Memes: Not Just For Facebook?

In July 2012, at the London Olympic games, gymnast McKayla Maroney stunned the world with her perfect vault at the Women's Team Finals.

She was expected to take home the individual gold medal for the vault, but fell on her attempt and ended up taking home the silver. Maroney was visibly disappointed with her performance, and photographers around the world captured her expressions as she stood on the podium receiving her medal. Her so-called "unimpressed" face spawned an internet phenomenon in the form of the "McKayla Is Not Impressed" blog. The meme quickly became popular, with users inserting an unhappy McKayla Maroney into pictures or videos of current events, with the caption:"McKayla is not impressed".

 



 

These types of "memes"-An image, video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another--- are becoming increasingly popular and common in social media, especially on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Users can create their own memes, using sites like memegenerator.net or quickmeme.com. Most memes tend to be silly or humorous, but some use the medium to make social or political commentary.

 

 



Some mix humor and politics--such as the "Texts From Hillary" blog site.  The site started when Adam Smith and Stacy Lambe, who work in public relations in Washington D.C., took a picture that was published in Ocotober 2011 as Time magazine photo essay of Hillary Clinton as she awaited departure in a military plane and created this:

 

 

It quickly spread on the internet, and soon users were creating their own "Texts From Hillary" memes. Even Hillary Clinton herself got in on the deal, sending a meme of her own to the site.

 



The meme was picked up by major news outlets and no doubt gave Clinton a PR boost, showing that she has a sense of humor and can poke fun at herself and her image.

Companies have come to recognize the power and influence of memes, and have engaged in what some call "meme-jacking". Meme-jacking is when a company takes a popular meme and uses it to advertise their own product or idea. For example, one of the most popular Youtube videos recently has been the "Honey Badger" videos. Posted in January 2011 and with more than 45.8 million views to date, it features a documentary-style clip of a honey badger eating a king cobra with flamboyant narration from a man named "Randall".

Wonderful Pistachios snatched up the honey badger to run it's own  marketing campaign. The ads feature the honey badger using the infamous king cobra to crack open a pistachio.

Repeat offenders,Wonderful Pistachios also used another interenet meme, "Keyboard Cat" to push their pistachios to consumers.

In 2010, Old Spice ran a series of commercials called "The Man You Could Smell Like" featuring actor Isaiah Mustafa that became wildly popular.

To promote it's 2011 film, Puss In Boots, Dreamworks released a commercial featuring Puss as the "Old Spice Man".

Clearly, memes are powerful ways of communicating ideas, jokes, social and political commentary. Because of the immediacy and overwhelming influence of the internet, memes can spread quickly and become part of pop culture as easily as sharing something on Facebook. But companies should use caution when "meme-jacking"...people tire easily of these memes, and using them could backfire for them.

What do you think? Is using a meme a clever way to market to consumers, or a tired gimmick?