Memevertizing: Marketing to Millenials

Abstract:

This article will outline what memevertizing is and how advertising to millennials in this post modern internet age will continue to shift and grow with it. We will look at case studies of how memevertizing began, case studies in how it has grown, as well as figures that prove it to be a very valid form of marketing.

Memevertizing is a thriving market, and, although it will not stay the same and is not for everyone, it will persist through the coming years. Richard Dawkins was the first to coin the term meme in his book “The Selfish Gene”. He describes memes as “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.  Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation” (192.)  Much like Dawkins’ meme, the internet meme is reproduced over and over again by various users who elaborate on a single joke or statement being made. Internet memes often take the form of images linked to text and often stem from popular culture. What internet memes essentially do is make reference to a particular feeling, headspace, joke, or cultural moment that they can relate to over the web. They are humorous and always absurd. This, coupled with the fast spreading nature of the internet, is what allowed them to rise in popularity among our generation, and it is also the reason they appeal to marketing teams so much. With the inclusion of the meme into offline spaces such as billboards, shirts, and television shows, internet memes have transcended the internet and have grown to exist outside this space. Memevertizing is the use of internet memes in advertising. It targets the millennial demographic by attempting to be part of internet culture. Meme-jacking is a specific marketing trend that directly repurposes memes in order to piggyback off their notoriety and circulate the web. Although this method of advertising has proven it’s potential for both making and breaking companies, the potential for success will keep this trend going into the foreseeable future.

The reason memevertizing will persist is that it targets a thriving demographic. Millennials are the workforce of tomorrow, and as the years pass it will be them who have buying power in the economy. Memes have grown very popular among millennials, and in doing so, have provided a much desired point of insertion for advertisers. Brands have been linking themselves to culturally important icons since the 1760’s, so it should not come as a surprise that with the rise of internet culture in the mainstream, memes are being used to perpetuate this trend. Meme-jacking is just another case of this. The memes act as a gateway into creating relatable content for millennials. Plus, they take little effort to be rebranded for positive commercial attention. Successful meme-jacking can be seen at work in ‘Wonderful Pistachios’ ‘Get Crackin’ ad campaign. Simply by making minor edits to much loved video memes such as ‘keyboard cat’ and ‘honey badger’ (adding a pistachio into the mix and following it up with the short tagline “Get Crackin”) these ads were able to boost the sales of the company immensely. According to their website’s official report “the “Get Crackin” campaign [which] was launched in 2010 as a $20‐million national advertising campaign [was] responsible for a 233 percent sales increase for the Wonderful Pistachios brand in the launch year of the campaign.” Not only has this technique been used to promote already established brands, but to bring small companies into the spotlight.

In 2011 Pete Curley, founder of HipChat, rented a billboard for a discounted price along the side of highway 101 in Northern California to promote his small messenger app. On this billboard he posted an advertisement that consisted of the very popular ‘rage face’ Y U NO guy with the caption “Y U NO USE HIPCHAT?”. This early stunt of memevertizing garnered quite the attention online. In a post by Curley, he describes the sudden explosion of traffic he was seeing online due to the billboard. Over the next month Pete saw an 1100% increase in google searches for his product as well as “a lot of new, happy customers”. Although there was a backlash of internet users claiming that hipchat was ruining memes with capitalistic intent, the brand’s media attention was enough to push it far past the negative attention’s damage. This is an example of exposure being more important than positive press, one of the major advantages of early memevertizing.

Those cases were from 2011 and both companies have done well, but the formula used could not work forever. With a growing market for memes, more and more companies attempted to utilize them, and in doing so memevertizments lost their novelty. However, memevertizing has evolved in an effective way to become more sustainable. By pushing humour rather than blatant product selling, society is more likely to turn a blind eye to the fact that they are being sold a product in order to enjoy the comedy. They will likely accept, enjoy, and share the advertisement in question, as it satiates their thirst for something humorous and relatable. An example of this being “The Harlem Shake” or “Call Me Maybe” covers and parodies that spread through the internet in 2013. By latching onto memes and doing self promotion, rather than selling a product, companies such as were able to promote an image that was both hip and light-hearted. Sesame Street took advantage of this by releasing their own parody of “Call Me Maybe” in which the cookie monster chases after cookies. This gained mass popularity with the millennial generation and garnered over 19 million views. Memevertizing is best when it does not feel like it is overtly trying to sell you something. That said memevertizing is not applicable for all brands. In cases where memes are used to push political agendas, such as the HHS’ use of “doge” for Obamacare, the backlash can be enough to completely halt the campaign. The reason for this is that HHS did not realize that meme-jacking had changed. They were implementing the 2011 model as well as using it to promote something that did not benefit from the branding of a meme’s light hearted goofiness. The meme itself felt out of touch with the younger generation and inappropriate for a topic as serious as health care. Companies need to take into consideration the product or service that they are selling. Politically charged campaigns should not use light-hearted memes, whereas something as inconsequential and relatable as Denny’s restaurant can fully take advantage of memevertizing. Denny’s tumblr page has chosen to riff off memes and pop culture references at a rapid pace in a way that is bizarre enough for the internet. It is still early to judge Denny’s on its business plan, but so far in the last quarter it has done better than comparable fast food diners.

Memevertizing does not match the face of every brand, but for those who wish to cultivate a light hearted approachable image, it can be a great option. As memes develop so will the cultures surrounding it, and the way advertisers operate in relation to memes. With memevertizing being a proven source of revenue, companies will surely look to make use of its potential in upcoming years. Furthermore, as internet culture becomes mainstream culture and as millennials become the leaders of tomorrow, the power of the internet will only grow.

Works Cited:

Curley, Peter. “A Tale of a Ridiculous Billboard.” HipChat Blog. HipChat, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. Print.

