Vaynerchuk slams profiteering, bland products of legacy holding companies

Geoffrey Precourt

A major shift is required in how agencies, and the brands they serve, approach various aspects of the marketing process.

Gary Vaynerchuk, the CEO/founder of VaynerMedia, reports that he regularly hears from marketers who complain “24/7/365” about the treatment they receive from agencies that are part of larger holding companies.

As the owner of an independent agency, “I tell them, ‘Fire them. It’s bullshit.’”

But, as he told delegates at the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) 2019 Media Conference, those wounded clients are locked into contracts that don’t allow for such an easy dismissal: “I was in a meeting a week ago and they wanted to fire Publicis flat out. But they couldn’t.” For the next 18 months, he observed...

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