Effectiveness of meme marketing

Abstract

Did you know an average millennial spends over 200 minutes online every day? (Cole, 2018) And a good chunk of those 200 minutes is spent on social media? With social media turning into such a big thing nowadays, the content circulated on these platforms attracts eyeballs of millions of people. Our world today is largely informed by the jokes, references and commentary made by our friends and influencers we follow. In this context, not mentioning 'memes' would be an injustice to the social media users. Memes are being shared so much that, according to Google Trends, the term 'memes' has become a more popular search term than "Jesus". (Cole, 2018) The primary reason due to which memes have become so special is because of their way of communicating attitudes, feelings and situations. Not missing the opportunity, businesses are now trying to engage with the audience through memes. Previously, the only way brands used to advertise their products on social media was by publishing their content on their potential customers feed. But, the viewers of such feeds, mostly GenY and GenZ customers, being very ad-averse tend to just skip or scroll over the content considering them to be lame and commercialised. Data says 84% of millennials don't trust traditional advertising. (Sunam, Meme – the new marketing language!, 2019) So, when a company pushes a product through traditional means, there are high chances that it is not attracting its audience but rather pushing them away. Meme marketing, as the name suggests, is marketing a product, idea or experience by making memes out of it and sharing the same on social media to make it popular among the audience. With social media continually on the rise, meme marketing has undoubtedly transformed thousands of brands' social media strategies. A trend which began by posting soft and relatable humour, memes are now being used by brands to boost their social media following.