Episode 251: Your Brand Is a Vibe: Small Business Marketing in the AI Era

Jeff

Subaru, Lexus and BMW, they're three very different vibes, but at the core, they're all vehicle manufacturers.

Jeff

If you don't track what's happening right, you're not going to have any idea of what's working and what's not working.  P

Ken

working.  P want to know how your brand is the guide, not the hero of the story. Welcome, everybody, to this episode of the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses podcast. I'm Ken Tucker. I'm joined by co host today, Jeff Stack, Ian Cantle and Paul Barthel. And today we're going to be diving into a trend that's absolutely reshaping the marketing world, and that's this concept of vibe marketing. So you may be asking, what the heck is vibe marketing? Well, it's the idea that people just don't buy products anymore. They buy feelings, moods, and aesthetics. Your brand is no longer just what you say it is. It's how it makes people feel. In 2025, AI is supercharging. This shift from TikTok aesthetics to AI powered design tools. Small businesses can now create and test vibes faster and cheaper than ever before. But with the big opportunities come some big risks. So today we're going to unpack this and help you focus on capturing your vibe, how it can resonate with your audience emotionally and still stay authentic while using AI as your creative sidekick. So I'm going to turn to my three sidekicks now, and I'm going to start with Ian and I'm just going to ask, ask you, what is vibe marketing?

Paul

Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. So I'll start off with a definition and then I'll, I'll add a little bit more to this. But vibe marketing, your intro talked about this, but it's really selling a feeling, not just a product or a service. And the focus is about having emotional resonance over demographic data. Right. So we'll get into examples. But you, I think everybody who's listening or watching, you've all experienced this when you go into, could be a dentist office, could be a coffee shop, anywhere, could be B2B, where you get a very real feeling when you interact with a business. And most times that's engineered. They've, they've put a lot of effort into creating a feeling. Another really good place where you probably feel this is if you ever fly, any of the airlines have very different vibes. And some of them good, some of them not so good. But I have to say this, Ken, your intro made me chuckle because I, I think you alluded to this as well, but there Is nothing new under the sun. Right. That's, you know, a. A biblical truth. That is so true. When we talk about vibe marketing, all it is is a recasting of something that has been around forever. Because if you think about it, in ancient times, you had town criers, you had shop signs over your tavern, you know, with a dragon on it or something.

Jeff

Right.

Jeff

Like storytelling. If you think back to, like, very old types of communication for a purpose. And so all of that for persuasion relates to marketing today. And we talk a lot about story, brand, and that kind of stuff. And it's all about. It's. It's about aligning the emotion with logic to help people make a decision and to attract people that fit with your brand. And so, like, if you just go through history and if you were to work back from today, Emotional branding, emotional connection has always been a part of marketing. The businesses that get it have done it well. So, you know, I like to teach the world to sing. Like, was that. That's Coke? Right. If any of you are old enough to know that that was a Coke commercial. And Ken can hear it in his head right now. You could tell, like, and not just a jingle, but it was something that resonated in people's hearts. And so jingles were like that and still are today. Logos, like, there's so many parts of a business's connection with their customers, clients, or patients that sets the tone through feeling. Maybe it's the color you choose. Maybe, you know, there's. Again, we'll get more and deeper into this, but I did want to say this is not new. The term vibe marketing is new. So it's a rebranding in the. In the marketing world, but it's. It's nothing new. Marketers who have been on the ball have been doing this throughout history of marketing, especially modern marketing. And so it's the most important thing to take away is that this connection between creating an emotional feeling with the people that you're trying to attract your business is vital to your success as a. As a small business, as it is to larger businesses as well. So feelings have. Have always been a secret weapon of marketing. And so it, you know, it's up to you to really create and craft what the vibe of your business is going to be as you put it out into the marketplace.

Ken

Yeah, I think, you know, emotions are so important. And, you know, I had the good fortune to be able to sit in a workshop with Perry Belcher, who we had on a few weeks ago, you know, for three days talking about. Basically what he's calling primal offers. But it's all about the emotions and it's about the chemicals that are released in people's brains and understanding the three segments of the brain, the three different types of brains. We have the reptilian, whose job it is, is to make a quick assessment and figure out is it safe or is it dangerous, you know, and, and make decisions based on that. So the reptilian part of the brain is the, is the decision making process. Then you've got the, the, you know, the lymphatic part of. Not that.

Jeff

Not right.

Ken

The limbic part of the brain. Yeah, there we go. I knew that wasn't right when I said it. And that's where the chemicals are released. And you need to take advantage of the chemicals and get people to take action and buy in quickly or get them to not run away quickly. Because the neocortex, that part of our brain, its job is to say no. Its job is to keep us safe and secure and avoid all risks on everything possible. If you don't understand the chemical reactions that happen in the brain that create these feelings and how to, how to press on some of them and how to back off of some of them at the right time, you're going to have a challenge with this.

Jeff

Yeah, I think, you know, Ian, when you were talking and Ken, what you just said, this isn't new. I think the terminology is new. I mean, the, the terminology comes from the younger generations. And just go back to our last episode, we talked about generational differ and how things are viewed and what they value. I think the younger generations, you know, they're vibing more, they're more on feelings and experiences. So that's why this has come up again. But Ian, what you said is exactly right. It's not new. And case in point, literally this morning I had a session with one of my coaching clients and I hadn't done my podcast prep yet, so I hadn't even looked at this stuff. It wasn't that. It was in the back of my head and it made me think of it, but I was talking to him. We're talking about exactly what Ken just said, the decision making layers of the brain and where decisions are made and where they're justified. That's the neocortex either shot down or propped up. Some of the cognitive dissonance that we.

