In 1989, the World Wide Web was conceived and some 30 years later (after a few life changing revelations), the storm settled. Waiting for us, all giddy at the altar, was the untapped world of memes.
Netflix’s Birdbox, watched by a staggering 45 million accounts globally in its first week of release, is a great example of a film that harnessed the power of memes. The interesting story here is that the marketing for the movie wasn’t at its most powerful pre-release date, but rather post it. This was down, in part, to a little creativity and to the plot of the movie, where characters blindfold themselves.
Many of the meme wizards hiding amongst us right now are probably feeling their neurons firing in the brain; scheming and plotting funny pictures, clips (from the movie) to coincide with even funnier captions. This was the gold mine which Netflix tapped into. Aaron M. White, a civil litigation attorney in Chicago, said it was when his inbox became flooded with memes from Twitter and Instagram that he considered watching Birdbox. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a glimpse at the power of memes and their ability to spread like wildfire.
Another example of this weapon of mass interaction (see what we did there) is British music artist Jay1, who boldly and un-boldly used a situation that had appeared in Love Island to promote his new single ‘Your Mrs’. The results are telling: a 27% increase in followers, along with a notable +3k increase in Spotify listeners. This was all achieved through 4 posts across 2 influencer pages.
Memes work because their primary intention isn’t to promote a brand or movie, that’s just a side effect; rather they aim to give something else to the consumer – laughter and a dash of happiness.
- https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/01/netflixs-hit-bird-box-future-blockbusters/580255/
- https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/1/3/18167278/bird-box-memes-netflix-bots-marketing
- https://www.independent.ie/business/world/netflix-results-show-power-of-its-model-37431570.html
- Jay 1 – Your Mrs X Love Island Reactions EOC Report – the7stars