“Wonderful® Pistachios’ “Get Crackin’” Summer Advertising Campaign Drives Record Sales Increase in Pistachio Category.” Get Crackin’ Wonderful Pistachios, 21 June 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

“Sesame Street: Share It Maybe.” YouTube. Sesame Street, 10 July 2012. Web. 25 Mar. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qTIGg3I5y8&gt;.

Homogenization of Images in Concept Art

Abstract:

This article proposes that the internet, with all of its influence, is pushing SFFH concept art towards a homogenization of visuals. The three major reasons outlined in the article are the demand for accelerated image creation from the industry, the trends in image dissemination due to the expansion of social media, and the homogenization of influences caused by mass dissemination online. Through interviews with industry professionals as well as theory by Michel Foucault, this article speaks of the problems that have arisen, and explores how they have come to be.

With the coming of the internet age, media as a whole has sped up to match the demands of the global public, and in doing so it has brought about a mass homogenization of SFFH (Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Horror) concept art. Three major reasons for this over-saturation of similar images come from the media industry’s demands for faster production, online culture surrounding image dissemination, as well as a decrease in varied influences of artists.

Firstly the homogenization of SFFH concept art can be attributed to faster turn around time for concept artists in the industry. The internet has caused media to be easily available around the globe. This means that all media is trying to reach the most people possible by trying to have the biggest global reach. However this also means that the attention span of viewers is much shorter because they have access to so much different content. This shift has caused media across the board to speed up in order to match this fast paced internet culture. The effect this has on concept artists is that the turn-around times for concepts have been cut down drastically because projects need to be completed more rapidly. This has bred an environment where the faster the concept is done, the better it is for the production team. According to illustrator and concept artist Dan Warren, this push for faster image making has led the industry towards shortcuts such as the use of 3d modelling in zbrush for as well as the use of photo-bashing to create highly rendered complete looking images as fast as possible (2014). Photo-bashing is the importing, cutting, and pasting of photographs within an illustration to create a sort of photomontage. The problem however, especially with photo-bashing, is that the content created is all comprised of existing photographs. The same images will end up being used in photo-bashes causing the art to look more and more similar. Another negative point is that with the lack of time artist can fall into the trap of drawing heavily on other concepts to create their images. This further causes a similarity in output. Photo-bashing is born out of necessity, and is the product of our time. However, these techniques have managed to make their way into other forms of image making, and have become popularized by the internet.

 Secondly it can be attributed to the current state of the web and it’s relationship to the social media model of image sharing, as well as the online community surrounding concept art. The internet as mentioned above is subject to fast changes, and short attention spans. This is only further emphasized when looking at the models of image sharing that exist within it. The shift from the artist book model in which emphasizes physicality and longevity, to the Facebook model which lends itself towards rapid image dissemination as well as fast turnover of images is responsible for a shift in perception surrounding image makers. This has caused artists who want to maintain an online presence to be expected to churn out work at a rapid pace. The rush of getting ‘likes’ has become more important that actual improvement of skills, and that is why techniques such as photo-bashing and zbrush sculpting have made such a massive appearance online. Currently with the death of major online artist communities such as CGhub and Conceptart.org, budding artists are not getting the motivation and direction they need to push past the attractiveness of instant gratification of likes and really cultivate their skills. Facebook hosted sites such as Brainstorm are just places for unoriginal concepts to gain likes, some brief attention, and no constructive feedback at all. Instead of learning the basics they go straight to what they see coming out of the concept art for movies which ends up being a lot of photo-bashing. They emulate it without the knowledge that it is a shortcut, and end up relying on it completely. Furthermore if and when these artists make their way into the industry, they will not have the knowledge to back up their craft, and will rely solely on techniques such as photo-bashing to produce work. They will find themselves unable to create anything that looks dissimilar from the work of others.

Thirdly the homogenization of images can be attributed directly to the homogenization of influences. The Internet has streamlined media release across the globe, which means the same movies and games get attention globally at the same time, then fade away to leave room for the next big movie or game. In the words of industry professional Dave Rapoza, “[t]he minus is that with that access comes a pool of artists all coming from, generally in my opinion, the same influences” (2015). By taking the concept of Michel Foucault that “discourses are objects of appropriation”, we can extrapolate that if everyone is exposed to the same media, and they are all drawing from that same media, the outcomes will inevitably end up looking similar to one another (p.142). Media has always been this way, whether it’s Star Wars’ influence on sci-fi or Frank Frazetta’s influence on fantasy art, but now with internet culture the trend has been exacerbated. Currently with the global reach of media, every artist around the world is being influenced by the same sources. This, compounded with the trends of photo-bashing and the requirements for ideas to come quickly, has lead the face of SFFH concept art to look more and more similar with each passing year.

Rapoza mentioned in an interview that “over time it is going to further push the art styles even closer together and could end up hurting growth with too many inbred ideas” (2015). It is this overlying similarity of images within SFFH concept art that will hurt the industry. Although new media has allowed for many new ideas to be brought to global attention it has also amplified the voices that were already being heard, and in doing so has homogenized global culture. Concept art is supposed to be the generation of new and original concepts to implement within media, and these developments have caused it to become one of the most internally similar looking art forms that exist. It has lead to artists individualities to fall to the wayside as they produce endlessly similar versions of the same concepts that consumed and disseminated over and over by the media.

Works Cited:

Foucault, Michel. “What Is an Author?” Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-structuralist Criticism. Trans. Josué V. Harari. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1979. 141-60. Print.

Warren, Dan, and Dave Rapoza. “Unsolved Mysteries 2 – The Photo Bash.” YouTube. YouTube, 23 Oct. 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

Rapoza, Dave. “An Interview!” Daverapoza.tumblr. Tumblr.com, 20 Feb. 2015. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.