Wealhtsimple Memes — Sentiment Analysis

What are memes?

While it’s hard to nail down the exact definition of a meme, you probably experienced one or even sent it to your friends. In general, this is a bit-sized content that tends to be viral. Usually in a form of a picture or a gif.

Why memes are important for brands?

While memes can be a fun way to spam your friends, they are important from a marketing point of view for multiple reasons.

1. Viral Factor: brands can try to create their own memes to extend their social reach
2. Targeting/Positioning: brands can try to position themselves as more hip and target younger demo by utilizing memes in their marketing
3. Sentiment: brands can analyze user-generated memes on social networks like Reddit to try and gauge sentiment about their campaigns.

Wealthsimple’s Use of Memes:

1. Wealthsimple Tax:Paid ad on Reddit promoting Wealthsimple Tax, instead of going to Jail. Notice that it utilizes an ape as a profile photo. This is a common term on r/wallstreetbets to refer to themselves. There is an attempt to blend in with the culture

2. Capitalizing on Meme Stock: Gamestop Wealthsimple tried to jump on the bandwagon of Meme stocks by introducing an ad that showed incredible GME growth

Overall Wealthsimple seems to be doing well in understanding consumer lingo and either using their own memes or jumping on a bandwagon. What about consumer sentiment?

They might want to take a look to understand if memes about them are just a small opinion or represent a bigger issue.

In my research, I couldn't find a lot of positive memes related to Wealthsimple.

1. Here the user is using a meme to complain about listening to Wealthsimple ad 25 times while being in a shower. Perhaps the frequency cap is not turned on in the settings.

2. This one is even worse. Wealthsimple advertises “Socially Responsible Portfolio,” one Reddit user wrote a lengthy post disputing the claim. Instead of communicating with the user, they sent a take-down notice. An angry user then creates this meme-type graphic featuring their CEO.

In an age of Social Media and Cancel Culture, for a brand, it is more important than ever to be authentic. “Virtue Signaling” is one of the things that social media keyboard warriors might call the brand out on.

Does it mean that Wealthsimple needs to quickly change its marketing to appease the internet? Not necessarily. It can be an opinion of minority users. Still, it’s worthwhile to monitor brand reputation via memes and evaluate if there are some underlying issues.

In the case of Wealthsimple, I think they are doing a better job than other brands that try to look hip with their paid ads. At the same time, they failed to generate a viral effect from their memes, so some adjustments are needed.