Meme Marketing in Social Media

Overview & Synopsis

Meme marketing has become a common media practice in the advertising industry. Many companies advertise on social media using memes to generate attention for their brands, products and services and to signal that they are part of the digital media culture. However, the use of memes is fraught with risk. If advertisers are not aware of the media practices of memeing, they run the risk of using memes incorrectly and being ridiculed or excluded by their target group. Subcultures on platforms such as Reddit are meticulous about protecting their media culture from outsiders. Advertisers there are suspected of only exploiting memes for profit. So how does the anti-commercial production, circulation and reception of memes in social media relate to the visual use of memes in advertising? Kevin Pauliks answers this question in eight media praxeographic samples that examine the difference between memeing and meme marketing and show how memes are used in advertising using different brands such as IKEA, Gucci, Siemens and Sixt.