The Impact of Internet Memes on Brand Image in Telecommunication Industry with Special Reference to Undergraduates of North and East Universities, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Brand and brand image are important elements for every organization. These both give a value for the product and services which the organization offers. And Internet Memes are pictures or short videos that transfer the information among netizens. Nowadays in marketing 2.0 marketers also use these Internet Memes to share their contents with audiences. Therefore researcher analyzed the impact of Internet Memes on brand image in this research. in this research, researcher divided brand image into two components such as emotional and cognitive. In these concepts, the main objective of this study is to identify the impacts of Internet Memes on Emotional component, Cognitive component, Positive reinforcements of brand image and negative reinforcements of brand image. In order to achieve the objective the primary data was collected from 547 undergraduates and 300 were selected for analysis. The finding shows Internet Memes have impacts on Emotional and cognitive components of brand image and positive reinforcements of brand, image. But it does not show any relationships on negative reinforcements of brand image. Therefore these findings help future meme marketers to create their contents effectiveiy