I can currently think of two recent cases where a product "became a meme". Sprite Cranberry and Duolingo.
I remember after seeing the sprite "meme", I was in the store ones, passing by the drinks section, and out of the hundreds of drinks, it just so happens that sprite cranberry catches my attention, then I remembered it was because of the "meme". This gave off the same feeling I had as a kid when I was watching TV and saw a commercial for a food product, then when I went to the store and recognized it, I asked my mom to buy it. Point is, this "meme" probably served as a great advertisement campaign for coca cola's new flavor of sprite.
Secondly is duolingo. I can't say for certain how many people downloaded the app after it became a "meme", but I know one of my friends installed it after it became a meme. He actually had never heard of it before (and neither had I tbh) and thought it'd be cool to learn a new language. The important bit here is that diolingo "becoming a meme" helped it gather downloads and helped it being more recognized.
Now's the part where we put our tinfoil hats on. What are the chances that companies realize the potential memes have in advertising a product and are basically creating stealth advertisements?
So now you might say "but how could a company force their product to become a meme?". And the answer is simple:
1- they pay instagram meme accounts/subreddit owners to make memes of their product.
2- instagram meme accounts/subreddit owners subtly post said "memes" in a way that seems natural
3- after a few of these "memes" garner enough likes and upvotes, smaller meme creators will see this as an opportunity to jump in the band wagon to try to get some likes/upvotes themselves, and suddenly a product becomes a meme, giving it an insane amount advertising in the process.
That's my theory anyways. What do you guys think?