LAUGHING OUT LOUD

Funny pictures, usually called memes, have been a huge form of entertainment for Instagram and Twitter users everywhere for several years now. There are many users dedicating their whole pages to posting them and even some fast fashion brands like Fashion Nova and Pretty Little Thing have used these funny images on their Instagram and Twitter accounts to make their pages more relatable to the younger audience. These same brands have also used these images in a cleverer way, making them more than just an entertaining image to scroll past. They’ve actually created memes that relate to their brand, using their brand within the joke, making people laugh and also remember the brand. This is a clever marketing trick since it’s combining two things many people love, fashion and memes. For example Fashion Nova has done this, not on their own page, but on actual meme pages, which makes it look more like a “real” funny image and not a marketing campaign.

From high fashion brands, Gucci is pretty much the only one who has used this same Instagram marketing trick. They’ve known for their fun campaigns, so it’s no surprise that they’re also hopping onto this trend first, and it’s working. These images became viral as soon as Gucci posted them, and it shows how powerful this marketing trick is. Even though there’s not many high-end brands using this trick yet, Gucci is definitely showing the direction fashion marketing on social media could slowly move into. A lot of brands are trying to get viral with their campaigns, and memes could be an easy way to do this. It is controversial though, because a lot of high-end fashion brands want to keep their luxurious image and memes and jokes probably don’t fit that image too well. 

  

Sometimes high-end fashion campaigns have become memes, but there’s a difference of if the brand actually intended it to be a meme or not. Sometimes memes that are made of fashion campaigns don’t make the campaign look too good, which can make it quite problematic for the brand. So sometimes it’s better just to make it yourself, to avoid these situations.