Ken

See a lot these days is that.

Jeff

Rationale of somebody trying to justify something that is just what they believe and they can't really justify it, but they find a way Anyway, that aside, I was talking to my coaching client on this topic and I referred him to the Simon Sinek Start with why. So Simon Sinek, for listeners, if you don't know him, great thought leader. He's got a number of books out. One of them is actually called Start with why. And if you don't want to buy it and read it, I mean, feel free. But there's an 18 minute TEDx talk that he did. You can find it on YouTube. So I pulled that up and was showing it to my coaching client saying, you know, if you haven't seen this, you really ought to go watch it. I watch it about twice a year, maybe once a quarter, and it's 18 minutes long. And this is exactly the topic. It's exactly talking about tapping into emotions and behaviors and how some companies succeed where others fail, when the ones that fail, maybe even in some cases more qualified. And one of the examples he gives, that was a great one. He talked about Martin Luther King in the speech on the National Mall. In a day before social media, in a day before it was possible to mobilize people electronically. Word got out and it spread and a quarter of a million people showed up to hear the Martin Luther King I have a dream speech. And Simon Sinek's point was it. And it was the I have a dream speech. It wasn't the I have a 12 point plan speech. It's not that level of justifying with facts and figures that we see failing so much. It's that tap into the emotions, tap into the deep rooted behaviors and what people are looking for. And that's what vibe marketing does. It's finding a way for a business to identify with those aspects of the target audience and then tap into it.

Ken

Yeah. So Jeff, kind of take that a step further. I mean, why is this whole vibe concept really starting to surface now?

Jeff

Yeah, again, I think we are in a time when emotions are supercharged and overheated. So I think it's partly there's just a natural receptivity right now to tap into the emotional layer. But as Ian said, it's always been there. But I think the culture is in that. Some of the terminology that came up in the prep, you know, the so called core, you know, cottage core, the notion of tapping into a nice cozy, warm cottage feeling in your home environment that some home companies are using to tap into, I'm seeing core with everything. And it started with my kids in music, metalcore and trash core. It was just. But now everything is core and it's what is the core that they're looking for, that they identify with, that they tap into. And I think that's cultural. And then that can in turn drive consumer behavior. And then of course the technology just helps propagate it at lightspeed. Now TikTok Instagram reels, the things that are really catching. And I've got to admit, I'm on and off social media dozens of times a day just because I need to check on something for a client or I need to look something up. And every time I do, I've got to really avoid being sucked into reels or shorts or whatever because they are so engaging and they, they're captivating and they, they tap into that, you know, interests and emotional level of watching a video with snappy music and whatever and just grab you. It's the vibe. So the technology is enabling that and you know, it makes things trend easily. You can create trends and make trends, but it's because people are looking for that feeling that's being talked about and then the consumer behavior, things that are clearly done in a studio that were, you know, over engineered over wordsmith. People are kind of catching on that they're not authentic, they're not genuine, and they're looking for that authenticity and relatability in the content and the messages they consume. If that's what they're looking for, that's what you want to give them, right? University of Houston's Small Business Development center says that user generated content, we've been seeing this for 10 plus years now. It's not new with vibe marketing, but user generated content, community driven storytelling are outperforming big budget ads. And it goes back to the authenticity and the relatability. And then like we said, the technology that enables you to both deliver, that's partly cultural. The platforms of what different generations are using, but also the ability to quickly and rapidly create that content, I think is the other thing that's driving. It used to be if you wanted to market your business, you had to go get somebody to do photography and you had to get somebody to write up newspaper articles and a month later, or newspaper ads or radio ads, and months later, weeks later they would come out. Today you can shoot a video on your phone, you can pop it into any one of a number of free or very inexpensive tools and you get some great looking content that you can post up on free social media accounts. You can start creating your own vibe, not relying on, you know, a big firm to necessarily do it for you. That said, you do want to have a strategy with how you do it and how you use it. So be a little careful. But the ability to very quickly, quickly put things out and experiment, see what works and. And what people are responding to, I think is another thing that's driving it all. So it's really the perfect storm. You know, you've got the culture being receptive to it. You got the technology making it easy to put stuff out, and you've got the consumer behaviors of consuming and acting on it that make it so valuable.

Ken

Yeah. You know, I think everybody on the planet has had a vibe moment when it comes, you know, you walk into a restaurant and just have. It doesn't have the right vibe, you're going to leave. You know, you walk into, you know, a spa or a clothing boutique, and if it doesn't have that right vibe, you're probably just going to turn around and leave. So, you know, a dentist office, you know, if you walk in and it doesn't feel right, you know, people are going to leave. I mean, so it's like, it's not anything that you can ignore. You know, it's. It's a very real thing. And as you guys have said, I mean, it's been around for a long time. But, Jeff, I think you made a great point. I think we're in a supercharged emotional state right now. In the US and throughout the world, partly because of the barrage of information at a scale we've never been able to see before, partly because of the rhetoric. You've got multiple sides always pointing fingers at the other. Nobody wants to take responsibility. It's always blame. And that just amps up and. And energizes people in many ways. And so you need to understand who your ideal customer is. Gosh, that sounds an awful lot like strategy, doesn't it, what that vibe is. So, hey, Paul, let's turn to you.

