What is Meme Marketing? Examples and Marketing Tips Explained

Open Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, and open any social media application on your device, and you will find one thing constant across all of them, i.e., memes. The medium, in all formats and a source of creativity and humor, has ingrained itself so consciously into a netizen online experience that one cannot help but like, comment on, upvote, or repost memes when they see them. People use memes to keep up with popular trends and communicate with others. That is why memes have become a vital component of businesses' strategies to reach and engage with their target audience - creating a phenomenon called Meme marketing.

 

What is Meme Marketing?

 

Think about the "we don't do that here" meme inspired by the Marvel character black panther. By pairing that meme with a caption (preferably a consumer pain point that your competitors cannot solve), you can create a positive impression in the minds of your consumers that you can solve the pain point. Keeping the established joke element alive while getting your message across is vital. Unfortunately, grasping the concept behind every popular meme or creating memes that resonate with the intended audience is something most businesses struggle with. Fortunately, our dealings with a top meme marketing agency put us in the position to provide tips and examples that you can use to plan, execute, and scale your meme marketing campaigns.

 

TOP Meme Marketing Tips 

 

Do your Research 

 

You can use existing meme templates or your own content for memes or encourage your audience to create memes featuring your product or services. Whatever you choose, you must do the research. 

 

• What memes are currently trending and suitable to get your message across?
• The topics that interest your target audience in real-time. 

 

For instance, if the latest movie inspires new memes, use the templates in your strategies or make your own memes using the movie scenes and dialogues.

 

Be Consistent 

 

Be consistent in uploads, creativity, innovations, ideation, and adaptability to new trends because your audience, especially those interested in memes associated with your business, will sense when you are not giving your 100% to capture their attention, which can leave a negative impression.

 

Always Think of Your Brand 

 

Yes, it is excellent when the audience starts associating your business with the latest pop culture, but you must remember what is essential. Your potential customers expect to see your brand identity, i.e., logos, texts, slogans, messaging, colors, values, etc, through the meme concepts - which should be the priority. Please understand that your memes will only attract a specific audience demographic. Nothing will differentiate the original meme template from memes with your brand essence when you try to appease everyone. 

 

Meme Marketing Examples: How Brands Use Memes 

Using Existing Meme Templates (or memejacking) 

 

There are many well-recognized memes online, and meme Jacking is when you use these memes to promote your brand. You would have seen that "Distracted Guy" meme where The man is visibly distracted at the lady in red while the lady in Blue appears shocked. This template is used by many companies, including Ruffles when they positioned their flamin hot chip flavor in place of the lady in Red. 

 

Memejacking is a faster, cost-effective, and minimum-effort alternative to creating engaging memes as you capitalize on the existing meme concepts your audience knows and loves.

 

Using in-House Content 

 

This is a less popular option for meme creation, as creating new memes from scratch with concepts that align with your brand identity is time-consuming. But when you are a well-established organization like Netflix or Hulu with heaps of content (that is, already part of pop culture) available at your fingertips - creating your own means is definitely the right approach. Just like when Netflix posted a tweet with the caption "Gonna tell my kids this is Neil Armstrong" with the picture of Ganesh Gaitonde and his famous dialogue "Chand pe hai apun" from the Netflix Series Sacred Games. By doing this, Netflix created an intriguing experience for its audience while subtly promoting the series.

 

Interact with your Competitors 

 

You can create memes by engaging in a hilarious conversation with your competitors. For instance, there is an on-and-off internet rivalry between Indian food delivery company Zomato and Dubai-based super app Careem, mainly observed during cricket matches between India and Pakistan.

Careem Pakistan reacted to one of Zomato's tweets with "We hope you guys are ready for your pre-diwali gift (read defeat) 👀" as a pre-game Banter before the match between two Asian Cricketing giants - with apparent favoritism towards Pakistan.

After India defeated Pakistan, Zomato used the opportunity to get back at Careem with the snide remark "Diwali ki Hardik Shubhkamnaye mithayi lenge ya aansuo se pet bhar liya?" to Careem's previous tweet.

Both tweets brought massive engagement through Views, likes, reposts, quotes, and bookmarks.

The mutual conversation is excellent to bring publicity for both brands, but maintain decorum throughout the exchange so you do not attract negative publicity.