The Meme Era: How Meme Marketing Is Becoming The New Way To Brand Success?

Welcome to the internet, Anything that your brain can think of can be found. We've got mountains of content and among these zillion ways to engage, A meme is the most recurring.

So, what is a meme ? - Asked no one ever.

Everyone knows it, everyone has seen it, Even if you are an anti social media advocate, you know it. Wikipedia says, The term ‘meme’ is a shortening (modeled on gene) of ‘mimeme’, which comes from Ancient Greek, meaning ‘imitated thing’. The word was coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena.

What is a Meme?
How Memes Changed Marketing?
Memes in The Exciting Future
FAQs

What is a Meme?

A meme is an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users.

Needless to mention that we live in a hyper hyper connected world. Yes, I used the word hyper twice, you know why. The medium is high technology penetration and the Internet. Believe it or not, a meme is one of the most shared items among all in the online world. These quirky texted images have high sharing value, that is they are highly contagious and can pierce nicely through the human brain. Now if you have questions like why ? Then my friend, you're underestimating the power of humor. Humor is the best way to build rapport with fellow sapiens.

Another interesting thought is that earlier the word ‘Viral’ wasn't used as much. Also it was used in the context of medical field to identify bacteria or viruses that travel and transmit fast. Can you think of the fastest medium through which a virus can travel to spread ? Air, yes. It is the air-borne bacteria that travel the fastest. From that usage, we have come to a time when anything over the internet can go viral. The reason is hyper connectedness. Anything humorous can go viral. Internet is the new air, truly and metaphorically.

How Memes Changed Marketing?

Marketing is to present a company’s product in the best possible way. It can also be called catching people’s eyeballs. Now in the times when most, If not all the eyeballs are looking at the memes. It would be a smart move to catch memes first. That is exactly what companies are doing, they are placing their name on memes. They are doing marketing by way of memes.

Modern problems require modern solutions.

Combination of marketing and memes has led to the establishment of one of the quirkiest ways of marketing, MEME MARKETING. We see that anything weird or funny or weirdly funny can go viral and can turn many eyeballs to themselves. These memes are the new marketing tools because they have high sharing value.

We can’t move forward in this direction without taking a few examples. The most famous example we can think of is that of Zomato. Their meme game is lit, that’s what millennials are calling. The company recently got public and customers love this brand for its relevant memes that they share on their social handles.

This is their latest Instagram post. The subject is about Cristiano Ronaldo’s splendid performance and the underlying subject is zomato delivery boys(wearing red).

Previously

They made a tweet in 2019 that went immensely viral. It was liked thousands of times, had several thousands retweets and praised by the CEO Dipinder Goyal himself. It was,

"Guys, kabhi kabhi ghar ka khana bhi kha lena chahiye"

(Guys, Sometimes eat home cooked food for a change)

Witty tweets like these from Zomato have been widely appreciated. This is a funny and smart way to trigger humor in people, communicating what the brand does conveniently to its customers. Thus improving consumer relations. Moreover it led to many responses from other brands as well, who joined the conversation by commenting with some similar slurs.

Guys, kabhi kabhi raat ke 3 baje, phone side pe rakh ke so jana chahiye - Youtube India.

Guys, kabhi kabhi cable pe bhi kuch dekh lena chahiye - Amazon Prime Video.

Guys, kabhi kabhi ghar par bhi baithna chahiye! - Ixigo

Another example may include the recent unicorn CRED. Cred has been making funny songs as their marketing campaigns. These jingles are so catchy that you might humm them sub consciously. Cred’s success credit goes to its engaging marketing strategy. Create a marketing strategy that engages your audiences and turns them into customers.

What’s Better - Static Memes For Marketing Or Video Memes For Marketing?

Memes may be funny, but meme-making is no joke! Memes have become almost a cultural language unique to the millennial crowd. Considering how trendy and in vogue they are, most brands are trying to get in on the meme-making scene. With meme marketing becoming the recent tool in brand promotions,

StartupTalkyShubham Kumar

Memes in The Exciting Future

The future of this newly found genre of advertising/marketing is definitely exciting and obviously hilarious. They say that visual memes travel about 60000 times more than a normal plain text. faster than People, especially from Gen Z, love memes because they offer an entertaining analysis of everything. From your childhood trauma to the latest current affairs around the globe.

And because pop culture is the cousin that marketing hangs out with, the former always influences the latter. Today's customers go to the brands that make them laugh, that are relatable and bold.

However there is also a dark side to these memes, They can be offensive. So a brand should cautiously test the waters gently first before jumping in this frenzy. So a meme is something of a relatable joke, That has to have humor. A meme without humor is like a joke that doesn't make anyone laugh. You may get an A for the effort but if your work doesn't make the reader go giggle, grin, or onto a relatable smile - you lose, And this happens more than you realise. That is not how you MEME.

Use memes to trade good humorous exchanges with your customers and captivate them. Who knows—your meme might light up someone’s day!

FAQs

What is a meme?

A meme is an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users.

What does meme stands for?

The term ‘meme’ is a shortening (modeled on gene) of ‘mimeme’, which comes from Ancient Greek, meaning ‘imitated thing’.

What is meme based marketing?

Meme Marketing is the art of creating any kind of brand narrative in the form of text, image, or video Memes and getting those memes shared on various Social Media platform for getting attention of customers.