How Emotions are Driving Audience Decisions Today

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TRANSCRIPT:

DOUG: Greg, let’s jump right into it. What does a vibe-based culture look like to you?

GREG: Well, what’s a vibe? What do you think a vibe is?

DOUG: Sure, it’s a feeling. It’s a feel. That’s what I think it is.

GREG: I think in 2026 today vibes, there almost an emotional current that shape how we engage with culture, how we make decisions, and what informs what feels good to shop, share and scroll.

DOUG: Do you feel that vibe wasn’t a thing, or it’s always sort of been percolating and now it’s exploded? Like, what’s your vibe on vibe, I guess?

GREG: So, from a historical perspective, we’ve often thought of vibes or people who are making decisions based on emotion as a youthful thing, maybe leaning into emotions. Maybe there’s some immaturity there of not using your full, you know, left brain against the right brain to make a decision, but increasingly in the last few years, we’re really seeing more consumers making decisions, whether that is in romance, where to live, what to buy, what to do, or who to vote for based on the feeling of the moment. And I think that as we study that, and as I’ve dug into that, there’s a lot that technology and social media have had to do with that. And also, there’s a reward center there, too. When you make a decision based on how it feels, you get an immediate payoff of, it feels good, and then you want to do it again.

DOUG: So, what I’m getting is that there’s lots of different vibes that different people have, and the same people can even have at different times. So, as a brand and I know we look at highly targeting marketing, but how do you target and market to all these different vibes that are happening as once?

GREG: That’s a great question. So, what we’re seeing happen is the erosion of saying, consumers are doing this now. We see consumers like pistachios. Consumers are using more of Instagram these days. Instead, we’ve really bifurcated and split off into many, many different types of cultures and groups that also on the marketing side, we can target, but that also means that they’re making decisions in a different way. And so, if the first thing we’re thinking is our audience instead of our audience says, we got to scale it back a little bit. And, you know, the kids have said, you know, the vibes were off, right? And we were kind of like, okay, yeah, the vibes are off. I think we’ve all felt that the vibes were off in the last year or right now for sure. So, you know, at FINN Partners, what we’re doing is leaning into where the vibes are heading, where we see that direction heading and thinking about, well, what does that mean for our programs, for brands and how they’re going to show up for their many different audiences through that vibe-based lens?

DOUG: Yeah. And I think it almost seems like increasingly your marketing efforts have to really touch on the emotion piece to this, but before that, I wanted to go back one thing, because I know in the past everyone said when you were talking about dividing into groups, I found people were describing groups that like, in no way are close to monolithic in how they think and feel. And this whole vibe trend you’re talking about really seems to emphasize that, that you can’t put people in these large buckets as being similar because there’s a lot of things going on that they’re thinking about differently. So, that’s a challenge.

GREG: That is, and I think that the psychographic data and the practice of digging into the root of who people are has really had to evolve and rethink how we define groups of people, because they’re even defining themselves differently depending on the situation. They might show up in one way on Facebook and another way on LinkedIn. They just as you might show up differently in a meeting with your grandma or with your best friend. And what that means is now that shopping, making an informed decision, or a being persuaded is happening 24 hours a day, it’s not happening in distinct parts. What that means is that brands then have to think about that differently too. And really, you know, the rise of mobile technology, social media and, and also the pandemic lockdown has really accelerated. Even the fact that you and I are meeting through this technology couldn’t have. I mean, that’s a black swan event in itself.

DOUG: If Covid had happened ten years earlier, before zoom had really been perfected, the impact for service businesses would have been. I don’t know if I’d have a company for sure if that had happened, but it really was an incredible sort of turning point moment that there was starting to be this usable technology to connect people remotely, and then it was needed. Forgive me for that digressing. As you know, our company is deeply invested in AI and trying to make sure our clients are discoverable through GEO when they do earned media campaigns with us, but how does AI driving changes in the user experience and engagement, especially with all these different vibe feelings out there that change from moment to moment? How do you keep track?

GREG: 100%. So, I went through and pulled out 14 different ways that vibe thinking, vibe shopping, scrolling, and sharing is coming to life. Whether that’s vibe content, vibe shopping, vibe politics, vibe news, influencing, travel, fashion and we don’t have time to go through all of those, but I will say that the fact that there is no longer a time where you are just at work or just socializing, that there’s no longer a time that you are not within arm’s reach of your phone, which is a fully, always on, digitally empowered, AI enabled technology, even if you’re not looking at it for AI. So, in June of last year when Google turned on AI results for all Google results, not just if you’re logged in, not just if you’re paying for Gemini. You search something in Google, you get AI results in the top right. That changed our industry. And I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t overly interested and smart or nerdy about SEO for the last 30 years. And all of a sudden, we all needed to get really smart on GEO. Even those of us who maybe aren’t technical experts. And so why is that? Well, because when people are in a shopping situation or a work situation or social situation, they’re able to shop, be social, or work wherever they are. It’s all bleeding together. And that notion that, like shopping is so drastically different, where live streams are growing less than or more than one out of four people are projected to buy from a live stream this year. You can go to Amazon.com/live right now and there are shows. And so that’s very popular in Asia. It has not been as popular here, but TikTok Amazon, Walmart, they’re bringing that.

