It’s been a month since my last post. I was looking for a topic. It found me listening to the Marketing AI podcast on my morning run Thursday. There were big model drops with Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o image generation. That’s big news, but my interest sparked when Paul and Mike mentioned “vibe marketing.” Huh? My first thought was how younger Survivor players talk about “vibing” with their tribe.

Can You Feel The Vibes?

Vibe marketing sounds like winging it. Trying new products and strategies based on feeling is not not something I’d embrace. I’ve taught for years the value of data based decision making in marketing. There’s an art to marketing but there’s also a science to it.

Mike and Paul explain how AI leader Andrej Karpathy posted on X about vibe coding – giving into vibes talking to AI over and over while it coded to complete projects. Others applied it to marketing. Marketers go from individual executors to orchestrators of AI systems. Mike Kaput explained, “So basically, marketers will start operating on vibes … while AI handles all the messy execution.”

To get a better handle on this concept I turned to the new Gemini 2.5 Pro which AI expert Christopher Penn says is the best AI model right now. It has surpassed other models on key benchmarks by significant margins (click for benchmarks table). Gemini 2.5 reasons through “thoughts” before responding improving performance and accuracy.

Nailing Down A Definition?

Gemini first defined vibe marketing as an established approach to creating content with a feeling to connect with consumers emotionally. Emotions are key, but rational appeals play a role. I’ve found story is a great way to deliver both as evidenced by my research and explained in my Brand Storytelling book. That’s not this new trend.

I prompted Gemini to focus on the emerging trend of AI in vibe marketing. It’s new description was “using AI tools to generate marketing ideas, content (text, images), and campaign elements that align with a specific vibe or aesthetic … for speed and automation in creating assets that embody a chosen vibe.” It is closer but still mixing the established term with the new trend.

With my background in cross-discipline creativity, innovation, and problem-solving, I thought it might be more about ideas that can go back to product design, business plans, and marketing concepts. Vibe is more about getting an idea and using AI to run with it, researching, illustrating, and iterating as it quickly gains steam combining design thinking with marketing and innovation.

Vibe Marketing In Action.

I was still fuzzy on the concept until my Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) class later that day. Student teams complete an IMC campaign for a business. They gather market and consumer research, set objectives, budget, media mix, creative strategy, and execute digital and traditional creative with a storytelling approach.

During an in-class exercise, I asked students to apply what we learned about using PR for marketing objectives. They brainstormed a PR event based on a creative brief for Hush Puppies water-resistant leather dress shoes. While students worked, I came up with my own ideas sketching them on the board.

As evidence of the creative process I teach, I took random general information (a book I read to my kids when younger I Wish I Had Duck Feet) and combined it with specific information about the project (PR event for Hush Puppies water-resistant shoes). I sketched a person dressed for work walking in a city on a rainy day in rubber duck feet near a Hush Puppies pop-up store.

IMC focuses on marcom for problems and opportunities. But, I teach other classes that identify opportunities and come up with product ideas. Towards the end of class, we talked about duck being an actual product – a fun way to protect dress shoes.

Vibe Becomes A Product And Business.

Fun rubber shoe protector was in my mind back in my office. I let the marketing vibes roll using new AI tools to rapidly advance this idea from concept to product design, prototypes, with an outline and some basic research for business plan and a marketing plan for my entrepreneurial startup.

In no time, I had a photo-realistic product sketch, product name, logo, target market, positioning, price, and place (distribution) strategy. I also had a basic promotions strategy with marketing channels, marketing ideas, content with text and images, and campaign elements. I even had ideas on how to create a working prototype for investors by creating by hand, using a 3D printer, or a rubber molding prototype.

With tariffs in the news, I also wanted to consider manufacturing. Working with Gemini 2.5 Pro, I had a beginning outline of materials, fasteners, and packaging I would need and options for rubber injection or compression molding. I had Gemini look into supply chain and manufacturing partners from overseas, in North America, and in the U.S. It gave me ideas to find those partners through online platforms, industry directories, trade shows, and networking.

Gemini helped with my marketing plan, but I turned to Open AI for my product illustrations, logo, and examples of social media ads. I was inspired by Ethan Mollick’s Substack and wanted to try the new image capabilities of GPT-4o.

Gemini came up with the idea for an influencer marketing post, wrote the caption, and suggested the hashtags. I had the idea for the brand promotional post headline, subhead, and image but it wrote the promotion copy. Gemini gave me tagline suggestions, but I didn’t them so I wrote “Being Safe Has Never Been So Fun.”

GPT-4o created all images. The bottom left below was Gemini 2.0 Flash image. I couldn’t get it to do what I wanted especially with type. The top right is ChatGPT’s first attempt from my prompt on the top left. Gemini 2.5 Pro may be best all around, but ChatGPT-4o image is superior, but Google may be planning a Gemini 2.5 image model release.

Can Anyone Can Be A Vibe Marketer?

Yesterday was fun, but I agree with AI expert Christopher Penn that vibe marketing isn’t a magic bullet of entering a couple of prompts, walking away and it does everything. As with any trend you need to see beneath the hype. He says, the more you hand-off the more that can go wrong. Fun and vibes alone don’t make successful marketing.

Penn explains using AI well is like managing employees. I had to know how to get good work out of Gemini. I had to figure out ChatGPT was better at images. You also need discipline expertise, good data, discernment, and skills in prompting.

I got good results quickly because I worked in marketing over 15 years in product design, launches, communications campaigns, and pitches. I’ve researched and taught marketing, judged and mentored student business competitions the past decade. I’ve researched and experimented with AI for two years including AI Use Frameworks and AI Prompt Frameworks. I also ask Gemini if anyone can do vibe marketing.

Gemini indicates “You Definitely STILL Need Core Marketing Fundamentals:”

• Strategic Thinking
• Audience Understanding
• Brand Knowledge
• Critical Evaluation
• Marketing Channel Knowledge

Gemini suggests “NEW Skills or Competencies for AI-Driven Marketing:”

• Prompt Engineering
• AI Tool Literacy
• Editing and Refinement
• Ethical Awareness
• Data Interpretation

I asked how this impacts teaching. Gemini suggested ways to teach the foundational and new skills. But emphasized a mindset shift, “Teach them to view AI not as a threat or a magic bullet, but as a powerful collaborator. The marketers who succeed will learn to leverage AI effectively to enhance strategic thinking, creativity, and efficiency, while always maintaining critical oversight and ethical responsibility. You’re preparing them to be the pilots, not the passengers.”

I don’t see new AI tools as a replacement for marketing experts or an easy way for students to get As. There’s a lot to learn in the fundamentals and new skills to use AI tools and practice vibe marketing properly. As I’ve posted, you can’t use AI to shortchange the learning process. But I can see my students feeling the vibes of using AI to help them learn and practice concepts and projects.

Wish You Had Duck Feet?

Duck feet shoe savers may not be the best idea, but it helped me learn the concept of vibe marketing and experienced it all in one day. To advance it, I would use my expertise and involve other discipline experts to fact-check and fill in gaps with more specific data.

I also change the name. I’m not happy with Gemini’s “Quackers.” I’d write my own like “Duckies” and do a trademark search. I’d also have human designers and photographers complete final designs and images for copyright and ethical consideration.

I really enjoy teaching, but if any of the Shark Tank investors are out there and see promise in my idea, I’ll entertain investment offers.

This Post Was 100% Human Written. I did use AI in research and execution which enabled me to learn, apply, test, and refine thoughts quickly. I used Gemini to optimize my headline for engagement and SEO. Thanks to AI tools this post went from idea to research and published in record time.