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In the age of 60-second recordings and blazing quick stories, Meme marketing has turned out to be very pertinent. Images have turned into the language of Social Media. They are reshaping and redefining the manner by which individuals communicate. GIFs or pictures put with a caption or quote are turning into the standard of online correspondence.
The present generation of millennials and Gen Z are very adverse to conventional form of advertising. Brands need to look at other forms of marketing if they want to target the new generation. Many brands have found immense success in ‘meme marketing’ where in brands create creative but effective marketing strategies using memes. This form of marketing has garnered immense popularity and recognition for the brands.
Meme marketing is making use of topical and trending meme templates and modifying them to profit your brand or product. Many brands ranging from Gucci, JCB, Zomato, Trivago have all been a part of this. The memes usually contain popular scenes or iconic dialogues from movies and social events. The memes are creative and funny and this is a very good recipe for marketing. So it is clear to see why they have garnered attention and huge reach among people.
Few Examples of How Brands are using Meme Marketing to go viral:
#TFWGucci was an image advertising effort begun in 2017 by the Italian Luxury brand, Gucci. They utilized existing memes to make substance to advance their new line of watches. They hired professional photographers to recreate memes that were relevant during that time. They promoted their range of watches through this campaign. The result was quite eventful for them. It was very surprising to see such a huge and luxurious brand dip into the meme marketing arena and connect with the current generation.
Through its #TFWGUCCI meme campaign, the company gained millions of followers on social media
Zomato, a food delivery brand, took a similar approach to promote their popularity and reach the public. They started their campaign by posting creative memes on the topic ‘There are two kinds of people in the world.’ They haven’t stopped since and have been trying to promote their brand using topical memes and topical movies for memes.
Amazing and creative concept of meme marketing used by Zomato
Another peculiar case of meme marketing is that of Vimal. The brand has been a popular meme for a long time now. The brand has gained great popularity among many meme pages and the public due to their brand ambassador Ajay Devgn. The memes generally include Ajay Devgn in his various movies having funny captions related to Vimal. Voluntarily or involuntarily this has lead to the brand gaining more recognition that it would have gained through conventional marketing.
One of the hilarious Vimal and Ajay Devgn memes
When Trivago’s advertisements started playing on our television sets, they had a kick to them. They were extremely catchy, and the repetitive phrase”Hotel? Trivago” became so entrenched in our minds that the guy Abhinav Kumar became famous due to the memes made on him and Trivago’s ads. This brought in a lot of brand value and easy recognition, which made Trivago stay in the mind of the customers.
The most popular “Kya Aapne Kabhi Online Hotel Search Kiya Hai?” Trivago Guy
If we want to be topical and consider the recent developments in the so-called meme marketing, sometimes brands don’t enter themselves voluntarily but are instead made popular by the meme creators through sheer randomness. JCB memes which are now trending in India are not initiated by the brand, but the memes featuring JCB vehicles have found their way into memes. Their popularity has soared new heights because of this.
JCB memes got so viral with #JCBKiKhudai that even Sunny Leone tweeted about it.
After witnessing such a huge response on #JCBKiKhudai, even JCB’s official page respond in a positive way on social media about all the memes.
This form of marketing, called ‘meme marketing’ has been popular during recent times. It is difficult to say how and when these memes gain popularity. The question still remains. Is meme marketing the new trend in marketing, or is it just a short term trick triggered by PR of brands?
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