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Brands can pay to put a message in front of people; they cannot make people want to share it. Memes can earn that voluntary attention when they fit the moment, feel true to the brand and give audiences a reason to join in. They are not a guaranteed shortcut to virality.
What brands can buy—and what they cannot
Paid placement buys an opportunity for exposure: an ad is shown to an intended audience. Sharing is different. When people choose to pass content along, they provide distribution the brand did not directly purchase—often described as earned media. Farhan Mutaqin and Almukantar Fikriansyah put the distinction plainly in their October 5, 2026 article republished by Phys.org from The Conversation: “Brands can buy reach, but they cannot buy people’s willingness to share something.”
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That willingness may come from amusement, recognition or social currency: sharing a joke can signal that someone understands it or belongs to the conversation. Those are possible reasons people share, not a formula for making any particular post spread. A meme that gets paid exposure may still be ignored, while an unpaid post may travel if audiences choose to circulate it.
Why memes can attract attention
A meme is not merely a funny image with a logo added. Its value to a brand is that it can give people a familiar format to react to, adapt or pass on. The audience’s participation—not the brand’s posting alone—can make the content feel like part of a wider conversation.
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Timeliness can help. Mutaqin and Fikriansyah point to Oreo’s “You can still dunk in the dark” post during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout, and to Levi’s response when its stadium name was covered during a recent World Cup. Both illustrate how a brand can connect a message to an event people are already discussing. They are reported examples, not controlled comparisons proving that timely memes outperform other marketing.
When a brand meme feels wrong
Sharing depends on audience judgment, and a forced attempt at humor can damage credibility rather than build it. A post may miss because it arrives after a joke has gone stale, borrows a format without understanding it, has little to do with the product, or sounds unlike the brand.
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The article cites criticism of Gucci’s 2017 #TFWGucci campaign and backlash to an IHOP pancake post in 2015, which it says was deleted and followed by an apology. These cases show the risk of a mismatch; they do not establish a universal rule that brands should avoid memes. The practical question is whether the joke makes sense for the audience and the brand, rather than whether a meme format is currently popular.
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Some campaigns make participation easier by giving people material they can make their own. Spotify Wrapped provides users with personalized summaries they can share and adapt into jokes. In that model, the brand supplies a recognizable format and personal content; users decide whether to distribute it and what to add. The handoff is central: the brand creates an invitation, not a command to share.
For a campaign idea, consider four questions together. This is a practical way to assess fit, not a validated scoring system:
- Is it timely? Does it connect to a cultural moment the audience is already following, or does the reference feel late?
- Does it sound like the brand? Would this voice make sense from the brand outside the meme format?
- Does the product belong in the joke? Can people see the connection without an awkward explanation?
- Can the audience add something? Is there a reason to share, adapt or respond, beyond simply seeing a branded punchline?
The attention-economy idea behind the phrase
The title’s claim is a persuasive distinction, not a literal statement that advertising cannot buy exposure. Herbert Simon’s attention-economy idea provides historical context: when information is abundant, attention becomes scarce. In a 1997 WIRED essay, Michael H. Goldhaber made a related point about advertising: “When advertisers pay for an ad, for example, they are guaranteed only a chance at an audience’s notice.” That is conceptual framing, not a measured law or a current quantitative result.
So the better marketing brief is not simply “How do we get this seen?” Paid distribution can address exposure. For a meme, the harder question is: “Why would anyone pass this on?” The answer has to come from the audience’s interest and the content’s fit—not from the brand’s purchase of reach.
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