Meme Marketing -


Richard Dawkins coined the word “meme” in his 1976 book titled The Selfish Gene. The word meme (according to its inventor) refers to “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation (2006).” The Journal of Memetrics (2007) states that “a meme can be defined as an information pattern, held in an individual’s memory or in an outside artifact (e.g. book, record or tool), which is likely to be communicated or copied to another individual’s memory.” The journal includes examples such as ideas, technologies, theories, songs, fashions, beliefs, values, and behaviors. Those that write on Memetrics say memes differ on their level of “fitness”. Weaker memes eventually die and are replaced by the healthier, heartier memes. The basic model for meme life and death is straight from the writings of Darwin. A weak meme is destroyed or over run by a stronger, more survival able meme that takes its place. Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is applied to memes as cultural transmissions. Those memes that pose a superior ability to be replicated will be replicated, whether historically accurate or not. In Darwinian biological science, an organism reproduces the genes that are best suited for the organism’s survival and voids the rest. In the study of Memetrics, human society is the organism which selectively replicates healthy memes and discards the weaker memes. Through generations the competing memes fight each other for replication. They replicate and continue to move through generations per the “survival of the fittest” model. How could the idea of memes be incorporated into advertising and what would an advertising model based on Memetrics look like?

Additional Reading on Memes Found Here:

Journal of Memetrics (2007). About Memetrics. Retrieved 07/21/2007 from http://www.jom-emit.org/

Dawkins, Richard (2006). The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition. Oxford Press.