When I began researching for this article, I had a pretty good understanding of meme marketing as I thought of it at the time, but I had read additional articles, watched videos on YouTube, and listened to podcasts. Over time, I gradually realized that there is more to satire than just that. Images and videos flood our feeds today.
Meme marketing is about more than just getting a laugh. It's a sophisticated tool that brands use to create genuine connections with their fans. These fans will usher in brand loyalty and shape a new era of consumer-brand relationships.
If you'd like to delve down the meme rabbit hole with me, or see how a prominent evolutionist plays an important role in internet history, or perhaps find out more about how brands can do meme marketing right You might just want to know if it's happening, so keep reading. , because this article will reveal them all.
What is a meme?
Memes are the hieroglyphics of the 21st century. Anyone with an idea and a sense of humor can create a meme and post it online so others can join in the fun. Memes are no longer just for kings, queens, or gods.
Memes come in a variety of mediums, including images, videos, and text. However, it states that they are not just things, but “concepts, beliefs, or practices conceived as units of cultural information that are influenced and transmitted from person to person in a manner similar to natural selection.” New York Times; or as I put it, “funny content you share online without thinking about the repercussions.”
Because each piece of content is closely tied to the current pop culture zeitgeist, messages are anchored with meta and alt tags and sent across laptops, phones, instant messaging services, social media, and forgotten photo galleries. You can continue to live through it.
The more up-to-date a meme is, the more likely it is to bring masculinity to the internet, and the more likely it is that it will become a personal favorite to share with friends and family when you are at a loss for words. But you have a sense of humor.
origin of the word
Renowned evolutionist Richard Dawkins is credited with coining the term “meme” in his 1976 book. selfish gene. He created the now infamous word “meme” by combining the Greek words “mimeme”, meaning “to imitate”, and the word “gene”.
His rationale for coining the term is based on humans' deep connections with each other and their ability to “replicate, mutate, and evolve beyond ideas, ideals, cultural beliefs, and habits.”
Through this continuous practice, we [humans] It's like a virus – no, I'm not making this up – it moves from person to person, like a virus where we “imitate, share and repeat” cells. Or in this case content.
And that's the beauty of meme marketing. After all, it allows your audience to participate in the story and create their own story for themselves and you.
How memes took the internet by storm
However, memes have evolved over the years and become an important form of communication. The old adage “seeing is believing” is truer now than ever.
Memes can be reused by anyone with an internet connection, and as I said, a “sense of humor” is something shared across the world wide web. It was through social media, specifically through his 9gag, which he dubbed the “Meme Museum”, that he created a platform where users could scroll through endless memes.
The platform was created to celebrate humor and allows users to upload images, videos, and text. Devotion to this art form has led to more and more memes being used across other platforms designed to display lifestyle, family, or business-related content. But memes include all of the above.
What you need to know when doing meme marketing
Now, having discussed the above, it is essential to know that meme marketing is not just a quick win, but rather an art form that can bring huge profits. But with reward also comes risk.
Memes are a timeless form of communication, a medium that allows you to convey a lot with just a few words. It is a communication device that can be replicated, adjusted, and shared between people who understand their social context.
What brands need to know when trying to take advantage of this type of marketing is that it needs to be fun or it can backfire. It can be shared by online viewers or hidden behind a veil of anonymity, allowing you to show how trending or untouchable you are. It's like acting cool and being cool.
If you put it on people (viewers), it will show through. A little later, I'll share some insights into how and why memes can be used as effective tools, but first I'll give you some examples.
Successful Campaign: Crocs
Over the years, there have been some notable meme marketing campaigns that have taken the internet by storm. In some ways, these examples have not only changed the way other brands and agencies apply and make their strategies work, but rather found innovative ways for consumers to become advocates for brands. …Crocs shoes are a great example.
The once unsuccessful shoe brand nearly went bankrupt after the 2008 recession. Due to plummeting sales, the brand was on the brink of bankruptcy, but on October 2, 2019, it created a TikTok account, forever changing its history and making it a universal shoe choice among young people. It was decided that it would become.
Within a week, they amassed 100,000 followers and won digital gold in the shaving foam challenge. The challenge involved TikTokers filling Crocs with shaving foam, then sticking their feet inside and blowing out the foam.
The overall success of Crocs meme marketing is due to the target audience on TikTok. According to Forbes, 32.5% of his users are under the age of 19, and a total of 60% of his users identify as Gen Z. Armed with this knowledge, Crocs' marketing team effectively leveraged meme marketing to make their shoes cool to an appealing audience.
