---
title: "Behind the success of VaynerX's The Sasha Group"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/9e825a70-3f7c-4411-8462-dad2a63a7128
source_url: "https://www.campaignlive.com/article/behind-success-vayners-sasha-group-social-at-the-center-marketing/1942155"
stack: https://stacklist.com/stack/245434c1-5358-43f9-a776-9891e808db1a
summary: "The Sasha Group, a full-service advertising agency founded in 2019, has achieved 20% annual growth by pioneering a social-at-the-center marketing approach that converts viral organic moments into high-performing paid campaigns. The agency's success is exemplified by their Utz client campaign around the viral \"People Chips\" TikTok trend, which generated millions of views and higher-converting ads through strategic real-time engagement."
tags: "social-media-marketing, viral-campaigns, advertising-agency, influencer-marketing, brand-strategy, content-creation, digital-marketing"
key_entities: "The Sasha Group (organization), Gary Vaynerchuk (person), Mickey Cloud (person), Sasha Vaynerchuk (person), VaynerX (organization), Utz (organization), Zapp's Potato Chips (organization), TikTok (technology), social-at-the-center marketing (concept), viral marketing (concept), NOLA (location)"
classification: "analysis"
content_hash: "sha256:7007792387790b2e539ea28b643aff71449ed97a0487adca39d916c0c55c0a4b"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 1509
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# Behind the success of VaynerX's The Sasha Group

(Photo credit: The Sasha Group, used with permission) Social media continues to rapidly evolve, resulting in ad agencies scrambling to keep up. But for The Sasha Group, social media campaigns have achieved the status of virality, resulting in a boost to their clients’ bottom line. The agency, launched in 2019, pays homage to Sasha Vaynerchuk, the father of VaynerX Chairman Gary “GaryVee” Vaynerchuk. Originally a consultancy-meets-agency that answered to the needs of brands, The Sasha Group has since evolved into a full-service advertising agency.  Mickey Cloud, the agency’s executive director, told Campaign this evolution — in which its consulting work is now more of an “appetizer” for clients — was the result of the market. “Clients have started to recognize the impact of a social-at-the-center marketing approach,” he explained. “So, we have evolved ourselves to be able to take on larger initiatives.” The evolution happened quickly — over the course of two-and-a-half years — and led to staggering growth for the agency, reporting an annual growth of 20% YoY from 2023 to 2025. Cloud said to Campaign that, simultaneously to The Sasha Group’s shift, social media marketing had undergone drastic changes. Up until recently, organic social media was very similar to email marketing: Build up a following on a platform, and the platform would show one’s content to their followers. “Not every piece of content [was watched by] 100% of followers,” Cloud explained. “By the mid, late-2010s, you were lucky if it reached 5%-10% of your follower base, because there was so much more content in the feed; it was [like] supply and demand.” With the popularization of algorithms (started by TikTok), users having content recommended to them became the new norm.  “It was less about who you, as a user, follow and like,” he said. Now, instead of building up a brand’s own platform, one company can start posting content that would then be recommended to multiple audiences. According to Cloud, that model is similar to the “core Vayner philosophy” of creating paid campaigns from organic social media. ‘Social-at-the-center’ marketing One example of this successful marketing strategy comes from a viral moment that had to do with The Sasha Group’s client, Utz. Earlier this year, a woman shared a story on TikTok regarding her daughter’s obsession over “people chips,” and the search for what “people chips” she was talking about.  The video revealed these “people chips” were actually Zapp’s Potato Chips’ (one of Utz’s brands) Voodoo Chips and received millions of views. In March, the mother posted another TikTok , this time of her daughter opening two packages from Utz that had “People Chips”-themed gifts. “We immediately changed all of our profiles across social to ‘People Chips,’” Cloud told Campaign. “We just ran with it.” The agency and brand even threw a “People Chips”-themed birthday party, 10 years after she asked her mother for the same thing; at the time, the mom wasn’t able to throw such a party because she had no idea what “people chips” even were. @zappschips The people Chip party, 10+ years in the making. Better late than never, right? �� #PeopleChip #Zapps #NOLA #Snacks #Party #Birthday ♬ original sound - Zapp's Throughout the months leading up to the birthday party, Utz was pumping out paid social content. “We leaned into this internet moment with a huge fan,” Cloud said. “Because we followed that moment, those ads were converting at better rates and had higher return.” The results of incorporating organic viral moments into campaigns not only contributed to The Sasha Group’s growth, but also Utz’s as well. “We brought in 75% new buyers with that content,” said Liza Darnell, VP, marketing communications, Utz Brands. “People actually were seeing the brand and discovering it in a new way, and were able to connect with us [in] a deeper level.” Darnell added Utz has been working closely with The Sasha Group for some time, even combining their media and creative teams into one “partner” to react and work faster with viral moments. Additionally, the agency has been able to help Utz “test” if a potential campaign idea gains traction with an audience by posting some content before the actual paid media. “Once we have a piece of content that is getting a lot of impressions, has been picked up by the algorithm and is really resonating with people, then we put media behind it,” she said. “So it’s already been tested, but it’s been tested really quickly. We know it’s going to work hard for us, because we’ve already seen the social proof by putting it out organically.” Cloud told Campaign this model of “social-at-the-center” marketing requires clients such as Utz who understand that making a creative campaign using social media is vastly different to how spots or print ads were made before. “You have to make it so that it is platform-native,” said Cloud, referring to paid social media. “It [has to] speak to specific cohorts of your consumers in order to be as relevant as possible.” Editor's Note: This article was updated on December 5th at 10:55AM EST to clarify The Sasha Group is a VaynerX-owned agency, not VaynerMedia. 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