‘Philistine’ Gary Vee on Mark Ritson: Have you ever marketed when your life depends on it, or are you a pontificating MBA?
Dr Mumbo likes a good beef, particularly if he can help stoke it.
So the possibility of marketing motormouths Gary Vee and Mark Ritson metaphorically squaring up is almost too delicious for Dr Mumbo to contemplate.
Mark Ritson, as Dr Mumbo’s regular readers will be aware, is the trash-talking, truth-spitting marketing professor.
Gary Vaynerchuk, or Gary Vee as he is more popularly known, is the hustle-preaching social media firebrand.
They’re yet to actually cross paths though. And like all mismatched-cop buddy movies, their philosophies are somewhat different.
Vaynerchuk thinks going to marketing school is pointless and, indeed, extortion.
Prof Ritson thinks that Gary Vee is a “fucking philistine”.
So Dr Mumbo was delighted that Mumbrella’s Asia editor Eleanor Dickinson was in a position to put Ritson’s view to Gary Vee directly during a visit to Singapore to talk up his agency Vayner Media’s push into Asia.
And Vaynerchuk was happy to swing back in the most passive aggressive way possible, volunteering: “I don’t know who this man is.”
And there was more. If you’re teaching marketing, rather than actually feeding your family by doing it for your business, then perhaps your insight is worth a little less, Vee implied.
“I would ask him: has he ever done marketing to pay for his family’s wellbeing?”
“Maybe he has: 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.”
And he added: “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.”
Over to you, Professor…
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.
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Gary Vee.
The Donald Trump of marketing.
A lot of people agree.
Really.
They do.
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*grabs popcorn*, refreshes @MarkRitson on twitter
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I love Mark Ritson 🙂
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Well Gary is going to be in Melbourne November 9 – lets set this up!
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Speaking of evidence what are some case studies of your work with brands? Can’t seem to find them anywhere. Not just names, actual case studies. You are happy to crap all over everyone else, let’s see your work. Where your marketing case studies please?
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Purely tactical marketing is still a type of marketing. Just a a much lower form.
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…And to think people say it’s the millennial generation ruining advertising.
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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.
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A LOT of people think Ritson is the Donald Trump of marketing. Really. They do.
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Worse is the bias of people (Rodger) who believe that uneducated people in agencies is an issue, surely we should be encouraging diversity of people in the workplace. A degree, private education or an MBA, is used as a proxy for clever/intelligent/driven, but only result in selecting talent from a shallow identikit pool and then nurturing them to the top, the tech industry is the worst for this selection of people. Let’s have a coffee, served by someone uneducated, and you might feel empathy and understand the people we are trying to influence in marketing.
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Lets see . . .
Mentions his penis in a speech – check
Talks about all his work but lacks examples – check
Swears to get noticed – check
Uses false flags in arguments – check
Knocks others to get ahead – check
Selectively uses outlying data – check
Divides others in order to reinforce power base – check
Fervent supporters driven by fear of change – check
Has an issue with a feminist’s (Cindy Gallop) approach to feminism – check
Brags about how he is speaking to thousands of people to counter someone elses argument – check
Yep, thats Mark. All easily Googled.
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would lurv to add Mr Ritson to this threeway to see if he has had the worst effect, but canna find what the man has actually done
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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.
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Don’t compare yourself to Galloway. You are so far from his achievements that you playing a different sport in a different dimension.
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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.
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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.
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*draws line in sand* … the battle lines are drawn. Let the fun begin
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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.
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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).
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Yep yo had better keep away from the Kool-Aid you’ve been over-dosing on.
If you seriously believe that Ritson’s data utilises ‘outliers’ then you sir/madam are indeed the outlier. Ritson (like Sharp) utilises facts and utilises them fairly. You may not like those facts nor their implications – but they are facts.
It’s fair game that you make not like his manner or his conclusions – but don’t dispute his fact base.
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But what about the marketers back in the 30’s or 40’s who had to stay on top of the changing nature of television and the subsequent networks and possibilities they sprout?
Or, at a similar time, commercial aviation and the new media opportunities there. Or what about the ability to have video billboards, flashing neons, interactive billboards…
The truth is, this advance in digital is just tactics. And until we look at it that way, the quality of our advertising is going to continue to go down. And it HAS gone down.
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ok so what is the evidence from the lvmh work? with all that experience there must be a case study or two from lvmh? please show some results (mark?)
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That coffee would be made by experience over time, you dismiss the craft of people in marketing over their career vs your superior MBA
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What’s marketing?
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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.
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You can’t find example studies of Mark Ritson’s work? Where did you look? Under your bed?
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Perfectly put.