Paul

Hold on.

Jeff

Before we move on, I just, you know, one of the interesting things when you were saying those examples, Ken, big businesses have understood this for a long time. Right. Because they've invested enormously in creating, if we want to keep using the vibe term. Right. But creating an emotional experience for people through very expensive advertising, right foot super bowl ads, trying to get somebody to do something and then. But almost every single advertising, whether it's for small or large businesses, moves people. We've talked about the marketing hourglass and how that's the. You have to know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat. Right. So all of that can be emotionally based. There can be vibe experience through each one of those. But. But where the rubber meets the road from especially every service business, but also for every brick and mortar business is. And, and sometimes if it's virtual connection through phone or, or zoom calls is the human contact. Right. So you know, the example you talked about was you hear about it, you, you see advertising or you've driven by a, a coffee shop numerous times, you've heard people talk about it on social media. It, it sets this emotional tone or vibe for this place. But until you actually go in and experience it for yourself, it's just theoretical. Right. But and I would say the critical point of any emotional connection with a prospective client or, or customer or patient is the human to human interaction. Because that, that this is what I mean by big businesses have gotten, they don't do it well necessarily, but they understand that this is where that emotional connection lives or dies. Because it's the human to human contact that will either take the vibe up to the whole next level and create a human, human emotional connection or it will break that. Because the people just don't understand how to convey what's being conveyed through the business from a brand identity, emotional side. They're not getting it. If the people don't get it in your business, you will break all of that investment in equity that you've built up by trying to create a vibe. Right. So yeah, I just wanted to make, make sure people understood that, that you know, we're not talking about this. Out there, esoteric, you know, social media program, although that can fit into it like so many parts of your marketing can fit into this because it's, it's, it weaves through it. But you can't forget the human to human contact because that is where this lives and dies.

Paul

Hey, look at, look at the drug pushers. I mean, exactly. It's all about how great your life is going to be. And they got a pill for everything. And if you're not taking 57 pills a day, you're not a member of the cool kids club. And they, they probably have a pill for that. And you're talking about the guy down.

Jeff

At the corner of the street.

Paul

The auto manufacturer. Same way they don't tell you about the car you're buying. It's about how much better your life's going to be if you buy this car.

Jeff

You just changed our rating for the, for our YouTube video.

Jeff

Actually, auto manufacturers are a good example about vibes. Right, I'll throw out three and you know, tell me what you think the vibe of them is. Subaru, Lexus and BMW.

Jeff

Throw in Lincoln as well with Matt McConaughey.

Jeff

I mean, they're very different, right. Subaru is all about adventure, right. You're climbing up the mountain in four wheel drive and you're. And then Lexus is all about luxury and BMW is all about, you know, what was their slogan? Even the perfect driving machine. You know, just the experience.

Jeff

Driving experience.

Jeff

You know, it's. There are three very different vibes. I guess you could say Lexus and BMW are maybe a little closer. But throw in Ford, right. The Everyman's truck, right. There are three very different vibes. But at the core they're all vehicle.

Jeff

Manufacturers and they're not selling, they are selling the vehicles, but when you watch a commercial or embrace any of their experience, it's about the emotion.

Paul

Yeah. They're selling you.

Jeff

Same with cigarettes and. Right. Like everything is. Yeah. Alcohol.

Ken

Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring it back up. The elements of period Pyramid, you know, I think is a, is a fantastic resource that everybody who's thinking about marketing needs to go look at and you know, buy it from Harvard Business Review. So that you're, you know, you're, you're able to fully digest what it's saying. But you know, I mean, your products, not everybody's product means the same thing to, to your clients. I mean there are very existential products that, you know, are necessary for survival and well being and then there are aspirational products like Jeff, you talked about, you know, with Lexus or BMW, you know, and so you've got to really fundamentally understand what is the value proposition of your product in the marketplace and what is your differentiation and what problem is it solving for your customers so that you can set the right vibes. Right. I mean, if you're trying to sell aspiration and it's literally something that's, you know, to, to feed you on a daily basis. I, I think you're going to run into some, some issues with your messaging.

Jeff

Yeah.

Ken

So Paul.

Jeff

Yeah. An emergency plumber doesn't need aspirational. Yeah.

Ken

Yeah. Paul, let's, let's shift over to you. So how does, I mean, you know, Jeff and Ian have talked about, you know, and implied and I think pretty heavily the element that is always going to be critical and that's the human to human element. But with AI exploding onto the scene. How can AI supercharge vibe marketing? And I'm sure, you know, I know we'll talk about how. You need to check that with the human to human.

