Editorial Articles

David Waterhouse, Editor of Unruly Media's Viral Video Chart, explains the significance of internet memes

Creating contagious social video content that will be shared across the web is far from easy.
For every successful campaign such as Evian Roller Babies, Old Spice Guy and Volkswagen’s The Force, there are many more that miss the mark. So it is not surprising that brands are turning to internet memes to help drive sales and boost brand equity.

But what exactly is a meme? The term was coined by Richard Dawkins in 'The Selfish Gene' (1976), who defined a meme as the cultural equivalent of gene - “tunes, ideas, or catch-phrases” that spread like wildfire, “leaping from brain to brain” , propagating themselves and evolving on the way.

Fast forward to 2011 and, thanks to the power of the social web, which makes it simpler and faster than ever before to spread contagious content, memes have assumed a greater significance in our daily lives. They range from cute kitties accompanied by daft text (#lolcats) to the rebirth of 80s pop sensation Rick Astley (#rickrolling).

Back in 2009, Evian’s Roller Babies, the most viewed social video ad of all time, drew upon the 1990s ‘Dancing Baby’ meme, while T-Mobile took the #flashmob meme to the next level with its ground-breaking Life’s For Sharing campaign, resulting in a 54% sales uplift.

Other brands diving into the meme pool are Yeo Valley and Toyota, with their #whiterap parodies, and Ikea and Cravendale (Cats With Thumbs), who both took the #kittehs meme to the next level.

However, brands need to beware - meme-hijacking can backfire and appear inauthentic, especially when brands fail to evolve the meme in an interesting way.

Microsoft’s use of the Double Rainbow dude in 2010 attracted widespread criticism from the Internets, as the ad was perceived by some to be overly corporate, opportunistic and not in the spirit of the original video.

The Holy Grail for marketers is to develop a campaign concept that itself attains meme status, spawning its own spoofs, mash-ups and copycats (Old Spice, Compare The Meerkat).