VIBE SHIFT #VibeMarketing
How AI Is Transforming Marketing from Logic to Feeling
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Don Draper stands in a darkened room, cigarette smoke curling upward in the dim light of the projector…
His clients from Kodak stare blankly as slide after slide clicks into view – family portraits, picnics, birthdays. "This isn’t a spaceship," Draper says of their new wheel-shaped slide projector. "It’s a time machine."
As he weaves memories of his own family into the presentation, the executives from Kodak melt. The product isn’t a technological marvel anymore – it’s a carousel, a vessel of nostalgia and connection. By the end, one executive is quietly wiping away tears.
Might be better than Kodak was still in existence and the bad is to be fair but the business is long gone and that’s not Don’s fault and hopefully the next Vibe-Marketer out there will help fix it anyway it’s still an iconic moment in creativity and vibing.
This iconic scene from Mad Men might be set in the 1960s, but it perfectly captures what marketers in 2025 are calling "vibe marketing" – a human-centered approach that prioritizes emotional resonance over feature lists and value propositions.
What's old is new again. But this time, with a digital twist.
THE FEELING ECONOMY
"Traditional marketing has always tried to rationalize the irrational. We pretend humans make decisions based on logic, when neurologically, that’s simply not how it works. The emotional brain decides, then the rational brain justifies." -Jo Smartmarketer Everywhere, USA
This insight isn’t revolutionary. What is revolutionary is how artificial intelligence is supercharging marketers' ability to tap into emotional states at scale.
We used to need focus groups, surveys, and guesswork. Now we have sentiment analysis that can process millions of social interactions in real time, generative systems that can create dozens of emotional variations on a campaign concept, and predictive models that can forecast emotional responses before we even launch.
The result is a marketing landscape where creating a "vibe" – an emotional field that surrounds a brand – has become both an art form and a science.
Consider how Spotify wrapped has evolved from a year-end listening summary into what industry insiders now recognize as the gold standard of vibe marketing. The campaigns don't focus on Spotify's features or even particularly try to sell premium subscriptions. Instead, they create a cultural moment – a collective emotional experience that makes users feel seen, understood, and part of something larger than themselves.
"When we study the neurological responses to campaigns like Spotify Wrapped, we see activation patterns remarkably similar to how the brain processes personal memories and social bonding experiences,It’s not about the information – it’s about the feeling the information creates." — Some Marketing Science phd
BRAINSTORMING SQUARED
At the heart of effective vibe marketing lies a powerful creative process that some are calling "brainstorming squared" – the exponential amplification that occurs when human intuition meets artificial intelligence.
Brainstorming is already a human superpower. It’s that magical process where seemingly random connections produce something new. The problem was always the limits of human knowledge and the tendency to fall into familiar patterns. Brainstorming was defined and written down it was a practice and methodology of humans working together to generate massively good ideas across time in the in the 1930s it was a practice they’d use it in 1938 one ad guy wrote it down the precursor to Don Draper. Over and over creation ideas and human methods to create things have been written down used it now they’re just being super charged by This is where AI changes everything.
Today’s large language models have ingested vast portions of human knowledge and culture. When you prompt them correctly, they can make connections across domains that most individual humans simply couldn’t – not because humans aren’t creative, but because no single person has access to that breadth of information. And you have the time to do it it’s a lot of information thousands if not millions and millions if not billions and billions of things when you really consider it. It is wild that you can ask chatGTP for a marketing campaign, how to fix the wiring of your Jeep, and how to get your drain cleared that’s backed up without using harsh chemicals all out of one interface, and by the way you can also generate a funny political cartoon of the picture of me fixing my Jeep well trying to unplug my drain while thinking of a marketing campaign. You can cut and paste that description into chatGTP and ask for an image of it and you’ll get it. Anyway all that science and technology and programming and magic as a result.
The result is a creative multiplier effect.
And that effect amplifies brainstorming and brainstorming is a human superpower 🧠⚡.
It’s not the only path to innovation, but it’s certainly one of the most exhilarating and effective.
What’s fascinating is how AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, Gemini and Claude.ai are amplifying this innate human ability. These systems excel at brainstorming because they combine vast knowledge with a tendency toward "hallucination" – which, interestingly, borders on imagination. Not quite the same, but a powerful complement to human creativity.
When skilled humans leverage AI for brainstorming, we create something extraordinary: brainstorming squared. 🧠² - The exponential multiplier effect happens at this intersection of human intuition and computational association.
The result is a creative multiplier effect. Human marketers identify the emotional territory they want to explore, AI tools generate dozens or hundreds of possible approaches.