Paul

Well, AI is a tool. It can be an Amplifier. But it's a tool, it's not a replacement for, for that human element. And because you can, you look, we use AI to generate content but we don't copy and paste that content, you know, because, and I think that's where a lot of people are making mistakes because it, you can use Chat, GPT, Genimi or Gemini, Jasper, Claude to generate images and to generate content. There's Canva, Adobe for if, for visuals to create and edit visuals, videos. There's AI tools that can help you with that. Like Cajun, I know you use hey Gen a lot. Like I said earlier, what AI can't do is replace that authenticity. And if you rely too heavily on AI and there's a real thing, it's called hallucinating. AI starts hallucinating and just making stuff up. So you do have to edit it. And I think this also goes back to if you're a small business, you really do need a marketing company because a lot of these tools are not free. So whereas a marketing agency can buy these tools and spread that cost across all their clients, if you're a small business it's going to get really expensive to buy, to pay for all these tools, just to use them yourself. And in the long run it'd probably be less expensive to pay a marketing agency and they should know what they're doing. Whereas you're going to have, you or someone in your business is going to have to take the time to learn how to use these tools because at the end of the day it's data and if you don't know how to interpret data that it's giving you, then you're going to make the wrong decisions.

Ken

Yeah, I think, you know, there's there, there's a key notion that everybody needs to think about and that's, you know, don't let AI be your content director. It's your assistant. You still somebody who knows what they're doing, who can align the strategy of what content is needed in the voice that needs to speak to your ideal customer and get them to take action. They still have to drive that train. They need to be the director. A human still needs to oversee what the AI is producing. But the AI can dramatically speed up the process of creating content and it can be a fantastic assistant. But don't let it drive the train. Don't just plug in a simple prompt, write a 500 word blog post on this topic and it has nothing to do with the way your business actually handles that. That's just very general blah content that really is not going to do you any favors. So keep in mind, humans still need to be directing all of this stuff, at least for now and probably for a very long time to come and maybe forever. Who knows where AI is going to truly go. But right now, one thing we absolutely know for sure is. It needs to be, it needs to be reined in by a human to make it relevant to other humans.

Jeff

So guys, I, I had a, I had a recent experience where just the other day I was doing a presentation to a group on marketing and, and the topic was the intersection of AI and, and marketing. And specifically I was, I was actually presenting around voice AI. And so you guys are all familiar with that. But for our, our viewers and listeners, this is a technology that can replace call centers or after hours call centers. It can even, you know, in some ways replace your answering calls during the day. Right. If you're a contractor and you can't always get to the phone, this can augment you not getting to the phone. And what it does is it, it allows the AI to answer your phone and interact with people and share information. So if they want to understand more about your business. So my example was actually for my business where I was calling in and I was asking it questions about the services that dental marketing heroes offers. And then ultimately the AI was asking if I wanted someone to follow up with me and I was like, yes. And so it took my information and then I also asked it to do a discovery call and it booked the appointment for me. Right. And what was, where this really connects with what we're talking about today is there's emotions that are created just through that interaction. So when I was presenting it, the room was hyper interested in this for many reasons. But in the followup it was interesting to hear different people's comments or questions where some people were super excited about the technology because they could see the value in reaching people at the time when they were showing the greatest interest to push the, the relationship forward. Right. There's, there's a, definitely a lack of emotional connection through the AI, but the emotion you're creating is immediacy. So somebody is calling you. Think about that. Somebody picked up the phone to call your business. The AI is supporting your business by giving the caller the answers or the next step in their process to hire you and, and where. And so some people had a very em reaction to that, like, oh, I don't like AI, you know, pretending to be humans. And then others were so excited. So it was so interesting about that. But I think that's to me, that's the closest we're getting to. And it's an interesting question, what kind of vibe does that send about your business if you introduce that type of human to AI interaction through voice?

Ken

Yeah, absolutely. What's interesting done right, the AI does a graceful handshake and a handoff to a human at the right time, so it can take care of certain blocking and tackling things that need to happen. And we're all really more marketing than sales, although we all have to sell because we all own businesses and, you know, have a stake in the business and whatnot. So, you know, what's interesting is AI actually can make it so that. Because we all hate to hear no. I mean, and when you're a salesperson, you're going to hear no a lot more than you're going to hear yes. And so, you know, what AI can do is it can actually pre qualify people so that it actually kind of serves as a rejection proof way to make sure that you're talking to the right people and only the right people at the right time. So, you know, now you have to balance that with the vibe. You know, I mean, if you're a business that is known for your premium customer service and the human interactions and all that kind of stuff, you need to be careful with it. AI still has an important role, as Ian talked about, where it could be that great backup. Because we also know that there are ridiculous, ridiculously strong statistics that say the first business to respond is going to win that business the overwhelming majority of time, even if they're the most expensive. So you just have to balance that. And that's where it all comes down to strategy. What I want to do now is I want to kind of do, you know, kind of a lightning rod where I want you guys to just kind of jump in, you know, and talk about how do small businesses actually do vibe marketing. So let's just kind of give them a playbook. Ian, I'll start with you and then you guys just jump in and throw in additional steps that you think, you know, people need to take to be able to, to put together a vibe marketing program.

