Emoji Marketing- What it is and why it is useful for branding?

The popular proverb “necessity is the mother of all inventions” was clearly about emojis. Right, when digital conversations were at their peak and emotions were getting lost along the way, emojis were invented. 

What started as a means of expression has evolved to become a language of its own. Emojis are not only beloved but have also become somewhat essential for modern-day digital communication.

And there are no demographic limitations to the use of emojis. 

So, if you heard emojis are not for workplace banter, not anymore. Slack, one of the largest communication platforms for virtual work, integrated emojis. 

This is what Slack said about emojis in one of their blogs, - “We love emoji. They’re fun, light-hearted, and convey a broad range of emotions efficiently. We use them profusely at Slack—to acknowledge one another and in our daily workflows.” 

And if you heard people saying emojis are a GenZ and millennial fad, give it a second thought. 

Because your parents and grandparents are going gaga over emojis as well. Over 10 billion emojis are shared on a daily basis. 

Did you know 92 percent of all internet users use emojis? 

Emojis are undoubtedly popular, as evidenced above. However, we are drawn to more than just the visual. "The usage of emoji faces in computer-mediated communication induces brain reactions that are like those reported in face-to-face conversation," according to a recent article published in the Journal Behavior and Information Technology. 

Emojis foraying into marketing 

With such a heartfelt connection with billions of users around the globe, marketers have now started integrating Emoji into their marketing strategies.

Taco Bell And The Emoji Plea 

In 2014, Taco Bell filed a petition asking the Unicode Consortium named “America wants a Taco emoji”. As the name suggests, the petition was to introduce a taco emoji. 

The Change.org campaign of Taco Bell was a success, as they received 32,802 supporters. The reason this campaign stood out was that Taco Bell didn’t just make a custom Taco emoji, they made it available on all iOS and Android platforms. Brand endorsement using a simple emoji. 

Domino’s struck on the sales

Domino’s went straight for the sales with emojis. 

As a part of Domino’s Anywhere campaign, the franchise allowed consumers to order their favourite pizza by simply tweeting a pizza emoji. Although there was a bit of set-up that users needed to complete, the campaign was still a hit. Domino’s reported a 50% increase in its sales days after the campaign went live. So, with one stone, Domino’s hit both sales and brand recall. 

Deadpool And The Emojified Banner

In 2016, before the release of the Deadpool movie, billboards and social media pages carried this emojified banner that spelt the movie's name with emojis (Dead/Poo/L). 

It was a risky take as the banner could have been trolled. But seeing as the franchise has branded itself as a funny, edgy millennial movie, they played their cards just right. 

World Wide Fund Raised Awareness

Emojis are fun and it is quite a risky task to mix up the fun emojis with a serious message. But WWF managed to use emojis beautifully for their campaign #EndageredEmojis. 

In 2015, WWF came out with 17 custom-made emojis of endangered animals for this campaign. Netizens could participate in the campaign by agreeing to donate 11 cents every time they used one of these emojis. The money went directly to the conservation of the specific animal whose emoji they used. The campaign spoke to the people with a simple and relatable problem, raised awareness, and monetary value as well. 

Oreo Bringing Out The Big Guns With BigMojis 

In January 2021, Oreo collaborated with Bobble AI. Bobble AI has its own brand of keyboard apps that brands like Happydent, Cadbury, and Oreo are using for Conversation Media Marketing. 

Along with the Flagship Bobble Keyboard, there are multiple regional language keyboard apps that can help brands reach even more users. These keyboard applications provide brands with hyper contextual advertising and marketing opportunities. 

The tech start-up came up with a new and enhanced type of conversation media format - BigMoji.

As the name suggests these emojis are big, bold and beautiful.

Oreo and Bobble AI partnered to create "Recipic", an emoji marketing campaign. 

For the duration of the campaigns, Bobble Keyboard users could share these stickers and BigMojis on messaging and social media platforms. 

Ogilvy's Campaign Also Raises Awareness 

WWF is not the only one who raised awareness for a noble cause with Emojis. In June 2021, Emoji Marketing campaigns Ogilvy agency did the same and with great visuals. 

UN Environment Programme partnered with WWF-India, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau – Govt. Of India, and the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change. 

Together the organisations are working to control the soaring wildlife trafficking in the air transport sector in India.

For starting a conversation on this topic Ogilvy Agency came up with the "Sad Emoji" campaign showing the plight of our beautiful wildlife. 

Indian Celebrities Dia Mirza and Akshay Kumar supported the campaign by sharing it online and encouraging their fans to do the same. 

GAMEZY

Yet another Bigmoji wonder. To increase Gamezy's brand awareness and recall among millennials, Bobble AI utilised bigmojis to establish Gamezy as the go-to fantasy team app. 

They did it by promoting the 'Play Fantasy Cricket Hatke' themes, such as 'Score kya hua', 'What a Shot, 'second innings abhi baaki hai,' and so on through WhatsApp and other instant messaging apps. They used the 'Happy Smile' BigMoji, which had a lot of organic reaches and was fun to share. But just bigmojis, Bobble created a bunch of stickers that could be shared on any platform by the users. 

Conclusion 

Among the campaigns above Taco Bell was the oldest campaign that could reach billions but not every brand that did emoji marketing had as good distribution as TacoBell. 

Even Starbucks made this custom emoji which in a short time became quite popular amongst its users. This can be done for any brand, big or small, from any sector. 

Platforms like Bobble AI are helping brands make such fun marketing possible and even giving brands various metrics to measure performance. 

Bobble AI’s suite of keyboards makes the swift distribution of such campaigns possible amongst users. 

Emojis are so close-knit to our conversations, the youth today love it when their brands connect with them in a relatable way. So why would you not want to connect with them with their beloved shareable content forms like emojis and stickers?