During the course of the research and writing process, three areas of memetic marketing have been investigated: initially, the understanding of and the consumption of internet memes; secondly, the changing landscape of marketing; and lastly, how companies can use memetic marketing. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this thesis is the first or at least one of the first academic papers in Denmark on memetic marketing and consumers’ perception of memetic marketing. The main contribution of this study is therefore to the limited field of memetic marketing research, and the study’s findings may have wider implications for the understanding of consumption of internet memes in niche communities and in pop culture.
Part seven seeks to answer the research question as featured in the introduction. To answer this question, part seven will review the findings from the analyses and discussions featured across the thesis.
While a clear and sound definition of internet memes was not achieved, a discussion of the characteristics found that while the concept of internet memes has moved beyond its original biological component, the spread element remained. The level of consumption was found to have increased corresponding with the surge of social media consumption. For any joke on the internet to become an internet meme, some sort of recognisable component must be consistent across the remixing behaviour, which consumers ‘decide upon’. Furthermore, internet memes used to signify some exclusive communal belonging; however, internet memes have gained momentum across social media and are appearing in pop culture frequently to the degree that many social media users have come to recognise and recall the different internet memes.
The results from the survey indicated that respondents in general welcomed the idea of memetic marketing initiatives, although various factors, e.g. area of business, the internet meme itself, the joke, the type of marketing initiative, the target audience, and other influenced their perception. Respondents generally indicated that memetic marketing in advertising was not preferable. Instead, respondents suggested that they preferred memetic marketing initiatives on social media platforms due to the informal tone. In addition to this, many responses indicated that such initiatives would not alter their perception of the company.
Recent research suggests that the landscape of digital marketing is undergoing a change; users are disinterested and become agitated with the increasingly intrusive digital advertisements on electronical
devices. Instead, users take measures to avoid advertisements and instead appear to appreciate influencer marketing as well as interesting and sharable content.
With the analysis above in mind, three hypotheses were developed and discussed. It was found that memetic marketing can be used to connect with consumers with memetic awareness, branding, and customer engagement marketing initiatives. Memetic content intended for awareness marketing proved efficient to generate awareness of a company or its products, although the company risks wasting its resources, as there is no guarantee that the content will go viral or increase likability.
Memetic branding marketing can be used to differentiate the company and connect with the consumers by having the company appear more informal, less corporate, and trendy. However, for a company to remix an existing internet meme to appear relatable to consumers, companies must research the internet meme to understand its inherent meaning and its lifecycle. Successful memetic customer engagement marketing can encourage customers to engage and interact with the company, which may strengthen the customer-company relationship. It is vital for companies to understand its target audience when using such a strategy, because the initiative has no meaning if no one interacts with it.
Finally, the various considerations that companies must make before developing a memetic marketing initiative were analysed and discussed. It was found that companies must consider the following aspects:
Their area of business, as consumers may find memetic marketing inappropriate for the business area.
The size of the company, as a large company is likely to have followers of various cultures and nationalities, and they may not understand or appreciate the initiative. Whether to memejack or memescape, as there are advantages and disadvantages with each approach. The subjects of the internet memes, who may become agitated with the company’s usage. Intellectual property rights to avoid legal issues. Whether the target group would appreciate the initiative and whether the content of the initiative may affect consumers’ long-term associations with the company negatively, and finally how consumers may show antagonistic behaviour to the company if they do not appreciate the initiative.
REFLECTIONS ON STUDY AND FURTHER RESEARCH
This thesis has featured one possible method of investigating consumer perception of four various memetic marketing simulations. The results can provide a small insight into a larger, relatively undocumented field of marketing from an academic perspective. The thesis may inspire further research, which can someday be used to develop conceptual models for students, researchers, and practitioners to use. Other approaches to data collection and other simulation scenarios may yield different results.
After making the conclusions as described above on the findings from this study, a number of critical reflections and questions have arisen:
First, in the questionnaire, it became clear that several respondents did not understand that the Danish word ‘markedsføring’ (English: ‘marketing’), which was used several times throughout the questionnaire, included more practices than solely ‘reklame’ (English: ‘advertising’). The author had considered this prior to distributing the questionnaire; three of the four simulations appeared on the companies’ social media pages, which have a tendency of being more informal in comparison to standard advertising. In retrospect, if the types of types of marketing communication had been expressed more clearly in the questionnaire, this could perhaps have resulted in more positive responses, as some people complained that internet memes were unsuitable for advertising, that they would not like memetic content as sponsored content, and that the message of the internet memes would not generate positive purchase behaviour.
The results of the questionnaire may also have been influenced by distorted age group of respondents. A larger sample response, in particular a larger proportion of consumers of 11-20 years, would assumedly generate a different result, although not necessarily more favourable of memetic marketing.
As memetic marketing is a relatively undocumented topic in academia, it is difficult to suggest further research. However, some suggestions could be:
- Survey on how consumers would react to other types of marketing initiatives, videos, hashtags, challenges and gifs to name a few.
- Focus group discussions on memetic marketing initiatives in terms of branding, engagement, and awareness.
- One-on-one interviews on memetic marketing initiatives in terms of brand, engagement, and awareness.
Further investigation into the possibilities of memetic marketing may be the first step towards developing and executing marketing initiatives that consumers will welcome, actively search for, engage with, have a positive perception of, and react to in other ways that will benefit companies in terms of cost advantages, strong positioning, strengthening the company-consumer relationships, and more.