One of the most important things to keep in mind for Meme Marketing is to understand why millennials or Gen Z are on social media. The answer is simple, to stay connected, to be amused and to share a laugh.
The thing that they want the least is those obstructive Ads which mostly interrupts and ruins the experience.
That’s why Influencer Marketing was born and brought results, but the industry is slowly getting fabricated with brands and endorsements. Many influencers do 2-3 collabs per week delivering no exclusivity to brands and definitely not something their followers expect to see
This Digital generation can smell sponsored content from miles away..
And trust me, you as a brand/agency don’t want to know their reaction when they see a generic brand promotion via Ads/Influencers with no creativity or uniqueness. (after all you spend your money to create them)
Today, Meme Marketing stand out from the digital clutter of Ads/sponsored posts and have established themselves as a quality attention space which can actually solve the emerging concerns of Social Media Marketing.
Thinking about how you can actually start to leverage Memes for your advertising goals ?
You can follow one of these two strategies:
1) Piggybacking on existing memes
Some memes continue to trend for months or become a classic and serve for years, but many have a short lifespan too.
Brands can use these trending memes to help in resonating the brand to the audience.
An example of the can be Dream 11.
Dream 11 is a fantasy sports app that is using trending memes to amplify the platform.
Few Samples :
On the other hand, Gucci – The biggest Luxury Brand put up a series of piggybacking memes that were used to promote their new line of watches.
Dont’t believe us? See it yourself
: http://digital.gucci.com/tfwgucci/p/1
2) Creating New Memes
This approach is the more difficult path out of the two. Memes like Kabir Singh becoming several meme templates and helping it reach 105 crores in 5 days.
For ‘memefication’ of social media campaigns, below is a five-point guide on how to go GOD MODE with memes:
1) Try to be native: Social media can be a really unforgiving place a wrong step is put forward. To ensure that nothing happens when the meme goes viral, always hire people who speak the native language. (We @Youngun India have been doing this for an year)
2) Don’t take it too seriously: Don’t be hesitant to get down and dirty to have some fun with memes. Remember memes work because they are silly, hilarious and ridiculous.
3) Be calm, not everybody understands it: Hey all you Kotler fans. You guys know, it’s all about targeting that niche market. So, just focus on that and not what you don’t understand.
4) Amplify: Don’t just post memes on your brands handle, collaborate with Meme Pages and seed your content on Social Media
5) It’s in the moment: It is a VUCA world, and the memes are no different. Timing is the key to resonance. Be culturally aware to know when to strike.
These are few things to keep in mind for meme marketing which can unlock a whole new world for brands to connect with their audience. You can discover more about Meme Culture and Meme Marketing at Youngun India.