Brand Management Through Memes

To be sure, not all memes lend themselves so easily to brand plug-ins. Remember the “Dress” meme from last year when the internet went crazy deciding whether a dress was white and gold or blue and black? Purists debated over the outfit’s colour for days, until science stepped into the picture and explained it as an illusion of sight. It was great fun while it lasted until the next meme arrived.



The question is, would the “Be Like Bill” meme work for brands? Social media traction can be an unreliable beast when it comes to converting hits into revenue, but the buzz so generated can help the company get eyeballs and win much-needed mindshare.

At any rate, traditional marketing has always relied on word-of-mouth to sell products. Coke and Pepsi are examples of a product category where there is little distinction between the products on offer – both colas – yet their rivalry is the stuff that business school case studies and public perception is made up of. This is down to little else but marketing which builds up what is essentially sweetened soda as something worth aspiring to.