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Numbers are often dressed up as fact. I once had an accountant work for me and I said what is my profit for the month-He replied what ever you want it to be, I can deal with the figures. Marketers can do the same! What is my market share? What ever you want it to be running from 100% to near 0 -I can deal with the figures! Simply by a bit of redefinition and sleight of numbers-
I am very sceptical of numerical findings in academic humanities having read many papers in the area. Much of the humanities including commerce teaching is founded on introspective reflection not objective empiricism. Now f…k off everyone.
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Well said
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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?
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… is that Mark’s article has several typos. Not good.
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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
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You sound like Gary Vee….
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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.
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I’ll buy that.
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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.
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Can you do a roadshow together? I will buy a ticket if you have a debate in Sydney!!
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November 9 at Exhibition centre sounds like a good time for this debate?
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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.
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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 ✔️
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Hi GR,
Thanks for the question,
From time to time we do need to message someone to verify it’s really them.
In this case both Gary and Mark supplied email addresses which aren’t easy to find in the public domain, which was what gave me the confidence to publish them.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Dear “AR”
We’ve had this conversation before. I am not sitting in my bedroom making up my consulting work. You can’t “google” my projects, it’s not high school.
When I sign an NDA at the start of a consulting project it means I cannot, literally, talk about the work or outcomes of the consulting I work on for brands. I have a client list and I work for the top marketers, usually C Level marketers, in that company. This year that list includes a global P&C company (positioning, pricing, CRM and strategic planning for FY18), a large banking group (brand positioning, market planning, S&T), a large travel group (brand architecture, brand positioning, market research). Each of these companies is a billion plus revenue company, I work for the CEO or CMO in each case.
Ash – short of sending you information that would break the NDA I have signed with these clients or asking very important C Suite people to contact you directly (which brings me out in hives)- this is the best I can do.
Can you stop with the “he does not do any real work” stuff now. Disagree with my work. Criticise my work. Hate my work. But stop making out I do not do any work. It’s getting bonkers.
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How do we know you’re the real Tim Burrowes?
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How do we know you’re the real Mr. Chips?
Vivienne – Mumbrella
PS With 2,429 approved comments from Tim Burrowes from the same IP address, using the same email address, with a desk mere metres from mine, I can say with near certainty you are liaising with The Real TB – or, at least, a very committed and practiced impersonator.
Mark I am not making out you do no work, wasn’t trying to ruffle feathers . . . I was asking for a case study or two. Q: if you are unable to talk about your work due to all the NDA’s, how do you ever provide proof of results? You are saying, just to be clear, that there isn’t even 1 set of results you can talk about because everything is under NDA? How on earth do those poor hopeless agencies manage to show their results?! Can you see why there may be skepticism?
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…Said Gary into his phone, from back of flash limo somewhere exotic and cool. Sigh…
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I know somebody with an MBA. First class too. Would I hire them? No, because their attitude sucks and whilst they can remember stuff they have read in a text book, their people skills are woeful.
Degrees, MBA’s and doctorates, can be great and very useful. It just depends on the person and their ability to execute in real life.
The employers who are thriving are not fixated on degrees. They are fixated on ability and attitude.
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I can’t think of anything to write?
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hey Mark, Just to be clear.
AR is not me. Me being Ashley Ringrose.
You called me out by name and stated “we’ve had this conversation before”. So just be clear. I’m staying well away from anything to do with yourself after our last terse conversation on email.
Tim who can access the records on the site can see that I have always commented as myself for years and dont hide behind Anon or even badly veiled ones.
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Mark. I can’t believe how utterly disrespectful you are and how unintelligible you sound.
The thing is I’m 20 and to your standards, an uneducated dimwit. However I’m sitting here earning double the average graduate as a Media Buyer for a large corporate and run an AI affiliate marketing side-hustle. Yet if I listened to someone like you I would be in $100k debt, still at university and struggling to get by.
People like Gary have empowered me to step up, learn more, be curious, find mentors and be successful. Potentially, he is harmful to Marketing but you sir are harmful to humans that want to be successful in life.
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bruh….there was no TV in the 30s and 40s
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Hi all,
Jumping in to confirm it appears ‘AR’ and ‘ashley ringrose’ are different commenters/ people.
I don’t think there was any malice from Mark Ritson, AR or Ashley Ringrose in this thread, but just wanted to clear up any confusion.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Have fun navigating regulatory changes to the affiliate space with minimal experience in the advertising & marketing field.
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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.
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Ritson takes the bait every time. Quite amusing at this point, really.
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Exactly. Ritson’s ego could fill the MCG and he’s obviously got too much time on his hands. It’s sad to see how easily he gets riled up, but I guess that’s what makes him money in the first place.
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Wow. Just want I want to hear. Terrifying.
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TV started in the 30’s in Britain, 40’s in USA. Just saying
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No, *I’M* Spartacus
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