This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The funniest post you saw this week may not have come from a friend; it may have come from a brand. Whether it is Kohl's, Wendy's, or Netflix, brands are behaving more like internet users than traditional advertisers.
Simply paying for advertising is no longer enough to capture people's attention when they scroll through thousands of posts every day. Brands are increasingly trying to join conversations that people are already having. Memes, jokes and real-time reactions have become marketing tools.
But why are brands investing so much in being culturally relevant rather than simply producing the perfect advertisement? Traditional marketing often worked through interruption. A television commercial, billboard or social media ad placed a message in front of people and hoped they would remember it.
Major brands continue to spend heavily on it. But buying advertising space is no longer enough. A brand can reach more people when audiences find its content relatable enough to share.
This is the logic of the attention economy. Decades ago, economist Herbert Simon argued that when information becomes abundant, attention becomes scarce. Today, every social media feed is a competition for that scarce resource.
Brands can buy reach, but they cannot buy people's willingness to share something. A post that people voluntarily pass along becomes earned media: content that travels through audiences rather than through paid advertising. Humor is only part of the story.
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