Just looking like a wow: The booming economy of memes and the rise of its creators

Memes on Men's T20 World Cup 2024 is recording high engagement.

"Aaj mere paas property hai, building hai, bank balance hai, bangla hai, gaadi hai... (I own property, bungalow, buildings, car and have a bank balance)."

This famous dialogue from the iconic Hindi movie Deewar mirrors Saurav Sharma's journey as a meme creator that started in 2019, during his first year of engineering college. By the second year, he was earning enough to cover his fees. In his final year, Sharma achieved something he thought was never possible—he bought his own car. All through what he made from his meme page.

Meme pages are social media accounts with posts in the form of memes and often brands collaborate with owners of meme pages for marketing campaigns.

"After graduating in 2022, I went on to build my own home at the age of 23 through my income from memes. At 24, I believe I am earning more through memes than I would have through a traditional engineering career after graduation," he said.

Giving a pass to traditional career options are not just average YouTubers, influencers, creators making memes are also taking it up as a full-time job due to the growing business of memes.

Sharma is now the co-founder and head of department at ohsofunny.in, a newly launched meme marketing wing at influencer marketing firm OpraahFx.

"A creator who owns a meme page with 1 million followers makes Rs 2-3 lakh per month and those with 10 million followers for a meme page make Rs 20-30 lakh per month (from advertisers). A meme page owner with 10 million followers charges Rs 30,000 per reel but prices go up 2.5x when the content is political. Costs go up by 5x for content creation for betting apps," said Nikhil Singh Sumal, CEO, Growth Jet Media, which runs meme pages.

Earnings can go higher than Rs 60-70 lakh a month during big events like the Indian Premier League (IPL), said Sumal who pointed out that betting apps pay higher as they want daily promotions. He said that a monthly deal worth Rs 90 lakh was signed by a betting app during IPL Season 17 for postings on a meme page that had 10 million followers.

"Our highest meme creator, who goes by the name Lame Shubh, earns upwards of Rs 30,000 monthly just by making memes. On a monthly basis, an average meme creator with at least 50,000 following across his social media will easily earn upwards of Rs 25,000 monthly and over Rs 4 lakh on an yearly basis since promotions increase during the cricket World Cup, IPL, etc," said Taaran Chanana, founder of meme platform MemeChat.

On MemeChat currently, some of the viral memes on the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, 2024, created to celebrate India's win or to promote brand campaigns are getting engagements of over 1 million every day on Instagram.

If something is trending, those hoping to cash in on it are not far behind, so enter meme marketers.

More brands are moving into meme marketing, with ad spending growth moving from single-digit levels when they first began dabbling in this pool to 30-40 percent currently. Interestingly, memes have become a favourite for political campaigns as well as for personal branding along with movie and song marketing. For streaming platforms, scenes from a web series or a movie are used to make memes.

Disney+ Hotstar had promoted its titles including Govinda Naam Mera and House Of The Dragon, among others, via memes, while Amazon Prime Video promoted its show Comicstaan through a meme contest.

Actor Manoj Bajpayee while promoting the second season of Family Man had said that "Meme ho toh hit ho (If you have a meme, you have a hit)" as he shared some of his favourite Family Man 2 memes on social media.

From Zomato, Edelweiss and Kellogs to Netflix, which has a separate sub-account called Netflix is a Joke used for such marketing, memes are the new tool for brands that are spending Rs 2 lakh going up to Rs 50 lakh for campaigns.

"Brands, especially newer ones, prefer meme marketing due to its low cost and high virality. Also, nowadays, people are connected with the world through memes more than news channels. People know where Narendra Modi is travelling next through memes or when the date of marriage of Anant Ambani is. People consume memes not just to enjoy the content but to also grab information happening around the world," said Chanana.

One such instance is the recent Lok Sabha polls, when meme consumption shot up. "During the election campaigns, the fan pages of politicians were assigned to (meme marketing) agencies who were given targets. For example, in three months the agencies had to reach 100 million (followers) for the fan pages," said Sumal.

Memes are also used for personal branding. "Business reality show Shark Tank does a lot of personal branding related memes. If content is made on Ritesh Agarwal (CEO of OYO) then there are not that many shares but if it is on Ashneer Grover (former managing director of BharatPe), it goes viral. Posts saying Kriti Dhimri (who starred in the movie Animal)—India's new crush is another example of personal branding," Sumal said.

Earlier it was the age of YouTubers, then came the influencers and now Chanana believes it is the age of meme creators. "As creators, they hold the power to change mindsets. Anyone who uses social media today comes across at least five memes daily in his/her internet feed," he said.

An influencer does around three to five collaborations with brands in a month while a meme page owner does five to six collaborations in a day, said Sumal, who noted that there is a high-quality meme base in India with an audience of around 150 million and nearly 240 meme pages.

For Sharma, creating memes started as a part-time hobby alongside his engineering studies but as his meme page popularity grew, it became a significant part of his work. "I see meme creation evolving into a promising full-time career with good pay, especially as brands increasingly hire meme creators for social media management and campaigns," he said.

Sumal said that editing and graphic designing roles have seen a boom with the meme economy booming in India. "Unlike marketing, campaign managers play a big role in meme marketing. There is also big demand for creative writers who, unlike copy writers for ads, do not write entire sales copy/scripts for brands," he said.

A single meme page currently has 20-30 people creating 90 to 100 posts daily.

OpraahFx founder Pranav Panpalia said the new meme marketing wing has signed up 40 top mainstream meme creators.

Anyone can make a meme but it is mostly for the youth and by the youth. India boasts one of the world's largest youth populations, a demographic notably active on social media, and this group’s strong preference for visual and humorous content is fuelling the demand for memes, said Panpalia.

"GenZ/youth are making memes which are consumed by all but mostly youth. In fact, every school or college all over India has some or the other meme page for their own community and group. That's how wild the meme making sphere has spread," said Chanana.

There are no entry barriers with memes being created within seconds on platforms or on photo or video editor apps.

"Someone spends years to become a popular YouTuber but as a meme creator, it takes seconds to make a funny image and share it across the internet. The ones which go viral give instant gratification," the MemeChat founder said. The platform stores thousands of meme templates where anyone can write or add a sticker. The fastest meme made on MemeChat was in 2.2 seconds.

Making memes also involves little cost, noted Sumal. "The business of memes is a game of distribution and not production. So, making a meme can cost as low as Rs 10. There are also deals where a creator supplies 50 memes out of which if 30 go viral, they charge Rs 400-500 per content. The main cost is how much a page charges for a post," he added.

What started as jokes and fun posts has now transformed into one of the best ways to captivate attention, said Panpalia. "The primary goal with advertising or marketing campaigns is to go viral, and what better way to do this than with memes," he added.