The influence of memes on brands

The memes were used many times on the last presidential elections in Brazil and the United States. They have been punctually used, in social media, even in pre-campaigns of companies to promote the dissemination of brands. However, many times, the memes circulation isn’t positive for the image of people and companies brand.

The brand of a company represents an important symbolic connection between the product and its clients. According to the definition of the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), the trademark is a distinctive sign – whose main functions are to identify the origin and distinguish products and services from other identical, similar or related products of different origin. It conveys messages, emotions, feelings, desires, pleasure and even confidence to the costumer. The trademark helps the consumer to associate the product or service with the manufacturer or the service provider.

The memes, from the semiotic point of view, may have some effects. This is because they can change the meaning of the brand due to existent interactions. These interactions are made through social media sharing, which changes the client’s perception of the brand’s original message.

The memes are derived from the phenomena of market communication and may have really different effects from the originally projected by theirs idealizers. Consequently, they can bring a brand’s distortion, resulting in the dilution of the brand equity, it means, its value.
 
In 2013, a meme spread quickly on the internet and became very famous. On the image, a witch was offering a traditional soy drink for a princess of fairy tales. At the same time, it was detected a contamination on this type of juice and its products were removed from the market. This case provoked burns and nauseas in some consumers. The owner of the brand lost approximately R$ 224 million in sales of this juice in Brazil at that time.
Consequently, after the meme’s repercussion and the case of people contamination, there was a negative effect on the brand.

The damage affect not just the apple soy juice products, but also the brand image itself. The multiple sharing of the memes was out of control when the owner of the brand and the society were more interested in sharing the joke than the news.

Another famous case is the purported mouse in one of the world´s leading manufacturers of soft drinks. A particular consumer claimed to have found a rat’s head in a bottle of a famous soda. The news isn’t new, but reappeared on the social networks and became more famous when a great television channel gave visibility to the case.

From there, many memes appeared, associating the famous soda with the supposed mouse. In one of the memes, the image of a presenter was inserted into a bottle of the drink in question. In other memes, cats were put into situations that they were trying to get a bottle of this soda to eat the cat which was inside.

It is important to emphasize that the brand is an asset and, in this way, it has financial and economic value, integrating the assets of a company. Therefore, if the brand is hit negatively, the equity of the society is also. Thus, it loses value. Brands can be sold, licensed and generate royalties, as well as be given in guarantee of obligations and contracts.

The meme, even though is initially funny, can have devastating effects on the brand’s image and brand equity. It is responsibility of the brand owners to make a good management of memes in the virtual world. It is necessary to do an effectively tracking about what occurs with the brands in this environment, and when a potentially negative meme is detected, these brand managers must act quickly in cases of image crises. This is because the meme is proliferating and difficult to control.
The meme can function as a form of positive or negative publicity for your products or services. It is often best to just monitor and do nothing about memes because they generate free advertising to the brand owner. However, the potential negative impact of memes on brands and businesses should not be overlooked as they emerge.

 
Chiarottino e Nicoletti
Flávia Amaral and Renata Soraia Luiz