With consumer attention competition at an all-time high, marketing professionals are confronted with a daunting challenge: how to evolve marketing and advertising communication strategies in today's information-rich world to cut through the noise? (Nelson-Field, 2020). Meme marketing in this regard taps into the potential of digital participatory culture and attention economy, allowing brands to communicate with customers in a naturalistic way (Malodia, Dhir, Bilgihan, Sinha, & Tikoo, 2022). Internet memes have transformed into a prominent social media linguistic discourse. Brands can effectively engage consumers, increase brand visibility, and foster meaningful connections by leveraging meme marketing. However, despite considerable practitioner interest, academic meme marketing research is lagging, resulting in an important knowledge gap (Sharma, 2018; Wu & Ardley, 2007). To address this gap comprehensively, this study first meticulously defines meme marketing, drawing from speech act theory (SAT) and the theory of consumption values (TCV), paving the way for a robust framework. Following this, the study investigates the effectiveness of meme marketing, unravelling the underlying mechanisms through narrative transportation theory and identifying crucial boundary conditions. This holistic approach addresses not only the definitional gaps but also enhances our understanding of meme marketing's impact on consumer attitudes and engagement. Accordingly, this study addresses two main research questions: (RQ1), "What are the underlying communicative intentions of meme marketing, and how can they be categorised and validated through a taxonomy of meme marketing speech acts, contributing to the conceptualisation and definition of meme marketing?" and (RQ2), "What is the mediating role of narrative transportation in the relationship between meme marketing and consumer attitudes and engagement? Further, what is the moderating role of brand knowledge and meme literacy in the relationship between meme marketing and consumer attitudes and engagement?" The first research question is examined in Study 1, while the second research question is addressed in Studies 2(a) and (b), respectively. [...]