This synergy perfectly mirrors Kahneman’s "Thinking Fast and Slow" framework . The AI handles the rapid, associative "System 1" generation of ideas at scale, while human marketers employ deliberate "System 2" thinking to evaluate which vibes will genuinely resonate with audiences. This partnership overcomes the cognitive biases that typically limit creative exploration.
The applications are transforming campaigns across industries . Forward-thinking brands are using AI-enhanced vibe marketing to develop consistent emotional territories across touchpoints while testing subtle variations. Rather than A/B testing two concepts, marketers can now test the entire emotional spectrum of an idea, measuring which specific vibrations trigger the strongest audience response.
Platforms like HubSpot are already integrating these capabilities . Their content optimization tools now include sentiment analysis that helps marketers track not just what consumers think but how they feel throughout the customer journey. By combining HubSpot’s data-driven approach with AI-powered vibe generation, marketers can create personalized emotional journeys that evolve with each customer interaction.
As we look to the future of vibe marketing, success will belong to those who master this human-AI creative partnership . Start by building your vibe marketing toolkit: incorporate a generative AI platform for ideation, connect it to analytical tools like HubSpot for measurement, and develop a systematic approach to vibe testing. Most importantly, hone your emotional intelligence—the ability to distinguish which AI-generated vibes will genuinely connect versus those that simply look good on paper.
The marketers who thrive will be those who recognize that in the age of AI, human emotional discernment isn't diminished—it's the essential compass that guides the entire enterprise.
#VibeMarketing #HumansDriveTheLoop #CreativeAI #BrainstormingSquared #FutureOfMarketing #ThinkingFastAndSlow #HubSpot #myselfinterest #yourselfinterest #future #past
Endnotes & Further Reading
1. **Kahneman, Daniel. "Thinking, Fast and Slow" (2011)** – The seminal work on dual-process theory that explains how our System 1 (intuitive) and System 2 (deliberative) thinking operate. This framework perfectly illustrates how AI handles associative generation while humans provide critical evaluation in vibe marketing.
2. **Damasio, Antonio. "Descartes' Error" (1994)** – Explores how emotions are integral to decision-making, not separate from rational thought. Connects directly to why emotionally resonant "vibe marketing" works at a neurological level.
3. **Godin, Seth. "This Is Marketing" (2018)** – Godin's concept of "people like us do things like this" aligns with vibe marketing's focus on creating emotional resonance rather than just logical persuasion.
4. **"Mad Men: The Wheel" (Season 1, Episode 13)** – The iconic Kodak Carousel pitch where Don Draper demonstrates masterful vibe marketing by reframing a slide projector as a "time machine" that stirs nostalgia. Shows vibe marketing's pre-digital roots.
5. **HubSpot's "State of Marketing Report"** – Annual research that increasingly highlights the importance of emotional connection in marketing. Provides data-backed insights on implementing the vibe marketing approaches discussed.
6. **Heath, Chip & Dan. "Made to Stick" (2007)** – Their SUCCESs framework (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories) explains why certain ideas "stick" emotionally – essential knowledge for vibe marketers evaluating AI outputs.
7. **Miller, Donald. "Building a StoryBrand" (2017)** – Bridges traditional storytelling and modern marketing in ways that complement AI-enhanced vibe generation. The book's frameworks help marketers maintain narrative coherence when exploring emotional territories.
8. **Christian, Brian & Griffiths, Tom. "Algorithms to Live By" (2016)** – Explores how computational algorithms can solve human problems. Helps marketers understand the underlying patterns in AI-assisted brainstorming to use these tools more effectively.
9. **Marcus, Gary & Davis, Ernest. "Rebooting AI" (2019)** – Provides critical perspective on AI's strengths and limitations, particularly relevant to the distinction between AI "hallucination" and genuine human imagination in creative processes.
10. **Berger, Jonah. "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" (2013)** – Research on what makes content shareable connects directly to vibe marketing's goal of creating emotionally resonant material that spreads organically, providing a framework for evaluating AI-generated vibes.
is a serial entrepreneur it has been a programmer, business analyst, consultant, Professional Services practice leader, founder, CEO, program lead, business unit leads, product marketer, brand pontificator and all around good guy in a canoe on a camping trip or making a meal at fireside 🔥.
You can reach me on the social media environments that you cross paths with, just use LinkedIn if you want, that’s the easiest method but I’m happy to connect with you anywhere else you may want. Rob.tyrie+medium@gmail.com
I currently am doing short Consulting assignments and advising companies on how to scale and grow revenue and get investments. www.ironstoneadvisory.com
I’m also the co-founder of the Grey Swan Guild a virtual Think Tank and a Make Tank. We do stuff and it’s fun. There’s a lot of vibe involved. See you soon.
