Memes are a form of viral Internet content, serving as pictures or videos which can be easily copied and pasted onto other social media websites.
What is Memetic Marketing?
“Can lead to a complete overhaul of how memes are used online”. The purpose is to make a meme more relatable and relevant to consumers, while also incorporating brand names into the memes in an acceptable way that does not come across as vulgar or distasteful. This approach to marketing was pioneered by British Airways, who created six images including captions such as “ICan’t Keep Calm I’m Travelling to Barcelona”, which were widely shared on Facebook after being posted online before Christmas 2012. These tactics have been endorsed by other brands, in turn; the memes have achieved widespread coverage in mainstream media.
One of these brands is Honda. Their marketing campaign in Australia includes a website for their cars called Honda Memes, which creates images that are made to look like they have been created by young users. Some memes posted on the site include “Do this at work and you might get fired” or “So much time to waste.” These are common images found online with captions written in block capitals, so it may be getting its messages across effectively when people see them without even realizing they are from an official brand website.
The intention behind using memes from Meme Scout to market products can be varied depending on how each individual company wants to go about implementing their own idea.
For example, British Airways wanted to engage with their customers and make them part of the conversation about their brand on social media. Honda, however, is using memes as a new way for people to become fans on Facebook and keep up with the latest news regarding their cars.
Advantages:
“I Can’t Keep Calm I’m travelling To Barcelona”. One great benefit of using memes to market products is the type of content that accompanies it. Because many companies are branching out into this area, there are now more people sharing images online so they will reach a wider audience than ever before. The memes also have appealing text or pictures that can grab attention immediately which means that it may be finding its intended audience much quicker than others forms of marketing.
“I Can’t Keep Calm I’m travelling To Barcelona”. Not only is this new form of marketing becoming more popular but there are also many different ways it can be done. One advantage is that memes do not have to be created in-house, they can be created by regular users using photo sharing websites such as Flickr or Tumblr.
One good example of this involves the social media agency We Are Social who decided to create their own meme generator called Meme Generator, which allows people to generate custom memes based on any keyword. These memes can then be shared online and used for a variety of purposes depending on what each individual company wants to achieve from them.
Disadvantages:
One downside to using memes in marketing is that they can be used to mislead people. This has happened before with an image of a cat which had to be taken down by the digital marketing agency behind it, which was not authorized to use it.
Another problem is that memes are often difficult to put into context for those who have not encountered them online before. Unlike other forms of viral content, there are no clues as to what type of design it may follow, making them harder for some people to understand the meaning behind.
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Is using memes as a marketing technique considered spam?
Not necessarily. It really depends on what you post and for who you are targeting it at. Typically, if you’re sending out the same image over and over again this would be considered spam. However, if each meme is sent out in different formats then I wouldn’t view it as spam because you’ve diversified your message.
Conclusion:
Although there are many advantages to doing this type of marketing, such as reaching a wider audience and generating interest instantly, it can also be done poorly if not taken seriously; leading to problems such as misleaded images and lack of understanding from potential customers . The only way businesses will know whether or not using memes will work for them is to try them out and see how well they do.
