A large step van parked in a local strip mall, wrapped in a full-length photo of a real estate agent balancing a basketball on one finger, with a company logo.
An elegant ad showing a beautifully staged kitchen, captioned: “Your next dinner party here will be remembered forever,” followed by a clear “Book your private showing today” call to action.
UK-based Purplebricks turned their perceived sense of pain toward high agent fees into a widely recognized consumer campaign led by the term “commisery,” a word smashup (combining commission and misery) reframing commissions as unnecessary.
Only two of these examples invite the audience to see themselves in a new story, and take a meaningful next step. The other … it plays an entirely different role.
In real estate, all three are considered marketing, but strategically, they’re worlds apart.
Marketing has an identity problem
“Marketing” has become the all-purpose label slapped on everything from listing flyers to social posts to selfies, whether it deserves it or not. Language evolves. That’s fine. But when we blur what something means, we run the risk of not actually doing the thing we think we’re doing, and getting frustrated when the thing we’ve replaced it with doesn’t work.
Worse, we may stop doing the thing that does work, without even realizing it. When it comes to something as critical as marketing, that’s a costly mistake.
So how do I define marketing? It’s the term applied to the strategic process of identifying, attracting, engaging, and retaining customers by communicating the value our product or brand brings to the consumer.
Marketing’s job is to align what a business offers with what an audience actually wants, and ideally, is willing to pay for. To get there, the output must be informed by input.
In other words: research.
Real marketing gives people a reason to care, a reason to act, and a reason to come back. That’s bigger than content. It’s the connection a brand needs to make to satisfy the needs of the business.
If your communication isn’t based on that, if it’s not helping someone see a need, solve a problem, or understand what you do, it’s something else. But it’s definitely not marketing.
So what is it then?
Given how much of that content is considered marketing, I think it’s time we brand it with a name.
Vibing
It has a ring to it. But it needs a clear definition. Vibing is that something else you create for fun, for relevance, to fill the space between real marketing.
There’s no strategy behind it, with no goal other than to get attention.
It’s pure self-expression content made for the creator, not the consumer. No benefit. No call to action. No value exchanged. Like the guy balancing a basketball on his finger in a full-body wrap on the side of a step van. He’s not marketing anything.
The dude’s vibing.
I used to ridicule this kind of content. But today, when attention is fragmented and everyone’s chasing it, vibing can create awareness. Oddly enough, it often has a better shot at going viral than your actual marketing.
In a noisy world, that can feel like a win.
Still, a real estate business doesn’t run on awareness. It runs on leads. Clients. Sales.
Vibing won’t get you those. Real marketing will.
So brands need both. But they also need a strategy to balance them. In other words, a marketing-to-vibing ratio.
Here’s what 1000WATT recommends:
70% real marketing: rooted in research, tied to a message, selling value, and connected to a goal. The meal.
30% vibing: playful, expressive, creative, experimental, and yes, sometimes just for the hell of it. The garnish.
Market more.
Vibe less.
Flavor matters, but it’s the substance that sells.
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