Meme-marketing the multiverse of madness

  

           Meme Marketing the Multi-Verse of Engagement

Think about the amount of time we all spend endlessly scrolling through social media each day. The aggregate of content our brain consumes through these channels is vast. Having said that, a huge chunk of that content consists of memes. ( not denying that there are other things online too) 

The meme culture has been rapidly growing in the last few years, and so has digital advertising. Brands have been trying to use these tools to advance their social media and online presence to appeal to the younger age group. With the shareability, interactive, humorous nature, and popularity of memes among the younger target market, ‘meme marketing’ can be used as a crucial tool in Digital Advertising. Brands should start using it more in order to create a good online presence. 

Research conducted by the University of Keio tested the hypothesis, “Utilising internet memes have higher post engagement rates than posts without internet memes utilisation.” Through their findings, they concluded that it was true indeed. Thus, using memes does have a positive impact on brands and we as future advertising creatives should learn more about the same.

What are Memes and why am I bothering to write an 1800-word article about them?

            

“A meme is an image, video, piece of text, etc. Typically humorous in nature, it is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations.” While this is accurate, there is much more to what a meme is.

But first, let's look into how the concept came into existence. 

The first recorded “meme” is considered to be ‘the expectation and reality comic strip that got people excited when it first started going around on Twitter. It was said to have come from the magazine ‘The Judge’ published by the University of Iowa.   

However,  the term “meme” came into being in the year 1976, coined by Richard Dawson;  it comes from the Greek word “mimema'', which means imitated. Dawkins spoke about how memes are more than just a concept; and I agree with him, it's more than a piece of the image that people share on the internet, as it beholds the power to give us a deep insight into behavioural patterns, cultures and the ideologies of a human being. He drew a similarity between genes, and memes because, just like genes; memes speak a lot about the human truth, as they constantly keep evolving and replicating to survive.

Even though memes have their core based on imitation, they hold so much potential for audience engagement. Take the example of the meme “My dog stepped on a bee” even though I didn’t necessarily agree with the trend, because in the end, it became a tool for trolls online to spread hate. However, it still did a good job of making people all across the world aware of the Amber Heard and the Johnny Depp case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4pYLjUwMj8 

The fact that this single meme had the power to make me aware of what was going on in a continent several miles away from me, and also get a huge amount of people to talk about issues like domestic violence is intense. 

( You can click on the image for a laugh :P ) 

Let’s see what the meme achieved from a brand/ marketing point of view: 

• It did a good job with reach, it did make people aware of what was going on around them.

• It was great when it came to consumer engagement. People engaged in the meme all over the world, including their own, culture, and language etc.

• It was a great way to talk about a case with a serious agenda behind it.           ( Leaving aside the fact that some people took the opportunity to spread sheer hate on either party ) 

Brands and Agencies that have Aced their social media game using Meme Marketing. 

As I mentioned, various brands and marketing agencies use memes and trends to ace their social media, the most obvious ones being Netflix and Prime Video but there are unexpected brands that have done wonders using this tool, Mumbai Police and  Zomato ( a food delivery app in India ) being one of them. 

                                  

 

There is no handbook for one to crack the social media algorithm as it keeps changing, but one surely has more chances of being noticed with meaningful consumer engagement; and what better way to do this than memes and trends? 

This brings us to why these brands are doing so well on social media and the answer is simple. 

(i) They have a strong sense of their target audience. They aim their content at the Gen Z and early millennials with smartphones.

(ii) Their content is always based on trendy and popular memes that get their audience to share and engage with it, in turn boosting their social media presence.  

Let’s begin with Zomato and its content strategy. You’ll notice how well they harp on the meme culture and trends. The brand creates content based on the simple fact that food is a cultural and emotional expression for most people and uses memes to express that.

The format of their memes can be divided into trends, meme templates, current affairs and puns. Things that people engage with when they are online. 

                     

The quirky and funny content that Zomato has on their page is greatly appreciated by their target audience, instead of being formal and corporate with their audience they connect with them based on an emotional and entertainment appeal; emotion being humour here. People go online to escape reality and let’s be honest, waste their time and that’s exactly what Zomato is helping them do, once you go to their page you would not leave without scrolling through their content and engaging with them. 

                             

    

I mean it's high time someone takes Elon’s phone from his hand, I am with Zomato on this one

With an engagement rate of 2.52%,  which is almost the same as Kim Kardashian's. The brand has successfully used memes and quirky marketing to its benefit. 