Jeff

Yeah, I think, you know, it was mentioned already that you need a strategy as a business. You actually need to think about what vibe do I want to create for my prospects, Customers, patients, clients. Right. So what, what is it that I want them to feel when they interact with my business, when they come into my dental practice or store or coffee shop? So I think that's the very first step. And, and One of the terms that you can use for that is the emotional anchor. Like, what's this. What's the emotional anchor that I want my marketing to kind of be held by? So you need to identify that. And there's a few, there's a few ways that you can do that, right? You can, first of all, your salespeople or you, if you're the primary salesperson in your business, you're interacting with people, you. You hear comments from them like, oh, I love this about your business, or, or, oh, I, you know, this wasn't as good. And, and you can look on your social channels of how people interact with your business. Those can be really big. Identifiers of things you might want to look at for your vibe or, or for your emotional anchor. But you can ask people, right? You can do a poll, like, you know, just. You can also do a B testing in your social media to see, like, do they like A, or do they like B and. And kind of throw in this, this a B testing, you know, over time. But that, that kind of stuff, I think is. Is where it all starts. But start with the intention of. Because not a lot of businesses do this, right? They, they don't always ask what is it that I want people to feel when they interact with my business. And if you start there and then start to plan it out and test things, I think you will be much further along than a business that doesn't do this.

Jeff

Yeah, I'm glad you kind of started out talking about, you know, do your homework in the strategy piece too. So many times, you know, we've seen businesses that are like, well, I know what everyone wants. I want to do X, Y and Z. And if I want to do X, Y, Z then becomes, I want to create a certain vibe. But your target audience won't respond to that vibe. It's not what they're looking for. It's not what they want. Then you're missing the mark. So that strategy piece is so important. But once you've got it, once you've validated it, I think then you need to express it consistently. It needs to permeate all the things that you do. I mean, it's everything. It's the vibe is the energy level you have, it's the appearance you have, it's the emotions you convey, the feelings, the attitudes. So everything from colors and fonts to copy tone to how you interact with people, how you treat them. I mean, there are businesses that kind of have been. I don't advocate it, but have been built on, you know, almost kind of playfully abusing, verbally abusing people. You know, think about the old Seinfeld episode with the Soup Nazi, right? It's, it's the vibe that you go for. You've got to be consistent in how you do it and always think about how it's making people feel and the whole package, everything from when they first learn about you, first see about you through the final experiences with. If they're a client, that leaves you off boarding. If it's a repeat business, what keeps them coming back? You mentioned a B testing. Yeah. Never be complacent, never be assure that, hey, we've got it nailed, we won't need to change it for 30 years now. Because you know what, you're going to have to change it. So be consistent with what you do. And part of that consistency is making sure that you're tapping into the emotional level of the audience you want to tap into and then keep validating it.

Ken

Paul, do you have any insights?

Paul

Yeah, I was going to say it's, you know, AI can definitely help you scale, but this is, gets into, you have to know what works. And the way you know what works is you have to test your AI, whether it's AI voice or AI chat. Because when I'm putting together an AI whatever for a client, I usually ask them what questions, like the 10 or 15 most commonly asked questions they get because hopefully they know better than me what questions their, their customers are prospects consistently ask because they're humans, are unpredictable and there is no way to know what questions they're going to ask an AI agent how they're going to interact with it. So you test as best you can and then you go back, you have to listen to the call, see what people are asking, work that into your, into your AI, usually work it into your proper or the knowledge base. And you just keep doing that because it's never going to be perfect the first time. So you have to test it and you have to refine it and then, you know, look at what's working. I mean, look at engagement and shares and comments because clicks don't tell you much. It's engagement that, that's what tells you that people are responding on that emotional level. If they, if they engage and share and comment, that's when you know what's.

Jeff

Working, when, when you know you're actually vibing with your customers.

Paul

There you go.

Jeff

I'm so glad you talked about tracking, Paul, because if you don't, if you don't track what's happening Right. You're not going to have any idea of what's working and what's not working. And I, I also, like, Jeff, you said that you, this is not permanent. Right. Like the, the culture adapts, generations evolve. Like, you have to be nimble and you have to be very aware of what's happening and how people are feeling about your business, your products, your services.

Ken

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the other thing that AI can do for you is, you know, it can really be an awesome player when you know what's working to repurpose that content for multiple other channels for, and we talked about a few weeks ago as well, the importance of, you know, as AI is becoming more and more ingrained in every search and changing the way search and search behavior is happening. You know, being able to have content that works across multiple platforms. Is, is really kind of future proofing your business. And so AI is one of your best friends there in terms of scale, repurposing, getting content across the right channels in the right formats. And so, Jeff, do you have any insights into how this is really actually working for some businesses?

Jeff

Yeah, I'll throw that out in a second. I want to hit one more point on the AI, though. Yeah, You've already said I would not take something directly out of AI and paste on a new web page and call it good. But when you train the AI with your tone and voice, that's why it needs to be more than just a simple prompt. But when you train an AI on your tone and voice, your vibe, then it is going to get you closer to the stuff that you can do a little bit of tweaking to put out. But also you can take a body of work and you can give it to it and you can say, analyze this for my tone and voice. How does it fit in? So it's that, that back and forth that, that helping you get closer, but also taking a body of work and critiquing it for you. But in terms of this whole emotional resonance community first messaging, you know, vibing, Taboola put out a report, their Small Business Trends report for 2025, and they said that businesses that are focusing on this emotional connection, the emotional resonance community, first messaging, are seeing significantly higher engagement rates than those that rely on standard ad copy.

Ken

Why?

