The new language of marketing: Meme Marketing

Today almost 90% of our social media feeds are occupied by memes. These hilariously engaging and omnipresent content have shaped audiences’ behavior, right from how they communicate with their friends, express themselves on social media, and share information.

Internet memes are multitaskers- from starting conversations to setting trends, they have it all. But do you know how they can influence your decisions or promote brands?

Well, read this article to know more about meme marketing and how you can use it for your brand. However, before diving deep, let’s take a look at what are memes and its history.

So, what are memes?

Memes are humorous and witty content in the form of images, videos, hashtags, or GIFs, often created to go along with the latest trends. They make people laugh and incite share as the audiences can easily resonate with them. They have gained massive popularity in the last few years among online content consumers essentially because of their creative, amusing, and appealing nature.

Brief history

British biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena in 1976 first coined the term ‘meme’.

During World War 2 in 1940, the graffiti “Kilroy was here” became insanely famous. Although its origin is debated, the phrase and the prominent doodle accompanying it existed in different countries under various names, like Some, Chad, Sapo, Clem, and others.

The narrative of memes has changed over time. Nevertheless, one thing remains the same that makes memes popular and desirable- its fast-spreading nature. Marketers all over the world are now using memes to breathe new life into their social media strategies.

What is meme marketing?

A large portion of marketing efforts is invested in getting customer attention and holding on to it. An average social media user has a short attention span. They choose from an infinite pool of content where most of the things get rejected because they simply bore the user. Therefore, bombarding your audience with hefty information and generic advertisements is going to make you look lousy. Here is where memes steal the show. Using memes to promote a product or service has given rise to a new way of marketing, known as meme marketing, a subset of viral marketing.

Meme marketing is the art of promoting a brand, product, or service using appealing, humorous and fast-spreading images, videos, or GIFs. They are minimalist and at the same time enthralling. Owing to the versatile nature of memes, they seamlessly fit in as a part of digital marketing strategies.

Want more clarity? Still not sure how it works?

Let’s see how different brands are acing their meme marketing game.

Amazon Prime Video:

Amazon Prime Video’s original show Mirzapur, gained massive popularity overnight due to some of its iconic dialogues and the memes made around them.

These memes were made on some of the famous dialogues, scenes, characters, and even concepts of the show. These were shared multiple times across social media, and as people saw them, they couldn’t help but end up watching the show.

Gucci:

Imagine building an image around sophistication and grace, then suddenly using memes to promote your brand. Sounds unlikely, right? Well, luxury fashion brand Gucci thinks otherwise.

Gucci embraced meme marketing in 2017 with its #TFWGucci campaign, which was designed to promote its new line of watches. All these memes were created in collaboration with artists from around the world.

Elon Musk:

While we talk about memes, could we possibly miss the Lord of the Memes? Obviously, no. You guessed it right. We are talking about the maverick CEO and tech biggie Elon Musk. In the last few years, he has profoundly managed to rebrand himself using the meme charm. Remember, his universal control tweet that had sent Twitter into a frenzy with a series of cheerful banter and hilarious memes in the comments? Well, you see, that is how the meme charm works — it connects people with humor.

Why choose meme marketing?

Although it is not a mainstream tactic, memes in their essence is a perfect way for viral marketing. When on social media audiences, are looking for light-hearted content to share with their friends. Advertisements that are not innovative often get neglected. To create a dynamic social media presence, brands need to be more subtle and entertaining. You can always rely on memes to have your back.

Several reasons advocate why memes are a great way to reach out to target audiences. Here, we have listed down the most popular one’s for you to check out.

1. Memes are crisp, funny, and witty content that audiences love and can easily relate to them.
2. Memes spread quickly as your audience can’t help but hit the share button — an effortless way to increase visibility and engage people. Therefore, memes incite share and connect more people.
3. It is an inexpensive way to promote your brand that requires little to no funds. All you will need is wit and humor.
4. Memes are a highly creative and most loved form of communication. They allow brands to establish strong relations with their customers.

Tips to ace that meme marketing game:

· Firstly, keep up with the current trends in pop-culture. Most trends are short-lived, but you can always leverage them with timely action.

· Try to create content that resonates with the audience than just mechanically carrying out a campaign. Don’t jump on the meme marketing bandwagon just because everybody else is doing it. Identify what is best for your brand.

· Wondering from where to start? Try memejacking. It is the practice of using existing popular memes for your own brand. It is a good way to start if you are a new player. You can always work your way up and create your own meme library.

· Don’t forget to connect with your audiences during the festivities or special days. This can go a long way in building good relations.

· Don’t go overboard with the memes or come out as too salesy.

· Make the memes unique and original to your business.

· Always use your brand’s content to make that indelible impression.

· You can always use tools like Meme Generator, Quick Meme, Make A Meme, Adobe Spark, Canva, etc., to search and create memes.

Conclusion:

As digital media continues to rise steadily, memes are becoming an indispensable part of it. Memes are more than funny content. They are agents of organic growth that effortlessly blend in with other formats and influence the audiences’ choice as well as the brand’s image to a large extent.

Hundreds of brands are already riding the wave of meme marketing, and, in the future, more and more brands will hop onto this bandwagon. No longer can you escape it. Well, you see, brands like Gucci and Fenty could not.

Meme marketing is the new answer to all your marketing worries — right from engaging customers to increasing visibility. It is a raging trend that is here to stay.