The rise of social media has significantly altered digital marketing tactics, with meme marketing becoming a novel method to captivate younger audiences, particularly students. Memes, which are distinguished by their humor, relatability, and cultural relevance, have the capacity to draw attention and affect cognitive functions such as brand recall. This study explores the effect of meme marketing on brand recall among students through a quantitative research approach involving 575 participants. By employing theoretical frameworks like the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), Dual Coding Theory, and the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) model, the research investigates how meme features—humor, relatability, emotional engagement, shareability, and exposure frequency—impact brand recall, with attention acting as a mediating factor. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire and analyzed with statistical techniques such as correlation and multiple regression analysis. The findings demonstrate that meme marketing significantly boosts brand recall among students. Attention and emotional engagement emerged as the most influential predictors, followed by humor and relatability. Although exposure frequency and shareability also had a positive impact, their effects were moderate. The study further confirms the mediating role of attention, indicating that meme-based content enhances recall by initially capturing users' cognitive focus. These results are consistent with recent studies that emphasize the importance of engaging and emotionally resonant content in improving consumer memory outcomes (Rathi & Jain, 2024; Kim & Kim, 2025). This research contributes to the digital marketing literature by shifting the focus from engagement metrics to cognitive outcomes like brand recall. It also provides practical insights for marketers seeking cost-effective strategies to connect with student audiences through meme-based communication