Mumbai Police: 

It would be strange for a defence department of a city to base their social media on meme marketing, wouldn’t it? Well, Mumbai police is living proof of making the best of quirky, digital advertising. Most brands or services which deal with sensitive/serious topics have extremely boring ways of imparting news. If I see one more poster/post that shows a road covered with blood with the warning that one shouldn’t drink and Dr(I)v(E), I would throw my phone away. This kind of content makes the audience desensitised to serious problems, in turn making the message less impactful on any individual. This is exactly why the page of Mumbai police is so refreshing, they have successfully included meme marketing as a major component of their social media strategy to get messages across to their target audience. 

   

          

The reason it works for them well is because they are extremely witty with their copy. They harp on trends and smart puns to pass on information to their T.G. which is so different from what the majority of content creators and civil service brands are doing. As a Gen Z wasting my time endlessly scrolling through social media, I can assure you the posts on the left would capture my attention on Instagram; and make me want to engage in it, in comparison to the post on my right. 

One thing that’s unique about Mumbai police and their memes is the fact that they make the content very regional to Mumbai and Maharashtra, they use slangs and the Marathi language, which a Mumbaikar will relate to immediately. They manage to draw a connection between a regional language, and a current trend to create content, which if you ask me; is genius. To prove my point, I'll show you a post that they recently did on their Instagram for road safety when the Met Gala was going on.

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The word “Ghala” in Marathi means to put,  the brilliant copywriter behind this post, drew a connection between Met gala ( my feed was spammed with all the outfit memes)  and road safety, by simply writing HelMET GhALA which basically means put on your helmet while driving.  

Brands like Mumbai Police and Zomato have done the one simple thing to ace their social media game, and that is being aware and studying their T.G. They never fail to harp on any trends which is what makes them so relatable! 

We get it! These brands make memes, but it’s not necessary for all brands Aadhya!

I get it that it can’t be possible for some brands to make humorous content all the time, but memes demonstrate how important it is to understand what your audience is interested in and where you can find them. It is important to include a little humour, trends and memes for any brand to ace their social media game. A meme is like seasoning - they add flavour to your social media mix or else it’s tasteless and no one likes bland food. You need to add it according to the tonality of your brand. Now a brand like Zomato can do memes more easily than a brand like Bumble. Does that mean bumble can’t make memes? Hell no! 

If you carefully look at the examples I’ve provided, they aren’t the typical meme templates.

They are humorous puns and adapted versions of memes that these brands have included which align with their brand tonality. Nowhere in these pictures has Zomato included a Game of Thrones visual and nor did Mumbai Police included Met Gala one. That’s what's great about memes! Their core is based on imitation and adaptation so it doesn't have to match the visuals. You can adapt it to a version that suits your brand and that will make your specific audience relate with your brand better! 

How are you so sure  Aadhya? 

I worked as a Copywriter for Bumble India, where I was managing content along with the social media of the brand. We used an engagement calculator that is easily available online to monitor and track the engagement of the posts that we did for the brand. During my tenure, I realised that the posts that included trends, memes and funny puns performed much better than the posts with serious and mushy lines.

Let’s compare these two posts. Which one do you think performed better?  

    

 

Both these posts are humorous and quirky in nature. So which one would have appealed more to the people on social media? 

If you guessed the ‘roses are red’ adaptation, then you are absolutely correct, it did perform way better than the one on the ‘appraisal’.

           

The reason for the difference is the fact that the ‘roses are red’ adaptation is famous and relevant to Bumble; as it is a dating platform.  We as a brand had design and copyright restrictions so we adapted the trends according to the tonality of Bumble and our T.G. As a result, more people started engaging with them. The social media game lies on the simple formula of knowing what the audience wants and giving them exactly that. 

     

How can brands use them? 

As I mentioned a hundred times in this piece, memes need to be adapted to the brand tonality. If you take a look at these posts below, you will see that these posts are adaptations of memes and trends. Even though we didn’t use the actual visuals they still performed because the audience knew the references!

 

        

             

                      

             

 Conclusion 

                            

Memes are what make things go viral on social media, and urge more people to engage and participate in a piece of content. Imagine the things it can do for a brand if used correctly. On average, millennials look at 20 -30 memes every single day, over three billion people use social media, and at least 60% of them use them for memes 

Focusing a part of your content for these people would only help your marketing and thus, it is important for brands and content creators to know what to post on their social platforms and how. Once you have mastered this you will know exactly the kind of content that would work on your page and how much humour to serious ratio you should include for that particular brand.

The market for quirky advertising is still a little untouched, and it’s time that changed; you have the power to change that. You could start by reading these articles to ace your meme- marketing game https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-memes-guide-for-marketers/ and https://socialbee.io/blog/social-media-meme-marketing/. 

 It’s time to dive into the multiverse of meme madness!