Start with a situation your audience knows
Meme Marketing: A Practical Guide
A familiar problem can make a good joke. Turning that joke into a campaign takes a clear audience, a place to share it and a way to judge the response. Use this guide to plan your first test.
In this article
What is meme marketing?
Meme marketing uses memes as part of a brand’s communication. The joke might highlight a customer problem, respond to a shared experience or give people a reason to join a conversation about the brand.
A storage company might joke about a laptop refusing to save one more file. A marketing tool might joke about an empty content plan. Browse these marketing memes for examples of specific situations. For your campaign, choose the ones your customers know.
A six-step meme marketing strategy
1. Choose an audience and a goal
Name the people you want to reach and the response you want from them. A post for freelance editors will need different details from a post for IT managers. Pick a goal such as starting a relevant conversation, sending people to a guide or bringing existing users back to a feature.
2. Collect situations in their own words
Look through customer questions, support conversations and public discussions in your community. Find a recurring moment people complain or laugh about. Leave names and private details out. “Storage is limited” gives you less to work with than “I exported the final video and there was nowhere to save it.”
3. Match the situation to a format
Choose an image whose reaction makes sense with the caption. If the joke depends on knowing a show or character, check that your audience knows the reference. Write a short first draft, then read the image and caption together on a phone.
Browse blank meme templates, or describe an action or emotion in template search when you do not know the format’s name.
4. Make the draft and review it
You can write the caption yourself or start with an AI draft. Check the meaning, spelling and image context before adding brand elements. Ask someone from the intended audience what they think the joke means; their answer can reveal a confusing reference.
The guide to making a meme covers captioning and checking the result. For a logo, colours and fonts, see the branded meme generator.
5. Publish on one channel
Choose a channel where you already understand the audience and posting conventions. Write the surrounding post so it gives the meme context. If the campaign needs a click, explain what the linked page offers. Keep a record of the caption, creative, publication date and any paid spend.
6. Measure the goal you chose
Pick an observation window before posting, such as seven days. Compare with similar recent posts on the same channel, accounting for audience size and paid distribution. Read the replies as well as the totals. A high share count can include people outside your market or people mocking the post.
Worked example: a file that will not save
Here is an illustrative brief for a storage product, using an existing Supermeme example. This is a campaign plan to test; it has no measured results.
- Audience
- Freelance video editors who work with large files.
- Goal
- Bring readers to a guide about making room for their next export.
- Situation
- The final file is ready, but the hard drive is full.
- Image and caption
- A kitchen-table scene becomes a two-panel joke: trying to save a large file, followed by the hard drive rejecting it.
- Post and destination
- “The export finished. The hard drive has other plans. Here’s how to make room for the next file.” Link to the storage guide, with a tagged URL for this post.
For this brief, record link clicks and visits to the storage guide over the chosen window. If readers can try the product from that guide, measure those starts separately. Compare with a recent storage-tip post using the same channel and similar distribution. The joke has done its job only if the response serves the goal.
Choose where the meme belongs
The same image can mean different things in a public feed, an inbox or a meeting. Plan the surrounding message for the channel.
Social posts
Use the post text to make the context clear. Watch for replies from the people you intended to reach, along with shares and clicks.
Plan a social media postEmail and outreach
Keep the business reason for the message clear. Check that the joke makes sense to the recipient, and compare relevant replies with your usual messages.
Review the outreach workflowPaid meme advertising
Treat the meme as a creative to test. Compare spend, clicks and the action on the landing page against another creative with the same audience and objective.
See the production workflowArticles and presentations
Put the meme next to the point it illustrates. Check that someone reading the article or seeing the slide can understand the joke without extra explanation.
Use a meme in a presentationBrand campaign examples with sources
These historical campaigns show two ways to build the creative. Their results should be read in the context of the brand and campaign.
Denny’s: a pancake post built for Twitter
On March 1, 2017, Denny’s posted a pancake image with the instruction “zoom in on the syrup”. The post adapted a circulating zoom-in meme to diner food.
- Brief
- Join the Twitter community through a familiar meme and offer followers a playful distraction.
- Output and channel
- A pancake photograph with small hidden messages, posted on Denny’s Twitter account.
- Reported response
- In their Shorty Awards entry, EP+Co and Denny’s reported more than 121,000 retweets, 170,000 likes and 30 million earned impressions.
Read the brand and agency’s campaign entry and see the original post.
The entry does not provide a sales result, a control group or a full measurement method. Those engagement totals do not establish how many people visited a restaurant.
For your brief, look for a connection between the format and the product. Here, the pancake image made the brand part of the joke.
Gucci: commissioning memes around a product
Gucci’s 2017 #TFWGucci project paired artists with meme creators to make captioned imagery featuring its Le Marché des Merveilles watches, timed to Baselworld. The official campaign page shows the output and credits the creators. It supplies a useful example of commissioned creative; it does not publish a sales result.
What memes can add to a campaign
A meme gives you another way to communicate a specific point. Its usefulness depends on the creative, audience and distribution.
A compact way to show a problem
The file-storage example turns a product problem into a recognisable moment. Use that economy when the image can carry part of the explanation.
A format for testing ideas
You can draft different captions for the same situation and ask your audience which one makes sense. Include writing, review, image licensing and distribution in the cost of the test.
A reason for people to respond
A shared experience gives readers something to add in the replies. Look at who joins the conversation and what they say before counting that response as a campaign success.
Review the post before publishing
- Read the caption at the size people will see on a phone. Cut words that hide the setup or punchline.
- Check the original context of the image and reference, even if you have seen the format before.
- Ask whether the joke sounds like something your team would say to these customers.
- Remove private details and check the destination link. Make sure it delivers what the post promises.
- Decide who can approve the post and who will read the replies after it goes live.
Common mistakes in meme marketing
A reference the audience does not know
If people need a long explanation of the format, try another image or a more familiar situation. A joke that works in the team chat may confuse a customer.
A joke aimed at the customer
Check who the caption makes fun of. Joking about a frustrating task gives you a different relationship with the reader than mocking someone for struggling with it.
Reach that does not serve the goal
A widely shared post can attract people who will never need the product. Keep audience fit and the intended next action in the report alongside engagement totals.
Image rights need a separate check. Familiarity and a new caption do not establish permission. The U.S. Copyright Office explains that fair use depends on the circumstances. For a campaign, check the rights to the image you intend to use and seek legal advice when those rights are unclear. Our meme copyright guide covers the questions to consider.
Questions about meme marketing
Will a meme campaign go viral?
There is no guarantee. Set a goal you can evaluate, choose a relevant audience and judge the post against that goal. Shares and likes can help you understand the response, but they do not establish sales or product use.
How do I learn what works for my audience?
Start with one of their recurring situations, ask a few people what they think the draft means, then test it on a channel you already use. Record the response and compare it with similar recent posts before expanding the campaign.
Can I use a popular meme image in an advert?
Check the rights for the particular image and use. A format being widely shared does not establish permission for your advert. In the U.S., fair use depends on the circumstances; seek legal advice if the rights are unclear.
How can AI help make marketing memes?
Describe the situation to get suggested templates and captions, then edit the draft. Review the meaning, image context and rights before sharing it. Keep campaign planning, approval and measurement in your own workflow.
Written by
Sanjeev NCCo-founder of Supermeme.ai. Building the default meme generator of the internet since 2022.