Jeff

Because it's more personal, it's more connecting, it's vibing with the clients. So this isn't just stuff that's fluff. This isn't just something that, oh, well, that's, you know, Gen Z or Gen Alpha. I don't, I Don't care about that. Well, those guys are going to be your target market pretty soon, if they aren't already. But it also extends and, you know, at some level it will work for everyone. It's just going to work a little differently. The media may be a little bit different, the messaging itself may be a little bit different, but the way at the core, you know, tapping into communities, tapping into emotional resonance isn't going away. It's been here forever, as Ian pointed out at the top of the show. And it's, it's, you know, measurable. We see it in action.

Ken

Yeah, let's talk about some case studies and also some pitfalls. Ian, do you have any, any that you want to share?

Jeff

Yeah, I'll just share one. You know, Duolingo, if you're familiar with it, is, is a language learning app. And I, I, you know, my, my kids actually got into it at one point because we were going to be traveling down to the Dominican and my daughter wanted to learn Spanish. And so this was entirely self directed because she, she actually was caught up in some of this vibing nature program that Duolingo did on Tick Tock, where they were doing kind of these funny, interesting, playful videos with their mascot. There was humor in it, but ultimately the message behind it was that learning can be fun. Right. And so they've really gamified the learning. So if you've tried Duolingo, you, if you haven't, you should because it's actually pretty cool. It's kind of a fun way to learn a language. But from a vibe standpoint, they just created, if you like, at least I can think back to some of the super, super boring language models, not large language models, but language teaching models that I remember like Rosetta Stone and some of the other platforms out there that hugely popular at the time. But they were all like so boring, right? Like, it wasn't even about, you know, what can you do with the language. It was just, you know, here's your, you know, 65 course meal of language learning on 65 CDs or something, right? Like, I don't know, I don't even remember it, but that's what comes to mind. The, the hokey commercials. And, and I think, you know, part of this is Duolingo was a newer business. It was app based, it was phone based, it was interacting with people on a far different scale. But they built their brand around how do we create a very intuitive, welcoming, fun way of learning language. And they brought that out into all of the different pieces of marketing that they did. So they created a vibe around that.

Ken

Jeff, how about you?

Jeff

Yeah, I think there's tons of case studies out there. Fundamentally, they all come down to the same thing. Figure out how to really connect with your target audience. And give me an example of the importance of that. If you look at coffee shops and there's a very large national chain that has green and white colors and it's very impersonal, right? You walk in anyone, you're going to get basically the same experience. But contrast that with a local coffee shop. Shout out to my friends at West Pecan Coffee. By the way, you know, when you be yourself, you be authentic. You kind of build your own vibe. You build a community that people want to gravitate toward, they want to support it, they want to help promote it. So, you know, a nice cozy aesthetic instead of the hustle and bustle of the commercial counter can make a big difference. So how you decorate, the decor, the colors you use, again, trying to create a feeling and an emotional vibe can make a big difference. There's another big case study. There's a company called Flipkart and then Cycle Agrabati. There was a festival called the Pongal Festival. I'm kind of looking at notes here. Now Flipkart partnered up with Cycle Agrabati and Cycle Agrabati does incense sticks. So what they did was they transformed bus stops into nostalgia filled spaces that would evoke the sense and memories of Pangal, this big festival. So this was a real world installation to kind of bring people back. And again, sensory inputs, by the way, are very, very powerful emotional connectors. So if you can do something sensory. It can really connect with people. Realtors, you know, you walk into a house to buy a house and what do they do? They have chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. Right. You're not there for the cookies, but those cookies invoke an emotional response to growing up. Anyway, this incense company, they created these real world installations to do sensory triggers. And what happened, they just went through the roof, right. Tapped into the style of the emotional blocks, the, you know, memories of family gatherings and different smells. And it activated their campaign. People started responding to it, the media got wind of it, the media picked up on it and, and kind of amplified and created this. Engineering terms, positive feedback loop that it grew bigger and bigger and really helped build their brand presence and then retain their clients long past just the time when that festival was going on and they were tapping into it. Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of examples of that, I think I kind of pulled a couple of them out, just rambling.

Ken

Yeah.

Jeff

But again, think of vibes and emotions and feelings and how you tap into that and you'll be a lot more memorable.

Ken

Yeah. You know, something that I think is, it's a real easy trap to fall into and it's selling features, you know, instead of the feelings and the benefits and the outcomes and the experiences that people are going to have. You know, a lot of people just, they want to say, oh, our solution does this, this, this, this and this. And they're so feature focused that people are like, okay, cool. I don't even know what most of these features are, but they know how they want to feel. They know the problem they want solved and how when that problem is solved, that burden is taken away from them. You know, how they want to feel. So that's what we're really talking about here, folks. So, Paul, let's talk about the flip side where, you know, businesses have been, you know, trying to, you know, chase every trend that's out there. You know, they're, you know, they're doing, they're trying to create one vibe one week and then another vibe the next week. And what, what, what impact does that have and how does that potentially hurt a business?

