Manila, Philippines – With the rise of short-form content within the marketing industry through Tiktok and other social media platforms, memes have integrated itself as the emerging marketing strategy for brands and companies to garner interest towards their campaigns.
One such company who jumped in on employing this strategy constantly is financial service company Home Credit in the Philippines, as they are also known for their recent viral posts on social media sites through their sales agents and marketing specialists, with their ‘Transition Trend’ garnering mass attention as a recurring trending meme in the country.
With this in mind, MARKETECH APAC spoke exclusively with Chris Martin Alarcon, head of content and community management at Home Credit Philippines, to find out more about the usage and impact of these types of content to both audiences and brands alike.
Memes in motion
According to Alarcon, this type of campaign shows to a brand’s customers and the broader audience that the brand is not afraid to have fun and let their employees be able to show their authentic selves.
“Usually when it comes to financial services, we have this notion that the industry is uptight and serious—it shouldn’t be the case. At Home Credit Philippines, we not only take pride in helping millions of Filipinos with our financial solutions, but we also take pride in showing our entertaining, exciting, and approachable side,” he added.
These types of campaigns also help brands and companies turn the social media algorithm towards their favour. Riding on trends, using popular music, and adding the latest filters not only show your audience that you’re a fun and dynamic company, but also, from what Home Credit PH has noticed, gives a boost in organic numbers as social media platforms show your content to more Filipinos’ news feeds.
Home Credit PH’s Team has understood this and has been riding on trend after trend, and the team has now created a hit viral campaign with the ‘Home Credit Transition Trend’.
Rolling out genuine content
When asked about how sales associates and agents collaborate with the marketing team to release these types of content for Home Credit Philippines, Alarcon mentioned that this collaboration to put out content is built on letting employees simply create and be themselves.
The Home Credit PH Team decided to just let their sales associates be their authentic and fun selves to promote Home Credit’s financial solutions to their circle of followers and encourage their audience to buy the latest gadgets or appliances.
“Of course, we still need to think about brand reputation, so the team made sure to remind the employees to be factual and respectful—they still represent the Home Credit brand. We also remind them to create content that does not encourage violence,” Alarcon commented.
The impact of memes and trend-jacking
The purpose of memes and trend jacking in marketing content is generally for brand awareness and engagement, as they connect the brand closer to the audience.
With the initial viral ‘transition’ content created by the Home Credit PH Team, followed by the fun posts by their employees, Alarcon stated that the ‘Transitions Trend’ has generated over 40 million organic views.
He also mentioned how it was featured in national news, and influential, usually comedy, KOLs, started riding on the Home Credit conversation, giving them additional organic mileage.
Historically, sales associates have experienced product inquiries and even product purchases when they do content in social media. While we have yet to see the sales effect of the campaign since it’s only been a month, we’re optimistic about the sales the campaign will help generate.
Driving effectivity whilst maintaining brand identity
When asked about how Home Credit Philippines keeps their brand identity intact amidst these trend-reliant campaigns, Alarcon said that there are some trends that their brand can’t ride on for the sake of it, because it wouldn’t look very authentic.
“We still have to connect our audience to the brand one way or another. That’s why knowing what your brand offers at the core is important because it will be your anchor to whatever content you will do,” he mentioned.
As a company, Alarcon shared that Home Credit Philippines’ philosophy in creating these types of content hinges on having a strong awareness of what’s trending online, their agility to ride on trends, possessing internal content creators such as their own sales associates to help spread the brand’s message effectively, and executing authentic and localised campaigns to maximise relatability and genuineness in delivering the brand message.
The future of meme-centric campaigns
For what’s next to come in the realm of trendy content campaigns around memes, Alarcon expressed that meme campaigns are here to stay to build awareness, engagement, and relatability and to build brand love.
Memes and funny videos are some of the most consumed content in the Philippines today and what can take meme and humorous campaigns to the next level is user-generated content by communities for that sense of groundedness and authenticity that feels natural and relatable.
“Particularly for Home Credit Philippines, we are in a unique position where we have gathered over 10,000 employees who can create content for us. A good lesson marketers can learn is don’t underestimate the ability of your own employees to create great content—because anyone can create viral content these days,” he concluded.
