10 BUSINESSES CAPITALIZING ON MEMES - AND MAKING A KILLING

10 Businesses Capitalizing on Memes - And Making a Killing
By Gerri, Business Pundit, 10 October 2013.

Memes are the lifeblood of internet humour; defined as “an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture,” memes are typically internet inside jokes which take the web by storm and are the subject for hundreds of photoshopped images captioned with themed jokes and humorous phrases. But memes are more than just funny; they’re a great marketing tool, as well. Here are ten companies who have capitalized on various internet memes to create marketing campaigns which combine humour and their own brand in hopes of boosting sales.

1. Old Spice

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Old Spice’s crack at marketing to the meme-loving millions on the internet was to create their own unique meme that would take the internet by storm, and their plan worked perfectly. The Old Spice commercials featuring Terry Crews’ fast talking, quirky antics were wildly popular. Even the YouTube reposts of his videos have millions of hits.

Whether or not you’re a fan of Old Spice’s deodorant, most people now associate the brand with these humorous commercials. It’s marketing at its finest; the brand is now nearly inseparable from the viral video they’ve created, which focuses so much on good humour and reaching the audience that most people may not even realize they’re being sold something until they find themselves absentmindedly grabbing a bar of Old Spice during their next trip to the pharmacy.

2. Cheezburger Network

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You might not think of the super popular Cheezburger Network, an umbrella of humour sites including FAIL Blog, Memebase and The Daily What, as a company, but their meme-based business is super profitable. Cheezburger Network has capitalized on almost every meme in existence by creating multiple sites which cater to all levels and forms of internet humour and fattening each one with a slew of meme-related content. The result is incredible ad revenue and a US$30 million venture capital round with participants such as Avalon Ventures and Softbank Capital.

Ben Huh, the company’s founder, bought the website I Can Haz Cheezburger when it was receiving approximately 15 million hits a month and consisted of mostly funny cat pictures, or “LOLCats” in the meme universe, and used memes to expand his business exponentially. He has created books based off the website itself (two of which are New York Times bestsellers), generated multiple sister sites, employs 75 people at Cheezburger Network, and even has his own television series on Bravo network called LOLwork Reality Television.

3. Virgin Media

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Virgin Media uses multiple billboards, commercials, and ads to sell their HD channels and other various television-related services to millions of people on a yearly basis. In an effort to stay up to date with the masses, Virgin Media must have hired a meme-loving internet guru when they released a billboard featuring Success Kid. It read: “Tim just realised [sic] his parents get HD channels at no extra cost.”

The Success Kid meme was born when Laney Griner posted a cute image of her 11 month old son in a photo, which features him clutching his fist in a debatably triumphant or frustrated pose, to Flickr and Getty Images. Photoshoppers everywhere began creating images of the child with captions declaring moments of success, such as “Girlfriend broke up with me the day before I bought her Christmas present” and “Boss walks by when I’m actually working.”

After the billboard featuring Success Kid, Virgin Media planned to feature him in a commercial but never seemed to follow through.

4. Catch Kuma

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Catch Kuma, an internet storefront that sells meme-related merchandise, is capitalizing on trends like the lovable (albeit creepy) Pedobear and the not-as-menacing Cuddlebear by selling t-shirts, hats, key chains, and other memorabilia bearing their likenesses. They currently boast over 21,000 fans on Facebook and showcase their merchandise at relevant conventions such as Anime Expo and Comic Con.

Catch Kuma’s shirts sell for a whopping US$60, and their hoodies are no less of a hit at US$80 each. However, their best sellers are their Cuddlebear hat at US$19.99 and their Cuddlebear keychain, which sells for US$9.99. Although Catch Kuma’s 2012 Kickstarter campaign failed miserably (only managing to raise US$100 out of their US$8,000 goal), this small company continues to sell meme merchandise to internet fans around the globe today.

5. SEOMoz

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SEOMoz, an SEO consulting company who now also creates phone apps, received US$18 million in Series B funding in 2012. To tell their story to the press, the company created a blog post chock full of various memes - from The Most Interesting Man in the World to Scumbag Steve - to tell their story.

