Digital Meme Marketing as an Informational Service: Effects on Self-Expansion, Brand Attitude, and Purchase Intention in Online Shopping Platforms

Abstract

Social media marketing has become a central component of contemporary brand communication, and meme marketing humorous, shareable, user-generated content has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing digital engagement. While global brands have successfully integrated memes into their marketing strategies, the practice remains underexplored and underutilized in Pakistan. Existing scholarship provides limited empirical evidence on how meme-based content influences consumer psychology or behavior in this context. Addressing this gap, the present study investigates how meme marketing shapes self-expansion, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions by applying the Value–Attitude–Behavior (VAB) framework. Using a survey of 400 social media users, this research employed 20 adapted items from established scales and conducted reliability testing in SPSS 23 followed by confirmatory factor analysis and structural modeling in SmartPLS. The results confirm that meme marketing significantly enhances self-expansion, which positively influences brand attitudes and subsequently increases purchase intentions. The findings highlight self-expansion as a key psychological mechanism through which meme value is translated into consumer behavior. This study contributes to digital marketing literature by offering theoretically grounded insights into meme marketing and provides practical guidance for Pakistani firms seeking effective, culturally resonant social media strategies.