“Meme” comes from a Greek word. In marketing terms, the word describes a “package” of information that is instantly understandable. To eliminate the noise and confusion of today’s advertising, only the most convincing and easy-to-understand “packages” succeed.
Memes in marketing are real. They are a mind control device. This is not science fiction. Geoff Ayling in his book “Quick Response Advertising” tells it all. It is one of my favorite books.
Memes are a kind of “flash memory” template in our brains. Sometimes a meme is a catchphrase, sometimes it is a jingle, sometimes it is a visual association. Whatever the form, a successful advertising meme gets under our skin and embeds itself in our subconscious mind from where it influences our actions.
Creepy, right?
Maybe. But I think I can convince you that a meme can be used as a force for good … and that developing the right meme for your business or product could be the difference between striving for success year after year and getting dirty. Rich.
Here’s a classic meme:
“I like Ike!”
What don’t I like about Ike? His image was congruent, at least in public he managed to be sympathetic in two elections … partly due to his charisma, appearance and credibility, but everything was united by the simple listen to him, say it in three words. -even. Ike won overwhelmingly in 1953, ending a 20-year Democratic White House, even though he HAD NEVER HAD AN ELECTED OFFICE and was therefore not an experienced legislator.
The election of Ike was a great triumph of populism … and it could have gone well even without the “Ike Ike!” There is no denying the power and partnerships that the motto raises.
Other famous memes include:
“Hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less or it’s free!”
“We are number 2. We try harder.”
In both cases, the company name is not even included in the meme, but the associations are so powerful that most Americans recognize these memes even if they haven’t seen the ads in years.
Here’s another one:
“Take the Pepsi challenge!”
I remember this from the 1970s and early 1980s. I was a kid. I liked Coke better, but I tried Pepsi, as do most Coke drinkers … and Coke lost a huge market share to Pepsi in just a few years. Pepsi recast Coca-Cola as old-fashioned and unmodern. The damage to Coca-Cola was brutal and the company spent incredible amounts of money trying to get the business back. One of the best marketing hits ever.
Let’s face it, the chances that your product or company will ever have a meme as successful as these are slim. Memes are also powerful in more subtle contexts. Ideally, a meme will create, in the minds of your customers, a deep and compelling “reason” to buy from you. You can even use a combination of layered memes to create the impression that your product or service is profoundly different from your competition, although in reality it is not.
The differentiation between what you sell and what your competition sells is in the MIND of the people who experience your products or your advertising. Many business owners would be surprised how oblivious the public is to the value of their products and how easy it is to forget their advertising.
If you understand and use memes in your marketing messages, you have a good chance of standing out in a sea of ”me too” marketing … which is, despite your pride in your current marketing, probably what you are doing in this moment. .
Today, there aren’t that many great memes visible in marketing. However, some of the companies that have them have succeeded in the market. The Avis car rental Meme “We are number 2, we try harder” actually catapulted that bankrupt company to position number 2 … the Meme created the reality they were looking for.
The Marlboro Man is another hit meme. The tagline is “Come where the flavor is – Marlboro Country” – and that’s fine, but the real power comes with overlapping associated imagery of male power and badass Americanism. The memes embedded themselves in the collective consciousness of America and took Marlboro from number 22 to number one in cigarette sales. He took an undistinguished and failed brand and created a multi-million dollar brand.
I wouldn’t want to be involved with a poisonous product like cigarettes, but you have to admit that the meme is powerful and worth studying. Several liquor companies have attempted to borrow from the Marlboro meme with some success. In essence, whiskey is, for most drinkers, quite similar, but effective memetic marketing has created brand preferences in the minds of consumers that allow some brands to dominate. When he shows up at a bar with 20 brands of whiskey, the drinker knows what he likes. You have a preference that is, in fact, based less on your actual personal preferences and more on the effective mind control marketing of the memetic brand.
Certainly something powerful.
