Three Billion

Let's start at the top: What exactly is a meme?

"A meme consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus. Meme-theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection (similarly to Darwinian biological evolution) through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance influencing an individual entity's reproductive success." Via wikipedia(where else!).

This had me thinking. In youth research we deal primarily in trends, which is essentially the act of dispersion of memes through culture. The rate (and form) of dispersion has changed as 'in-person' connectively has been enhanced through press, radio, television and most recently, of course, the Internet. Although this has value (and is of particular interest because the Internet is currently transforming it), aren't we really just recording and commenting on how fast paint dries? The two real questions should be:

1. Who first chooses the colour of the paint? - The Unit

2. Who subsequently graffiti's the wall? - The Evolution

In youth marketing, we constantly look for ideas which will resonate with young people AND THEN travel amongst them. Therefore, to graft the above thinking onto youth marketing, you can see that we get tangled up way too much in the media-driven dispersion on the idea, whereas the real value lies in:

1. The initial idea itself

2. What young people do with this idea

Creative agencies are experts in No.1 (and so they should be) however it is the ability of that initial idea to mutate and evolve which is the Holy Grail of advertising. If a young person can be inspired enough by an idea in marketing campaign to want to repeat its strapline in a social situation, sing the song from the ad or the most recent (and most powerful) recreate their own version of the ad and post it on a video sharing site, then you have struck gold!

The best way to sell to young people is to be part of their culture by giving them some form of social currency. As such, Meme Theory must start becoming a much more important benchmark for the success of any youth marketing campaign. There is magic in those memes.