What followed was a flurry of memes related to the brand, “replicated, mutated, and evolved” by a growing consumer base.
This tactic allowed new and loyal patrons to create content on their behalf, creating their own tailored content and fostering fun online conversations that many people could participate in.
Successful Campaign: Babenheimer
The next beneficiary of meme marketing was the unlikely duo of Barbie and Oppenheimer, two movies released in 2023. In my opinion, the internet is the only eternity that can produce his two films that are literally opposites.The synergistic effect created a masterpiece. Barbenheimer.
Both films were scheduled to be released on the same July 21st date, and both had very distinct target audiences and didn't necessarily need to be mixed, although “The Internet” was a popular choice between the film and the spin-off. They found creative ways to combine content to flood everyone's feeds. .
Content creators have created movie posters that incorporate elements from both movies. Like Barbie's neon pink color palette or Oppenheimer's black and white cinema noir, he achieves one feature that can only be appreciated while sitting back to back. The Barbenheimer Challenge was then created and over 200,000 people booked tickets for both films on the same day.
Meme marketing, done entirely by fans of the two films, spawned merchandise stores and Wikipedia pages, and both films grossed over $1 billion at the box office.
This way, you'll be etching them into the master book of meme marketing success stories that future Hollywood productions will seek to emulate, but the trick here is that none of this was forced, and neither If anything, they created them through the sheer absurdity of combining two concepts that are so far apart from each other that they fit like yin and yang. There was pink in the dark. Where there was a bomb, there was a blonde bomb. And where there was quantum mechanics, there was “I'm just Ken.”
How to effectively grow your brand online using meme marketing
So what did I learn by diving headlong into this meme rabbit hole? Well, SEO master Dev Patel sums it up very well: Tips for growing your social media following I think it provides.
1. Understand your consumer base:
Meme marketing doesn't work for everyone. It's a particular genre that you either love or hate. This may be due to age, but if the content is relevant, it is relevant, and it transcends time and space.
2. Timing is everything – ride the trend:
As with everything in life, it comes down to when you do it. The same goes for his marketing of memes. If you follow the trend and strike while the iron is hot, you can create pixel gold. But if you recycle a trend because it serves a purpose as a brand but is outside of popular opinion, posting that meme can do more harm than good.
That's why it's important to understand not only the consumer, but also the digital environment. Like canned food, memes have a shelf life, and what was cool last month or trending yesterday might not be the right content to produce today. However, if you're nimble enough to jump on trends and create something engaging, you'll be “A foraway” by some simple engagement metrics.
3. Application is key:
Just because there's a meme, does that mean you should post it? No! Choosing to do meme marketing for your brand is a bold move, and should only be taken if you know how to make memes work for your own story.
Copying and pasting something without thinking twice can have the opposite effect of causing you to lose followers. To turn a meme into something that resonates and connects, you need to apply good judgment and a sense of humor.
The overall goal is to create memes that inspire others to create more memes for your brand's story.
4. And finally, it's relatively free to create.
Gone are the days when you had to spend hundreds of thousands of rands to make your brand stand out. Instead, you can find trending memes, find text related to them, and post them.
A perfect example of this can be seen with the infamous (and recently banned) Kanye West, who spent a total of 30 seconds and $0 to record a Super Bowl ad in his car. Just by spending millions of dollars on ad spots, we generated over $70 million in online sales.
When using memes as a marketing tool, you need to understand that they are not immediately useful for selling products or promoting services. However, a consistent flow of industry-relevant memes with unique insights that your audience can understand can help you grow your following and maintain engagement levels.
Meme marketing is a smart and cost-effective way to attract people to follow your page, but it can damage your brand's image if not done correctly.
This is an easy way to gain masculinity online, but it has to match what you and your brand do or it will only add to the content fatigue we all suffer from.
At the end of the day, memes and brands' use of meme marketing allows everyone to enjoy jokes. It gives a sense of community where humor is the language. It can be interpreted and edited by anyone who wishes to participate.
Memes are the basis of communication in an internet-obsessed world and are constantly evolving to match what's happening politically, socio-economically, and culturally.
Like viruses, they can spread across multiple industries, mutate, and have far-reaching impacts. And just like viruses, we humans can allow or stop them from multiplying through the power of our online emotions.