The heap of money came from The Foundry Group and Ignition Partners, who invested in SEOMoz after their first round of funding brought only US$1.1 million in in 2007. After using multiple popular internet memes to provide the public with the details of the investment and their plan for the future, the company received a lot of press - and most likely some new clients - for their innovative and unique way of telling their story.

6. World of Warcraft

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The ever popular and scarily addicting internet MMO World of Warcraft smartly used two meme-centric celebrities to help endorse their product: Chuck Norris and Mr. T. While both have been the subjects of memes, Chuck Norris is undoubtedly the more popular of the pair and has been featured in multiple commercials since 2011.

Blizzard, the company which owns World of Warcraft, said that “Chuck Norris didn’t break a sweat filming the newest World of Warcraft television spot. Instead, he made the director cry and then cooled himself with the tears.”

Sound familiar? That’s because they’re speaking in the same format in which most Chuck Norris memes appear; images of Norris accompanied by captions describing impossibly brazen and badass moves performed by the man are reminiscent of the way in which he so easily took down criminals and saved the day in his old television series, Walker, Texas Ranger.

7. Ojai Valley Taxidermy

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Rhett and Link are a clever comedy duo who also happen to be marketing geniuses. When Chuck Testa, owner of Ojai Valley Taxidermy, needed a commercial for his business, Rhett and Link turned him into a powerful internet meme that swept every cubicle in the US within days of its release.

If you’re ever heard the phrase “Nope, it’s just Chuck Testa,” then you’ve heard of this meme. Rhett and Link’s commercial for Testa featured exotic animals appearing in odd places, followed by owner Chuck Testa revealing himself as to be hidden behind them. Then the phrase, “Nope, it’s just Chuck Testa!” would be inculcated into the viewer’s brain over and over again.

The commercials have over 14 million views and was an effective marketing campaign that caught the attention of people who previously didn’t even know what taxidermy was.

8. Hubspot

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Hubspot, an inbound marketing software helping companies worldwide “attract leads and convert them into customers,” is a company with over 8,000 clients and happens to be hyperaware of the meme-space and how to harness its powers.

Hubspot has created and stamped their logo on multiple memes, from the Y U NO Guy to Success Kid to the “What I Do Vs. What They Think I Do” images. They’ve even penned an article called “Memejacking” in which they dole out helpful tips on how companies can create and spread their own memes in hopes of self-promotion. Needless to say, the method is working for them in more ways than one: new clients have flocked to Hubspot in hopes of garnering some of the success Hubspot has had thus far, and press and competitors everywhere are taking heed.

9. Vitamin Water

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Vitamin Water, the energy drink company that made rapper 50 Cent richer than he could ever hope to become off of his rap music alone, capitalized on the internet meme craze when they created a commercial filled to the brim with various internet crazes.

Included in their commercial were multiple YouTube sensations such as synchronized prison dancers (prisoners in a jail who became internet famous for their meticulous dance routines to popular dance songs), Sexy Sax Man (a prankster who became an internet sensation for walking into quiet establishments such as libraries and repeatedly playing a George Michaels sax riff until he is physically thrown out), and Nyan Cat (a flying and animated rainbow cat and PopTart hybrid).

Not only did the video receive over 13 million views, but it was also covered on every press outlet on the web for being unique, strange, and clever in its method.

10. Mashable

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Tech trendsetters at website Mashable capitalized on the cute Grumpy Cat meme when they gave the cute little critter a tour of the Mashable HQ and filmed it for all the internet to see.

Grumpy Cat gained fame and notoriety when his picture was posted to the internet and seemingly unanimously voted on by internet denizens everywhere to be the grumpiest, most annoyed looking cat to ever exist. Besides becoming a meme, Grumpy Cat has been featured on all sorts of memorabilia (from t-shirts to coffee mugs to paintings) and has been growing more and more famous since his debut in late 2012.

Mashable, whose site already receives over 20 million hits a month, also flew Grumpy Cat to the Mashable house for a meet and greet at SXSWi in 2013. The line to meet him wrapped around the block.

[Source: Business Pundit. Edited.]