Speed Kills: Why Meme Marketing Rules the Internet

I spend a lot of time thinking about how marketing has changed over my lifetime … and what’s next. I could argue that the biggest change I’ve witnessed is “velocity.” Marketing used to be about planning, executing, and measuring. Today, it’s about response, response, response to cultural moments. Meme marketing is fast, furious, and here to stay.

I wanted to write about speed and marketing because to commerate the tenth anniversary of the 10 minutes of advertising that launched the speed marketing revolution.

At 8:48 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on February 03, 2013, this milestone event occurred. Thousands of articles have been written about it. Those 10 minutes changed careers, created new companies and forged new economic models for marketing and advertising.

It was magical. It seemed like a miracle. And it was all about cookies (the yummy kind).

The moment marketing changed forever

Bringing an ad or marketing campaign to life is a laborious process. You prepare ideas and pitch them to your customer, secure funding, explore creative options, finalize the creative, obtain legal approval, buy media space, and then execute the campaign. This journey could take months.