Paul

Yeah, don't, don't do that because it's, it goes back to strategy, really. And what, what is your brand message? Because if you, you don't want to be chasing every shiny object that comes along because a lot of, a lot of business have shiny object syndrome and you're just going to confuse your messaging, you're going to confuse your prospects or your customers, and you're not going to have a clear, identifiable brand message. And if there's this big trend right now in communities and like the Dollar Shave Club took advantage of that, where they didn't really talk about the features or the razor specs they did a little bit, but it was about, you were basically buying a membership. Okay, you, you were a part of something. And they were very successful at that. And look at the Old Spice commercials. It's like, I think one of their things was the, the man your man could smell like or something like that. And now they have their wives or their girlfriends are stealing their Old Spice body wash and, and using it. And Procter and Gamble did a. Because Proctor and Gamble likes to think they're family focused. I don't know if they are or not. I don't think they are. But they did this thank you, mom campaign during the Olympics and it was based on on storytelling and pride in being, in being a mom. And they, they all work because it, like you just said, they weren't focused so much on features. It was about the emotional benefit, which is what we've been talking about during this whole podcast. And it, that seems to be working. Like Ian said at the very beginning, none of this is new. It's just, it has changed to, to a certain degree and the terminology has changed, but none of this is really new.

Ken

Yeah, that Procter and Gamble commercial was actually really powerful because, you know, it showed kids growing up and you know, trying and failing and you know, in their athletic endeavors and getting hurt. And a mom was always there and you know, you had no idea what the commercial was for, you know, in terms of brand or product until the very end. But they completely captivated you and they pulled hold on the emotions that so many people have. And even if you're not an athlete, you can still identify because you could say, yeah, you know what, my mom was there to, you know, to come, come along and help me out in, in my situations too. And, and you know, it just drew people in. And so everybody was really pulled to that commercial. Very powerful.

Jeff

So, you know, you know, one of the, the interesting things that we're not really getting into today because we're more on the positive side of vibing. But so many businesses get this wrong too, right? Like there's as many good case studies as there are, there's probably more bad case studies. So you know, what comes to my mind is Cracker Barrel recently, right? They just, they, they threw out, you know, a century old vibe that people align themselves to. And then another one that came to mind was United Breaks guitars. I don't know if you guys ever saw that, but. Oh yeah, but a guy who, who was a musician had his guitar on the flight, it was checked and he looked out the window and I think he even videotaped it, if I remember right. Or maybe he just re recreated the video. But he saw the, the, the people unloading, throwing his guitar around and his guitar got broken and, and so that, like what kind of vibe does that send to, to the marketplace? Right? So there's vibes we control as a business, there's vibes we don't control as a business. So you as the business owner have to really take care to control what you can control and adapt and pivot and you know, be responsive to what the marketplace is saying as well.

Paul

Yeah, you know, I want to jump.

Jeff

On that United Breaks Guitars one because. Taking it beyond what you said it's even a case of United had the wrong vibe. You know, the guy tried to give him a chance to do the right thing. He's reported it. He said, hey, just. I just want you to replace my guitar. And they fought him and they turned him down, and he escalated it and they fought. So their vibe then they were creating was negative customer service.

Jeff

And he wrote a song.

Jeff

Yeah, he just happened to be a musician. He had a guitar. Yeah. I've actually used that in a talk.

Jeff

That's. That's.

Jeff

Oh, gosh, at least 10 years ago now. But, yeah, that's a famous negative. Customer satisfaction, not customer service story. But that is their vibe. Their vibe then was defined for them, which I think the point you're trying to make. Right, is you got to be careful about negative vibes. And if you don't control the narrative, if you don't have a positive one to. To. To dominate with, and if you don't do everything you can to reinforce your positive vibe being, we're great, we love customers, we're good with customer service, and somebody else may define it for you, and that's not where you want to be.

Ken

Well, yeah. And, you know, another thing about United Breaks Guitars is, you know, the story really was, you know, one of the success stories we used to talk about, you know, with Twitter marketing and that you need to be paying attention to the channels and what people are actually saying about your business online. Yep. And United was completely ignoring the conversation that was happening on. On Twitter now. X. You know, and. And through. They had no idea what was actually happening and the momentum that was building against them because they were ignoring channels. So, you know, I. I know it's hard, a tough thing for small businesses to do, but you really do need to be paying attention to what people are saying about your business online, whether it's online reviews, whether it's through social media. You know, you can't ignore that either.

Jeff

So for both directions. Because if it's good and positive, then use it, amplify it.

Ken

Yeah. Right.

Jeff

Share it. Thank people. Engage in the conversation.

Ken

Yeah.

Jeff

Let that be part of your vibe.

Ken

Yeah. So to kind of summarize some of the key things I think small businesses can take away from what we've talked about in regard to Vibe marketing. Anchor to authentic moments. Authenticity is really important in today's world, and it's only going to become more important. There's going to be alienation and frustration that happens with AI as it. As it moves forward. You know, focus on cultural, emotional community based Community based triggers or events, that's always a great way. And you don't have to be, you don't have, it doesn't have to be big. It's just, it's got to be aligned with those local or seasonal ties. You know, sensory, sensory triggers are very powerful. Jeff, you mentioned it. You know, smell, sound, visuals, you know, whether it's digital or not or offline, that's very important. The smell of, you know, baking chocolate chip cookies when you walk into an open house, it's very powerful. Right, so. And Ian's going to bring us some cookies next week, I think.

Jeff

Yeah.

