Chief meme officer

Lol what? what kind of a ridiculous designation is that?

Well, not really. The world is evolving much faster than some of us can even comprehend. Web 3.0, digital assets, NFTs have quickly gathered attention and we are just a few years away from every corporate having a dedicated digital strategist team working to promote its products and services. Literally everything is going digital. This has been on going for 20+ years but has lately turned double exponential in terms of breadth and speed. From boardrooms to zooms, factories to laptops, physical makeups to digital makeups , rolex to bored apes, neighbours to followers, football players to fortnite players - you name it.

Fine. So where do memes come in all this?

Memes are one of the most important assets in the world. He who controls the memes; controls brands, controls audience, controls customers and controls revenues. Conventional wisdom compares memes to mania or bubble. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Any human experience is either objective, subjective or intersubjective. Objective- you actually feel it; subjective- you think you feel it; intersubjective- few of you mutually agree that you feel it. Intersubjectivity allows cooperation, creates communities, binds religion, promotes common cause and faith. This has been existent for hundreds of years -since pre medieval times , to post renaissance and will continue to exist in future. Societies have been created and destroyed on the basis of faith. Intersubjectivity is deeply inherent in democracy, family values, politics, religion , branding and pretty much all important facets of society.

Memes, myths, and brands are just three synonyms of a largely similar concept that revolves around intersubjectivity. “Make America great again” started as a meme and turned into a brand that ruled the most powerful country in the world. All religions create communities asking their members to have faith in certain things. Some of the best brands master the art of memes creation, generating societal conscience, mutual importance and agreement. Think of the following sequence; memes-> audience-> deliberation->believers->network effects-> customers -> sales -> feedback-> more sales-> FOMO -> non believers step in-> status quo bias->more sales.

The development of NFTs lately have made creating, developing and transferring memes very scalable. Its an excellent opportunity for organizations to shape them while they are young and create value for everyone.

Ever heard of open source IP ? Here is a simple explanation. In the past, if I were running Nike and I see you wearing Nike logo T shirt manufactured by fake companies, I would be upset. Fast forward 2021-> be my guest. Fake logos promote memes and viral behavior which counterintuitively promote more sales of original products. Absolutely fascinating if you think about it.

GenZ is ad-verse. Traditional advertisements are a turn-off. There is a reason why whatsapp is popular — i.e no ads. Ads are a distraction, an insult to your train of thought. Gen Z marketers can use memes instead of traditional ads. Macdonalds gets it very well. Some of their recent memes are awesome. A smart tweak. Its only a matter of time baby boomers and millennials get out of their inertia of conventional wisdom. Adapt or fade into irrelevance. Adapt or go extinct.

Chief Meme Officer will be one of the most coveted corporate roles in the future. Just watch.