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Avery Akkineni is chief marketing officer at VaynerX. She was previously president of Vayner3, a VaynerX consultancy, and she worked at VaynerMedia, where she established the agency’s capabilities in the Asia Pacific region.
Favorite project you’ve worked on? One that will always stand out is launching our APAC presence in 2019, initially in Singapore and subsequently in Bangkok, Tokyo, and Sydney. It was a whirlwind few years, and I’m so proud of the amazing culture, fantastic client roster, and culture-driving work we launched during those first few years. From global Olympics campaigns to winning Agency of the Year, it was a critical role for me and for VaynerMedia’s global expansion.
What’s your favorite ad campaign? My favorite marketing moment is Barbie’s movie launch. I love everything about it. It didn’t feel like a campaign; it felt like a cultural takeover. The mix of strategic partnerships, unexpected collaborations, and user-generated content brilliance turned marketing into entertainment and made the internet the media plan.
One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: I share a lot on LinkedIn, but one thing I don’t often share professionally is my renovation passion projects. On any given long weekend, I’m usually working on an interiors project—my favorite creative outlet that has nothing to do with the advertising world!
What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I’m most optimistic about live shopping. At VaynerMedia, we’re obsessed with finding “underpriced attention”—avenues where consumers are spending their time, yet marketing investment hasn’t caught up. We see live commerce as exactly this in 2025. While I was in Asia, we produced incredibly successful commerce-driving livestreams, but it took a few years for this behavior to make its way to the US. Now, we’re seeing this hit the US, driven by key platforms like TikTok and WhatNot, with some promising client results.
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I’m least optimistic about the AI doom and gloom. There is a lot of negativity around the potential impact of AI in the world of advertising, and while it’s new and scary, the Internet was once new and scary. There of course will be some risk, but it’s important to embrace this shift, cultivate a growth mindset, and actively test and experiment with AI every day to unlock its full potential.
What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? When it comes to marketing insights, I recommend The CMO Podcast. This show is hosted by former CMO of Procter & Gamble and industry legend, Jim Stengel, and in these weekly episodes, Jim sits down with marketing powerhouses from a wide range of industries as they unveil their career and personal journeys and give listeners an in-depth picture of what it takes to be a marketer. My favorite part is listening to each marketer’s personal journey and how no journey is the same.
I also love Breaking and Entering. A cultural phenomena in the modern advertising world, the Breaking and Entering team have really cracked how to capture people’s attention and provide industry news not only efficiently, but with incredible creativity and humor. Kudos to them for literally “breaking” through.