Marketing 101: The birth of Meme Marketing

With the creation of a plethora of social media platforms, came the need to create relatable content for people to enjoy day and night. This led to the inevitable birth of memes and trendy posts, which everyone shares with their friends on social media.

Memes inevitably then became a marketing opportunity for all brands who had a social media presence, which they repost on their profiles by giving them their own twist.

Meme-jacking trends as marketing tools

Due to meme marketing’s increased popularity as a marketing strategy, it got its own term and is now also known as “Meme-jacking”. This term practically highlights the idea that when marketers hijack popular memes or funny memes to market their products, it’s called meme-jacking.

Meme-jacking is becoming increasingly popular because it’s an excellent way to share refreshing content that has the potential to go viral. Memes are entertaining, funny and very easy to consume; that is why they are perfectly suited for increasing a brand’s engagement and are now always a vital part in a brand’s digital marketing strategies.

At the end of the day, who doesn’t like a hilarious meme that’s designed to make them laugh?

Why does it work?

As a concept, meme marketing seems like a winning strategy, because it utilizes its relatable nature and enticing content that attracts people. The relatability of memes is also one of the major selling points of this type of digital marketing and the ease at which people can share them with their peers – if it relates to them or they find it amusing, they’ll share it, which means more exposure for your brand.

The simplicity of it also makes it super efficient and effective as well. The best part of meme marketing is that you can simply take a concept that is already gaining traction and piggyback on its popularity. With memes, there is no such thing as plagiarism. Therefore, you can capitalize on a trending meme and customize it with your branded content to engage your target consumers with an entertaining media strategy.

With the least amount of effort, your share-worthy memes can get you likes, shares, and comments. When you post them on your blog, you can reap the benefits of increased inbound links and website traffic as well. No wonder brands are jumping in on the meme marketing bandwagon.

How brands utilize this type of marketing?

When you know for a fact that connecting with your audiences on social media is the best way to grow your business and following, publishing memes for social media marketing can help you foster the meaningful connections you are aiming for.

1. Gucci

One of the biggest and most famous luxury fashion brands, Gucci, has utilized this type of social media marketing.

Gucci has built their brand around an image around sophistication and grace. But for their 2017 #TFWGucci campaign, they decided to change all the preconceptions about their brand. With memes, they showed their target audience that they could be cool and in touch with the times. This campaign titled #TFWGucci, which is short for “That Feeling When Gucci,” was a campaign designed to promote their new line of watches.

In a series of relatable memes, Gucci used these memes that ranged from absurd to hilarious. They created all of the memes in collaboration with artists from around the world. The landing page for the campaign even featured an explainer video on the history of memes for those who were new to the concept. The descriptive captions paired with edgy graphics gave Gucci a refreshing brand makeover.

2. Netflix

Another brand that has a strong meme marketing reputation is obviously Netflix. Their social media marketing memes are instantly relatable. At a time when we don’t want to see only branded content on our feed, memes are an opportunity for brands to engage with their audience. Netflix provides a prime example of this and they are smashing it with their meme meme marketing which increases their exposure exponentially.