VCs Wake Up To Vibe Marketing: AI Reshaping The $250 Billion Industry

Forbes

24-03-2025

Vibe Marketing is the New Marketing, Greg Isenberg on Linedin: ... More https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7309555366890033152/
In the venture capital world, buzzwords come and go, but every so often, a concept emerges that feels less like hype and more like a seismic shift. Enter "vibe marketing"—a term gaining traction among startup founders, marketers, and investors alike. It's not just a catchy phrase; it's a fundamental rethinking of how marketing teams operate, fueled by artificial intelligence (AI), accessible automation tools, and a collapse in custom software costs. If vibe coding once turned eight-week development cycles into two-day sprints, vibe marketing promises a similar 20-fold acceleration for the $250 billion marketing industry - as Greg Isenberg, the former head of product strategy at WeWork, an advisor at TikTok and Reddit noted in his recent Linkedin Post. The question is: What does this mean for businesses, and why are VCs paying attention?
Traditional marketing has long been a labor-intensive, especially if taken into account that the typical startup would spend 50% of the VC money raised on marketing. Picture a team of 10 or more specialists—copywriters, designers, data analysts, media buyers—each siloed in their domain. Launching a campaign could take weeks and cost thousands of dollars, if not more. It was a process built for an era when scale meant headcount and precision required human oversight.
Contrast that with today's vibe marketing paradigm: a single marketer armed with AI agents and workflows, testing dozens of angles in real time, launching campaigns in days rather than weeks. Will Manidis, a venture capitalist and founder, recently noted on X that early-stage companies live or die by their "vibes"—the intangible energy that attracts cheaper capital, motivates employees to work harder for less, and earns customer goodwill. 'Once the vibes go negative, you are done,'. Vibe marketing takes this concept and operationalizes it, turning gut instinct into a scalable, data-driven system.
Take, for instance, a CRM browser extension that autonomously identifies prospects, analyzes their online content, extracts relevant data, and crafts personalized messages—all without human intervention. Or consider tools that scrape competitor ads, analyze their structure, and generate tailored variations for your brand, offering free competitive intelligence. Other examples include systems that automate Instagram giveaways from entry to winner selection, or platforms that churn out entire digital product launches—sales pages, video sales letters, email sequences, and ads—in just 24 hours. These aren't hypotheticals; they're tools already in use by forward-thinking marketers.
This shift didn't happen overnight. It's the result of three converging trends that have reached a tipping point in 2025:
AI's Marketing Maturity: Artificial intelligence has evolved beyond simple chatbots and predictive analytics. Today's AI can write compelling copy, design visuals, optimize ad spend, and even strategize based on real-time data. Tools like Jasper, Mosaic, and Phantom Buster are empowering marketers to offload rote tasks to machines, freeing them to focus on higher-level thinking.
Vibe Coding's Legacy: The same tools that revolutionized software development—Replit, Bolt, Lovable—have democratized automation. Non-engineers can now build custom workflows and micro-tools tailored to their needs, no coding degree required. This accessibility has spilled over into marketing, enabling rapid experimentation without the overhead of a traditional tech stack.
Plummeting Costs: Building bespoke software once cost tens of thousands of dollars and months of development time. Now, with platforms like Make, Zapier, and n8n, a marketer can assemble a custom system for a fraction of the price in hours or days. The barrier to entry has collapsed, leveling the playing field for startups and solopreneurs alike.
The result? A single marketer with the right tools can now rival the output of an entire agency. "The leverage is absurd," as a former VC Animesh Virsha posted on X. They described vibe marketing as "fast experiments without approval" and "acting on 100 ICPs [ideal customer profiles] over the traditional 3-4," highlighting its emphasis on speed and scale.
The implications are already visible. As Greg Isenberg notes, a service company recently used AI to map customer segments and conversion flows, pulling data from public census records to pinpoint opportunities with precision. Another startup deployed a system that runs hundreds of AI agents to test marketing angles across channels, adapting in real time without human input. These aren't outliers—they're early adopters of a trend that's rewriting the rules.
Data backs this up. The global marketing technology market, valued at $250 billion in 2024 by Statista, is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 12% through 2030, driven largely by AI adoption. A 2023 McKinsey report estimated that AI could automate up to 30% of marketing tasks by 2025, a threshold we've likely already crossed. What vibe marketing adds is a framework to harness this automation not just for efficiency, but for exponential growth.
So, what does the future hold? Marketing teams are going hybrid—humans steering strategy and creativity, AI handling execution and optimization. The days of bloated departments may be numbered. Instead, we'll see leaner operations augmented by thousands of specialized micro-tools, each built for a specific niche. Think less Salesforce-style monoliths and more purpose-built solutions that excel at one task, like Flora for creative assets or Meshr for cross-channel analytics.
The winners in this new landscape will be companies that build self-improving systems—set up once, then left to refine themselves through continuous testing. Imagine a campaign that tweaks its own messaging, adjusts targeting, and reallocates budget based on live performance, all without a human lifting a finger. That's the promise of vibe marketing, and it's closer than it sounds.
For businesses looking to get started, the toolkit is already here. Workflow builders like Make, n8n, and Zapier connect disparate systems into seamless pipelines. Agent platforms such as Taskade, Relay, and Lindy deploy AI helpers for specific tasks. Marketing-specific AI tools—Phantom Buster for scraping, Icon for design, Jasper for copy—handle the heavy lifting. And vibe coding platforms like Replit and Bolt let anyone build lead magnets or microsites on the fly. It's a plug-and-play ecosystem designed for speed.
As Greg Isenberg explains, in 12 months, the gap between companies embracing vibe marketing and those clinging to old methods could be stark—akin to the divide between businesses with websites and those without in 1998. That's not hyperbole; it's a recognition of how fast technology moves when adoption costs drop and returns skyrocket. For venture capitalists, this is catnip: startups that master vibe marketing can scale faster, burn less cash, and outmaneuver bigger rivals, all traits that signal a potential unicorn.
But there's a flip side. The democratization of these tools means competition will intensify. A solopreneur with $500 and a laptop could disrupt a $50 million incumbent if they wield vibe marketing effectively. For established firms, the risk isn't just being outpaced—it's being rendered obsolete. The $250 billion marketing industry isn't disappearing; it's being rebuilt from the ground up.
What would an early stage B2C startup looking to use Vibe Marketing do and how?
The low hanging fruit would be to do the following:
1. Create an Emotional Hook Test – Run micro-campaigns to identify your most resonant narrative.
2.Founder's Voice – Share behind-the-scenes moments via Instagram Stories, X, Linkedin
3."Drop Culture" Strategy – Limited, exclusive product releases to drive urgency and hype.
Vibe marketing isn't a fad—it's a paradigm shift. It marries the agility of vibe coding with the power of AI, delivering a framework where speed, experimentation, and automation reign supreme. For VCs like Manidis and "That Casual VC," it's a signal to bet on founders who grasp this shift, who can turn good vibes into great businesses. For marketers, it's a call to rethink their craft, to trade silos for systems and meetings for results.
The tools are here. The data supports it. The early adopters are proving it. Whether you're a startup founder, a corporate CMO, or an investor scouting the next big thing, one thing is clear: vibe marketing is the new marketing. And in a world where vibes can make or break a company, that's a trend worth watching.