From Storytelling to Vibetelling: The Shift Brands Are Missing

When I think back to the thousands of videos I scrolled through this summer, they’ve melted into one big content soup. I can’t remember specific posts, but I remember the vibes certain brands gave off. That’s not a bug, it’s the feature of modern media consumption.

We’ve entered the age of “vibetelling.” Unlike traditional storytelling that assumes sequential consumption and narrative continuity, vibetelling recognises that your brand is experienced in fragmented 3-5 second chunks and carousel posts in no specific order. Individual pieces of content often lack any connection to each other, yet together they compose something more powerful than a story: an atmospheric impression that accumulates over time.

Think about how you actually consume social media. You encounter a brand through an Instagram Reel or a TikTok, then maybe see an Instagram story a few days later, followed by a carousel post that suddenly spirals into your feed by an algorithm that you don’t control. There’s zero narrative continuity between these touch points. Traditional storytelling frameworks completely break down in this environment because they assume an audience that will follow a coherent thread.

Each piece of content contributes to an emotional and aesthetic signature. It’s less about advancing a plot and more about reinforcing a consistent feeling, personality, or energy. The goal isn’t comprehension through sequence, it’s recognition through atmosphere.

This requires brands to think more like music producers creating an album. Individual tracks might vary dramatically in style, tempo and mood, but the overall sonic identity remains consistent. Every song reinforces the artist’s signature sound without needing to reference the previous track.

The power of vibetelling lies in its subconscious impact. When storytelling fails to stick in fragmented consumption patterns, atmospheric consistency creates brand recognition that operates below the level of conscious thought. Your audience may not remember your specific posts, but they’ll recognise your brand’s energy when they encounter it again.

Your brand story, no matter how compelling, simply cannot survive the brutal reality of social media attention spans. Users scroll at lightning speed, consume content across multiple platforms and jump between dozens of brands in a single session.

The Swiss running brand doesn’t waste time explaining their CloudTec technology in every post. Instead, they’ve distilled their essence into a consistent vibe: Whether you see their product photography, athlete content, or landscape visuals, you immediately recognize this signature feeling of engineered performance and clean athleticism.

Their content strategy works because it trusts the vibe to communicate value. You don’t need to understand CloudTec to feel that this is gear for serious runners who care about both performance and design sophistication. The accumulated impression does more heavy lifting than any individual story could accomplish.

As a 160+ year heritage brand, they could easily fall into the trap of constantly explaining their history. Instead, they’ve modernised their identity through pure vibrational consistency. Every piece of content reinforces the same feeling: “elevated British cool.”

Their iconic check pattern appears in completely different contexts, scales, and treatments across their content, but it always feels distinctly Burberry. They’ve managed to make heritage feel contemporary without sacrificing authenticity, and they do it through atmospheric consistency rather than historical narrative.

What both brands understand is the power of subconscious brand recognition. They’ve created visual and emotional languages that work immediately, without explanation. Their audiences don’t need to think about why they recognise these brands. The recognition happens automatically through accumulated vibe exposure.

This has implications for how we should build brand systems. Traditional brand guidelines were designed for a world of controlled touchpoints: print ads, billboards, maybe some TV spots. However, those rigid systems with precise color codes and exact logo placement rules don’t translate well to the chaotic, format-shifting world of social media.

Instead of prescriptive rules, these systems define emotional and aesthetic boundaries. Rather than “always use this exact blue,” the guideline becomes “maintain this feeling of premium minimalism.” Instead of rigid typography rules, teams learn to adopt “irreverent energy” across different executions.

This is infinitely harder to manage than traditional brand compliance. You’re essentially training teams to develop brand intuition rather than follow tactical rulebooks. Creative teams need to internalise the vibe so deeply that they can create on-brand content without checking every detail against a style guide.

The challenge becomes philosophical rather than tactical. How do you maintain consistent atmospheric impression across hundreds of content creators, multiple platforms and constantly evolving formats? How do you ensure that a TikTok, an Instagram Story and a carousel post all contribute to the same emotional signature?

For marketers, the opportunity lies in creating deeper, more intuitive brand connections that operate below conscious resistance. When done well, vibetelling creates brand affinity that feels natural and unforced.

I believe vibetelling will become even more critical as attention spans continue fragmenting and platform formats keep evolving. Brands that cling to traditional storytelling approaches will find themselves increasingly irrelevant in feeds designed for rapid, intuitive consumption. The winners will be those who can create unmistakable atmospheric signatures that work instantly, across any format.

And more importantly: can your audience recognise your brand’s energy without you explaining it? In a world where content melts into one big soup, the brands that will stand are the ones with a signature flavour note.

Written by Christian Schickler, Managing Partner at Salz & Water