Internet Meme as a Tool in Modern Advertising and Brand-building

The present study aims to explore an Internet meme as a tool in modern advertising and brand-building. Within the topic, studies of several authors will be examined and analyzed. The work will be divided into two main parts. The first part will be addressed to memes as a communicative phenomenon and the key mechanisms of using memes in advertising and branding. The other part will contain a series of expert interviews on the effectiveness of using memes as a tool for viral marketing, as well as the analysis of living examples of advertising campaigns built on memes. The paper will be focused on the research of Russian marketing practices for the period 2015–2018. It is expected to point out how modern companies use Internet memes in their advertising campaigns, how much they benefit from it and how the usage of Internet memes affects the customer loyalty. We will employ three major research strategies: discourse analysis in dissecting the content; case study in exploring examples of advertising market; expert interview in learning results and perspectives of using Internet memes as a tool in promotion. We expect to formulate specific aspects that make memes attractive and recognizable in Russian society. It is investigated that this particular work would be useful for specialists studying memetics, as well as practicing experts in marketing. Keywords: meme, Internet meme, viral marketing, advertising, branding.