Memes Marketing: Impact on Branding and Consumer Engagement in the Global Digital Age

Digital advertising resides; meme marketing has become a digital advertisement weapon of questionable morality that disrupts brand-consumer communications by leveraging virality, a shared lived experience, and humor. This paper delves into revealing the strategic value of memes used in marketing, evaluating how well they help the brand become more recognisable and engaging and how they drive authenticity perception from a consumer standpoint. The research is methodologically diverse, drawing from 400 consumers quantitative survey responses, 15 qualitative FTL interviews with brand managers, and a content analysis of 50 successful meme campaigns. The statistical evaluations, i.e., t-test, ANOVA, and regression analysis, indicate that meme marketing boosts brand recall ability by about 42% and leads consumers to participate significantly more in positive decoding response toward the brand compared to digital advertising so far. The results demonstrate that meme-centric campaigns are incredibly appealing to Millennials and Gen Z shoppers, driving up a level of brand relatability more aspirational. But meme marketing is incredibly successful, so there is a cultural contextualisation aspect to contend with along with the problem of content longevity and brand risk mitigation that requires a less piecemeal strategic framework to implement and sustain. The presented research offers a meme marketing framework of four stages that help overcome these intricacies by outlining key stages—trend identification, audience alignment, brand integration, and performance analytics—to optimal expression and risk mitigation. A meme marketing study concludes that memes, while a powerful engagement amplifier, need a less one-size-fits-all approach and strategic agility.