1976 saw the release of ‘The Selfish Gene’ by a young Richard Dawkins, in which he proposed a theory of how ideas spread from person to person – a science today called memetics. The gist of it is that there are units of cultural information called ‘Memes’ (pronounced meems) which are basically a bit of information – like a catchphrase, a story or even the knowledge of how to make something. Memes spread from person to person in a similar pattern to a virus (hence the terms ‘going viral’ or even ‘earworm’ for a song you just can’t get out of your head) – one person spreads an idea to many others, who each again spreads the idea to many others, and so on. Memes even mutate just as the ‘genes’ of a virus would do while transmitting from person to person – just think of the children’s game ‘telephone’.

So memes themselves have massive relevance to marketing – understand the science of how ideas and beliefs are transferred from person to person and you can manipulate that process to your advantage. It’s even more important when you realise the theory encompasses complex interrelated groups of memes – called memeplexes – such as an individual’s thoughts and feelings about a brand, or even a religion.

So much for the science. In practice, the term has taken an entirely different connotation in the online community – and one that you’re probably already familiar with.

Ask any user of content aggregator sites like Reddit what a meme is and they’ll probably link you to something similar to the picture above. The term has informally been associated with the kind of running shared jokes that would have once been called ‘private’ but are now shared around the world at the speed of the internet.

To ‘get’ the joke you generally have to be familiar with the original premise when the joke was first created (and sometimes the site it was created on). For example, the ‘Trollface’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trollface.png) meme is generally posted during circumstances where one individual is deliberately goading or tricking another (for example, if someone saying something that irritates you and then posts a trollface – they’re probably just out to annoy you rather than to make a point). Other memes simply use a familiar section of text rather than an image – like the “you just lost the game” meme that was popular last year, a section of text that was posted across the internet, and was usually cleverly hidden – making  no sense whatsoever until you’re made aware of what it means (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28mind_game%29) causing anyone who reads that section of text to curse the person who posted it (sorry).

So the advantages of mastering ‘Memes’ (with a capital M, in the scientific sense) is obvious – but what does the deliberately irreverent selection of ‘memes’ (with a lowercase m, in the comedic sense) teach us about how to do our jobs?

If you’re willing to get your hands dirty and deal in the latest wave of memes yourself, you’re bound to reap a massive helping of attention. Memes generate vast amounts of web hits and interactions – just look at the popularity of memegenerator.net, the rise to power of icanhascheezburger.com, or the sheer existence of the juggernaut that is Reddit.com, which is a gravid breeding ground for a decent percentage of the ‘memes’ of the internet. Feature the right meme at the right time for the right brand and you’ll see a huge increase of attention.

Generally though, we can learn how to produce ideas that are strong enough to survive and even thrive when twisted and ‘mutated’ by the attentions of their chosen audience. Take the hugely successful ‘Old Spice Odor Blocker’ campaign for example (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpiGCLcsEbQ). Designed for TV, the idea spread to YouTube, where it was edited by fans as they passed it along resulting in literally hundreds of memetic comedic remixes (such as the nearly 500,000 views example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2_DuFvyQYc&feature=related) that only served to strengthen the original message and spread the concept further than ever.

Boths ‘Memes’ and ‘memes’ are here to stay – and either we use our experience to manipulate them – or they’ll manipulate us.

As well as:

“What the f&*k is this?”

“I’m going to delete my profile…now. Bye bye”

“God give me the will to live”

…were just a few select comments I’ve been reading from my friends (on Facebook).

A sense of anger, bewilderment, and suffering was the popular tune last week, as Facebook began to roll out some new updates to how we consume other people’s Facebook activities.

We’re always wary about businesses, either products or services, changing. New Coke, way back in 1985, is probably the most famous example of a brand changing their product for the wrong reasons, and last year’s new Gap logo is probably the most recent worldwide brand getting it wrong (well, before Netflix and Qwickster, but that’s another blog post altogether).

Let’s not forget that Facebook has changed things before. And we complained before. But we got on with it, and use it even more than we did do.

But there was a sense, a feeling in the air, that this change was different. This made the 6pm news – an incredible indictment of how the world has also changed over the last ten years.

We forget that Facebook is also a free to use service, which, despite its incredible growth and how it’s embedded itself into our culture, is still not a pre-requisite of being able to live a happy life, whichever path you choose. Who would have thought that we’d ever get so up in arms at something that 1) is free to use and 2) is not something they are forced to have?

But that’s by the by. People were furious. They still are.

On 4^th October, the new timeline profile officially launches. It’s been available to developers (or faux developers like me) for the last week, and after a little bit of playing around with it, I didn’t like it. It seemed a bit complicated with too much going on and I didn’t know how to do stuff that just a hours ago was second nature.

A couple of days later, I sussed it all out. I found that I actually had more control over what I wanted to see and how I was seen to my Facebook friends. Stuff I had forgotten about from years ago, was all incredibly easy to access. The new profile timeline allowed me to see that Facebook wasn’t just a thing for now, it was now a thing for past, present and future. Your timeline allows you to document your life, the way you want to, and it’s all wrapped up in a beautiful “Cover photo”, which you can change within an instant.

They’ll be more resentment once these are live for all next week. But this isn’t Facebook’s ‘New Coke moment’. Time will pass, and you’ll love it just as much as that first time you received a friend request.

Like? Yes, lots.

Steve Garside, Account Manager

N.B. – The four people mentioned at the beginning of article are all still on Facebook.

Over 7 years ago I carried out a large qualitative research project for a leading mobile operator on the appeal of 3G services. We looked at Location Based Services including offers ‘on the move’, video telephony (a la Apple Face Time), traffic navigation and a whole host of other new developments.

In one form or another the vast majority of the services we researched have been adopted (or are in the process of being adopted) but, looking back, two things really stand out for me.

The first is the time it has taken for change to happen. 7+ years ago I confidently stood in a room full of senior clients and told them that the market was there and consumers wanted these types of services. What I didn’t foresee was the very long time lag involved. Granted the infrastructure might not have been in place (and it’s still not quite there) but the speed of adoption has been, in my eyes at least, painfully slow.

I guess this partly tells us that consumers can struggle when faced with too many new ideas and choices being given to them at once. I remember at the time thinking that they were like kids in a sweetie shop not quite knowing what to pick first. But I guess it also serves as a warning to those of us in the marketing community who feel that Augmented Reality, QR codes and other such innovations will be in everyone’s hands and minds within the next few months.

The second thing that stands out for me is the unpredictability of technological evolution and adoption. Some of the ideas in the research met with hearty guffaws. Why would anyone want to stand in front of the Eiffel Tower and receive information on their mobile when they could just look at an information board at the base of the tower? And yet that, in essence, has become one of the driving thoughts behind Augmented Reality (which I’m sure will be a great hit one day). Consumers in focus groups could not foresee (and neither could we) the development of Augmented Reality in its present guise. If the same idea was presented now (and consumers could actually see how it could be applied), I’m sure the reaction would be very different.

So what does all this tell us? For me there are a couple of key lessons. I think that research when used properly can help us understand the underlying demand for most things (but not all). What research is weak at, however, is in predicting time frames and the shape of technology adoption. Perhaps more importantly I think it is good for us to remember that technology adoption can take years, even when we know the ideas are good ones. I’m glad that we in the marketing community are in the forefront of pushing for these new technologies to be adopted but I’d be wary of placing too much emphasis on their return within campaigns early doors. I hope Augmented Reality, QR codes and the like will be adopted quickly but will they be? Who knows?

By Graham Ellor, Digital Planner