments shows just how much more he’s hung up on this than Gary. Maybe that’s because Mark knows of Gary but Gary’s never heard of Mark. I guarantee Gary doesn’t give a hoot about this debate beyond his short response in the thread.