DOUG: It’s coming.

GREG: So, what does that mean. If you’re now thinking about a lean back approach to social media where you’re scrolling, you’re watching a show that’s selling you something versus sharing content from your friends, which isn’t really where people are using social media anymore. In fact, from their own courtroom filings, Meta showed that only about 17% of Facebook activity is people sharing content with their friends. On social, you’re just vibe scrolling, and then if there’s ads in that, your vibe shopping, and it’s just a very different way to think about how your brand shows up when you’re considering the mindset of your audiences and how they’re feeling in the moment.

DOUG: TV stations from a producer survey, which just completed 60% of them, are optimizing their content. That’s online for GEO. And a year ago, no one even thought about it. You think of like, where was AI? You know, five years ago, there were a handful of people talking about it. Now it’s everywhere. And I think you mention a point that’s worth emphasizing the quick change from Google because people say, oh, I don’t use AI, but guess what you do if you’re doing a Google search now. So, it’s almost universal. And the estimates that are so low. And for us, the driving point was because like you, I didn’t necessarily oh great. I’m going to be an early adopter. This this is great, but when I started hearing earned media is one of the primary drivers of AI discoverability. And I’m like we do earn media. I was like, and I’ll keep the language clean, but like, man, we better have an AI discoverable solution or our products are going to become worthless if we’re not doing that. And that really drove our development of new product, and this is great, but as we wrap up, I’d like to touch the vibe. Touch the emotion, can tech create this emotional connection or do you feel it’s uniquely human?

GREG: Well, we always have to remember that our AI enabled consumers target audiences. They’re still people. And so, what does that mean? What do brands have to do if this vibe thing is real? If you believe this, this whole conceit, what are we going to do? Well, the first thing is you have to make you have to do actions, not ads. You have to give people a reason to pay attention to you and share what you’re talking about. That’s not new? But to your point, your question through the lens of human touch. And in a world where AI slop is everywhere. We’ve even invented this word work slop to describe when our coworkers send us stuff. And you can’t tell what’s real all the time. That means that a human sharing things, there’s nothing that stops a face faster in social media than a human face to stop a scroll. And then when we’re sharing social content, we’re showing behind the scenes of human capturing that content. We’re highlighting creators working with people from a human perspective, and also because not everything is real. We need to plan for misinformation. We need to think about if vibe driven consumption means that people will validate on our content based on how it feels, not what we meant or where they’re getting their news, not where we want them to get their news. We have to plan ahead for that and think more intentionally and more proactively to manage those narratives.

DOUG: That’s so thoughtful of an insight, because the idea is, and this has always been true on one level, but when you think of it now, when there’s so much bombardment of information everywhere that people receive information dramatically differently on that, and how do you now have to add to account for that? And just think of friends or coworkers. And I’m not saying anything that caused a problem, but you said one thing. They took something different from it, from your intent, that happens all the time to people on a daily basis, depending on your interactions. And so, now if we’re multiplying all these touches and interactions, how can you become aware? And this is a question for you. Maybe it’s too far of future will get you back on a future episode, but how can you be aware of when they’re receiving the message as you intend to share it? Or as these systems can get smarter and making sure that reception is matched with the intent?

GREG: Yeah, it’s probably two things. So, the first is viewing your current communities, your current fans as an actual fandom. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a B2B company, work in regulated industry, health care, or consumer products like there are people who know your company and they’re advocates for you and you want to. Are we arming them with the right information, at the right time in their in their vibe in a way that they will advocate for you? And then the second way is to be experimenting with the new, to be trying out the new products, to be staying on top, getting your hands dirty on this AI stuff. If you’ve never done a GEO scan before, you don’t have an expensive tool, that’s okay. Go open up Gemini, ChatGPT, in incognito browser’s logged out. Search for your company, see where it comes up, and think about, all right, what’s the mindset of my consumer. And then how could I affect that. And that truly is how we will help stay ahead of some of the vibes. And also, the last part is we just have we’re kind of at the mercy of it. And so, if the vibe of your audience right now is negative or it’s down, it’s maybe not the best time to come out with a positive message. And also, maybe you could spark a message that they really need to hear, and then they’re going to advocate for you. And that is how we win.

DOUG: And you’ve clearly sparked some messages that are meant for our audience. So, thanks so much for being here. And thanks so much and congratulations on your success.

GREG Thanks, Doug. It’s great to be here.