Great post @hilarski! There is a ton of valuable information here.
I think you are right in that memes are great for building brands. I am of the opinion that they are great for building personal brands, just not corporate / company brands. Otherwise you get this:
Bwahaha, it depends on the company goal. When I say memes they can be like this as well.
Personally I would consider that a promotional / marketing graphic. It looks super clean btw.
For me, a meme has to be a joke of some sort, satire if you will.
If every picture with words on it is a meme, then info graphics and every advertisement ever made are memes. Meme culture doesn't include those things from my standpoint.