How valuable are internet memes? Internet meme value from an audience perspective

Abstract

AIMS OF THE PAPER

Like brands, internet memes also compete for a better place in consumers' minds (i.e. Ries and Trout, 1981 ), and like successful brands, successful internet memes will stay in the minds of audiences for a long time. Internet memes on the other hand are different from brands, as they are built bottom up and have a lot shorter life cycle. While brand slogans advertise their superiority, internet memes are a lot more camivalesque, criticising current authorities. Internet memes react to the changing phenomena of the digital culture at such a speed that no other brand can.
Objective of our research is to reveal the phenomenon of “memeness” among the native members of the digital culture: which internet memes are considered memorable, and more importantly, why they are memorable.

METHODOLOGY

We recorded 95 respondents' narratives about 125 different memes (2013 spring), and further 47 respondents' narratives (2014 autumn), almost two hundred different internet memes were mentioned.

MOST IMPORTANT RESULTS

Like brands memes earn their own value, which we described as meme-value derived from brand equity (e.g. Aaker 1996; Keller 2003). In this study our aim was to uncover underlying factors of merne value. The dimensions of the internet merne value are the following: uniqueness, recognisability, actuality, variability, identification, masks, humour, likeability, societal issues.

RECOMMENDATIONS

As internet memes have similar characteristics as brands; internet memes eam their value like brands. Successful internet memes may serve a natural ground for bottom up brands and communication campaigns (i.e. social campaigns).