How to make meaning from a vibe
Editor’s note: David Intrator is chief meaning officer at RTi Research.
If you look across today’s marketplace, you’ll notice a significant intensification of dynamics that have been underway for a long time. For decades, the way brands have created and communicated meaning has been shifting from functional arguments to emotional ones, and now toward something even more immediate and ambient: vibes. This is not so much a rupture with the past but a continuation of how brand psychology has evolved. And for researchers, it’s not a complication but an opportunity to broaden how we understand and measure meaning.
From features to feelings to atmospheres
Earlier phases of brand competition centered on functional benefits. Brands attempted to differentiate themselves through measurable superiority, whether that meant better cleaning power, more horsepower or faster processing. By the time Jack Trout and Al Ries wrote “The Battle for Your Mind,” it had become clear that functional differentiation alone no longer won the consumer’s attention. The true competition played out in perception.
Around the same period, major brands were already leaning heavily into emotional argument. Coca-Cola’s 1971 Hilltop commercial is a classic illustration. The ad had nothing to do with taste or refreshment. Instead, it framed Coke as a symbol of togetherness and global harmony and argued that Coke brings the world together. As categories matured and functional gaps narrowed, emotional narratives became the primary source of differentiation. Research adapted and developed tools to examine emotional resonance, personal identity and lifestyle fit.
What we see today is an extension of that shift. Emotional meaning has not disappeared. It has simply become more sensory and more instantaneous. Brands now communicate through color, tone, pacing, rhythm and aesthetic temperature. These cues register before language and often before conscious emotional thought.
A vibe can then be understood as a contemporary brand argument delivered through perception rather than explanation.
Why do vibes matter more today?
Several long-running forces have amplified this turn. In many categories, functional differences have narrowed to the point where they no longer meaningfully guide choices. Most toothpaste works similarly, most banking apps perform the same tasks and most sparkling waters taste roughly alike. When function converges, consumers naturally look for other forms of meaning.
At the same time, a visually driven culture has reshaped how people experience the world. Social platforms like Instagram and TikTok have taught consumers to navigate daily life aesthetically. A desk, a kitchen counter, a gym bag or a tote bag become part of an ongoing visual composition. Products must integrate themselves into these environments.
Finally, consumer attention has accelerated. Most brand encounters now unfold in a fraction of a second. Meaning must be communicated instantly, and that often means communicated atmospherically.
Researchers can study meaning as it happens
Vibe-driven choices often occur at the very moment of perception. A consumer may sense that one design feels right long before any conscious reasoning takes place. When later asked to explain the preference, they translate that immediate impression into language after the fact. They might say something looks cleaner or feels friendlier or seems more modern or they may simply say they just like it.
These statements are genuine, but they are approximations rather than complete accounts. They reveal the limits of verbal explanation but also highlight a valuable opening for research: The opportunity to observe how meaning takes shape in the instant it is perceived. Studying these early perceptual reactions allows insight work to get closer to the first moment when a brand actually registers, long before the participant begins narrating the experience.
How is research evolving to measure a vibe?
Research is already adapting. One shift involves studying aesthetic systems rather than individual elements. A vibe is not defined by color alone or typography alone but by the way all elements work together to produce a unified atmosphere. Another shift involves methods that capture intuitive choice more accurately than extended verbal explanation. Quick comparisons or forced selections often reveal patterns that people cannot articulate directly.
Distinctiveness has also become a more important variable to measure. In categories where visual and aesthetic trends tend to cluster, visual polish is common, while looking meaningfully different is rare. Insight work can help identify where a brand is following the category’s aesthetic grammar and where it is creating new visual territory.
Finally, research is increasingly attentive to coherence across touchpoints. A vibe is not a single creative execution but a system that must remain consistent across packaging, digital interfaces, retail environments, advertising and social feeds.
A clearer view of consumer reality
Consumers have not become unpredictable or opaque. Rather, you could say, they have become more perceptual, more visually attuned and more accustomed to making rapid judgments based on atmosphere rather than articulated narrative. Understanding this shift allows research to evolve naturally, drawing on existing tools while expanding their application.
The movement from features to feelings to atmospheres is simply the latest turn in the story of how brands communicate and how consumers make meaning. Measuring a vibe is not mysticism. It is the next logical step in understanding how people experience brands as part of the aesthetic environments they build around themselves. Research now has the chance to capture that experience more directly, more honestly and more fully.