Ken

You know, but that's one of the reasons why, you know, when we talk about doing direct mail, you know, we like to use something that's going to trigger sensory feelings and emotions. Right. And, and not just, you know, we're, we've been trained, especially those of us of, you know, older generations. When you get mail, most of the time it's just a bill. You know, it's either a bill or it's junk mail. And so when you see it come in that regular envelope, you already have a bad taste in your mouth. Right. So you need to do stuff to kind of leapfrog that and change the sensory expectations that somebody might have. Storytelling massive, you know, focus on stories. That's the way we've communicated for millennium. So just, so just keep focused on that. And you know, while the brand story is important about the creation and origin of the brand. Don'T stop there because that's what most marketing consultants tell you to do, is just focus on that, your brand story. No, people want to know how your brand is the guide, not the hero of the story.

Jeff

So don't got to connect it to them.

Ken

Yeah, you've got to connect because it's all about them. Marketing is about transformation. People are in one state today that is causing them to feel like they need to do something. You need to show them what life is going to be like after they work with and experience your business so that they're like, oh man, okay, I can see myself. I'm going to go ahead and take that action. That's what marketing is ultimately all about, boiled down in the simplest form. I think, you know, having, you know. To the extent that you can bring in human elements where you could have in person experiences, pop ups, you know, there are pop up stores that are, that are exploding all over the place. You know, back in the early days of Twitter again, food trucks, you know, were all the rage. You know, they were creating experiences and people literally were all abuzz to find out, where's that food truck gonna be today? Because I've heard they have such great food. You know, you can do an awful lot with not a huge marketing budget, but it's gotta set the right vibes. So let's, let's kind of wrap this up. I think, you know, vibe marketing is really about the emotional resonance. It's, as Ian, Jeff, Paul, you guys have all said, it's been around for a very long time. You guys have any other thoughts on what, you know, what everybody needs to be thinking about in regard to vibe marketing? That was.

Jeff

Ian, you're muted.

Jeff

It's because I was coughing earlier. I would just say think about it. Like, don't, don't just let this conversation that we're having today float away. Think thing again. This goes back to what we were talking about earlier, but just think about and try to get a sense for what the emotional interaction is right now. The vibe that your current customers, clients or patients are getting with your business. Think about what you want it to be and then engineer the things that can help make that right. It's not instantaneous. It will take time, especially the human behavior part. If you decide that the vibe you're trying to create means that your team, your staff, needs to adapt what they're doing to a different form, that's going to take time. It takes time for them to learn it, it takes time for them to do it well. But you just have to get on the path and start down this path, and I think you'll be off for it.

Jeff

Yeah, Ian, I'm glad you use the. The term engineer, because one of the things that popped into my head as we're recording this is the difference between manufacturing a vibe and engineering vibe. Manufacturing a vibe, you run the risk of being disingenuous, you know, if you don't have the authenticity. So taking it back to that. If you're trying to manufacture a vibe that's not you or you have no business, it's.

Ken

It's.

Jeff

You're going to come across as being fake. If it's something that's new to your business, but it's still part of you and part of your DNA, then you can engineer that growth in that direction, that shift. But if you're trying to manufacture something fake just to tap into some demographic or some. Some vibe that you think is the right one, you got to be a little bit careful. So work on the expansion and engineering, but not, not manufacturing something that isn't really there. To begin with.

Ken

Yeah, great point, Jeff. But at the same time, you know, as you're, as you're focusing on the engineering, you know, realize that AI is a great way for you to test vibes. Yep, super easy to do, whether it's a, an Instagram reel or a social media post. You know, just, you know, operate from the engineering perspective that Jeff talked about. Don't just throw stuff out there willy nilly and see what sticks. Try to take things that you feel strongly about and feel and things that people have told you about your business, about why they feel strongly about your business and use those to create vibe experience through social media tools. Like, you know, a video editing tool like, like hey Gen, to create a, a short or a real and test those out and see if it leads to more engagement, more reactions. Are they positive, are they negative? Is that really the direction you want to keep going in and investing in? Because it's a real simple, easy way to experiment. And I think that's ultimately the power of AI in this world of vibe marketing is IBM made a living out of. Fail fast quickly. You know, they, they knew that they could never be perfect. But in order to get, keep getting better and better, you have to find out what's not working and fix it and, and just keep doing that and iterating that over and over and over again. And I think that that's a, you know, that's a good lesson for all of us. And AI gives us a tool set to be able to do that on a scale and in a, and add a level that small businesses have never really, really been able to do before. So.

Jeff

Hey Ken, one. One additional thought related to that that just occurred to me while you were talking was because AI is so good at research, right? Especially with deep research in, in Chat GPT and some of the other platforms, even like run your own business through Chat GPT. Ask it what is the vibe of this business? Put your website address in there. State what business it is. I just did that with mine and I'm actually quite interested to go through some of these results just to see what they are because it's quite interesting and you could do that with your competitors as well and try to find kind of what, what's the hidden vibe in, in my local area that I could fill that maybe isn't being filled right now as well.

Ken

Yeah. Ian, you want to take us out?

Jeff

Yeah. Thanks everyone for tuning in to Marketing Guides for Small Business podcast. We have greatly appreciated you list listening with us, comment and share. We love to hear from you. We we don't do this to hear ourselves talk, although that is so much fun sometimes. It's really all about sharing information, educating others, and ultimately helping you as a small business, grow your business. So lightly, very lightly, tap that subscribe button or smash that subscribe button if you wish. Because, you know, some people like to do that. Leave us a review. All that pent up rage. Share it with another business owner that you think could get some benefit from this, who could use a little more vibe in their marketing. So until next time, folks, keep calm and mark it on.