A post appears in your Instagram feed—seemingly an innocent screenshot of a text conversation. “Babe did you put a vodka lemonade in my purse?” one blue bubble reads. Before you get to reading the replies (banter about drinking at the back of a wedding), it’s clear that the text conversation is an ad for alcohol brand Loyal Nine, snuck into a post from popular meme account Sarcasm_Only, which boasts 16.4 million followers.
Memes are the language of the internet, and recently, some brands, including MTV, Bud Light, Dunkin’ and Netflix, have used meme creators to communicate more fluently. Conor Mason, president of meme advertising agency Cornelia Creative (who helped craft the Loyal Nine post), says despite the ubiquity of memes, brands sometimes overlook the creators behind them when they’re considering an influencer marketing strategy.
“Memes never really got their day in the sun,” Mason said, noting that meme creators generally earn less than other creators.
As Mason tells it, meme creators represent an untapped opportunity for advertisers; 57% of Gen Z said they like when brands participate in memes, per a report from YouTube. The strategy is working for Cornelia so far. Mason, the former chief meme officer for Bud Light, started the agency in May 2021 with Kristina Mulle, who has been contracted by dating app Hinge to make memes after running her own successful account The News Clan, and with, Tank Sinatra, a mega meme-page which boasts 3 million followers. The agency has generated $2 million in revenue with 12 brands since its founding in May 2021. Revenue has increased 300% in the three month period of May-July 2022, compared to May through July 2021, the first three months of the agency’s existence.
I don’t know if you get a ton of equity from actually paying someone for your memes
—Katie McDonald, group strategy director, We Are Social
Other marketers Adweek spoke with say there’s a reason brands don’t always use meme creators: they lack the distinctiveness of other creator content and still carry the risk of cringe.
“There’s no true IP to memes as there is to a TikTok influencer who uses their person, their face as their joke,” said Katie McDonald, group strategy director at We Are Social.
A meme by any other name
It’s true that many memes spread from poster to poster and become as difficult to trace as the origin of a word. The girl screaming in the guy’s ear at the concert becomes a metonym for all of our niche interests we wish people would listen to. Adam Levine’s alleged direct messages with his Instagram paramour go from news item to shorthand for overzealousness. Once we know the semantics, does a brand need a meme creator to translate?
“[Memes are] so democratized that I don’t know if you get a ton of equity from actually paying someone for your memes,” McDonald said. “Does the origin strategy of a meme matter?”
While in-house social teams or agency partners can quickly deploy a trending meme skillfully, a meme creator might do the job better, said Juliet Tierney, vp, social, content and influencer at Havas Media Group.
“A team [needs to] understands the ins and outs [of the brand] and understand the pop culture and culture of our country. Do you need a meme creator to accomplish that?” Tierney asks. “In certain instances, it can be of value.”
Picking the right meme creator
Tierney doesn’t see meme creators as a distinct category from creators more generally—in all cases, the creator’s audience and voices should align with the brand.
“What the brand needs to be looking for is can this creator create something that means something for the brand and feels relevant,” Tierney said.
Case in point, Courtney Perkins, who runs an astrology meme account called Not All Geminis. Her worst-performing brand memes are those that have nothing in common with her tone.
“Even if I have your perfect demographic, I have no idea what this [product] has to do with my interests,” Perkins said. “To make some sort of forced thing to say about it … people can tell.”
But when a brand does find a creator who speaks their language, a meme still can communicate something more than words or branding alone.
“Creators and influencers can share messages that [brands] are not able in-house to land and do things that are a little more zeitgeist,” McDonald said. “Meme is a license to say the thing that you wouldn’t actually say.”
In contrast to making ads about random products, Perkins enjoys making memes for brands that speak her language. Netflix commissioned her to meme about the streamer’s film Persuasion. The account Not All Geminis leans into pop culture memes, and the film’s star, Dakota Johnson, is a much-loved celebrity among memers. Perkins used one of her signature formats—a movie screen grab that’s easy to project onto—to imagine how each astrological sign would react if they were in Anne Elliott’s (that’s Johnson’s character) predicament.
“I like to use my platform to make people watch the TV shows I like,” Perkins said. “If I can be paid for that, that rules.”
