Towards an understanding of meme marketing: conceptualisation and empirical evidence

ABSTRACT Meme marketing taps into the potential of digital culture. Despite considerable practitioner interest, meme marketing is under-researched. The present study aims to fulfil two purposes. First, to conceptualise meme marketing, we draw on speech act theory and the theory of consumption values to define meme marketing. On this basis, we differentiate meme marketing from relevant digital marketing constructs, including e-WOM, digital content marketing, and viral marketing. Second, to validate the proposed definition, we empirically perform a qualitative content analysis to taxonomize meme marketing speech acts. Based on the content analysis of 699 meme marketing posts, we found that meme marketing serves as a rich communication source, sending intentions of the brand through single (i.e. assertive, directive, expressive) as well as combined (i.e. assertive entailing expressive, assertive entailing directive) speech acts that provide customers with epistemic, emotional, and social values. Important theoretical and managerial implications for academic researchers and marketers are also discussed.