cultivating visual language innovation with emojiable

Transcription

CULTIVATING VISUAL
LANGUAGE INNOVATION
WITH EMOJIABLE
MARKETING
ROB MURRAY & EMILY TWOMEY
We now live in a world where the most
popular word is an image.
The last few years have seen an
explosion of emojis and visual language
innovation. In 2015, the Oxford English
Dictionary declared the
face –
with tears of joy – the word of the
year. YELP, Bing, and Instagram have
emoji-enabled search. You can order a
pizza, get room service, and even fight
bullying with emojis.
For digital marketers, this presents an
incredible opportunity. We are witnessing the beginnings of a new language
and, if we want to stay close or get
closer to our consumers, then we will
need to learn how to use it.
Yet, while emojis have been at the
intersection of story and technology for
around twenty years, consumers are
now speaking with emojis, stickers, and
images more and more. This evolving,
visual communication language is
becoming a natural – and highly useful
– part of our digital conversations.
Marshal McLuhan was prescient
when he said that the “medium is the
message.” We are all speaking on our
phones less, while emailing and texting
more. It is no wonder, then, that people
are using these visual tools to add
nuances to their communication.
LOL and JK can only go so far.
Emojis and their brethren (i.e., stickers)
will certainly continue to evolve and,
while the concept of visual language is
not a new one, this contemporary manifestation looks to have staying power.
Emojis and stickers are more than cute
platforms for campaigns targeted at
the coveted Millennial. Through emojis
and stickers, people have found a
shortcut for expressing complex feelings and are thus achieving a new kind
of digital intimacy.
And, while some are already seizing
this, more marketers should want in on
the opportunity that lies ahead.
Is this just another temporal, digital
mini-trend like screensavers, ringtones,
or Second Life? We do not think so.
TRENDS AT THE INTERSECTION OF TECHNOLOGY & STORY
2
Behaviors driving visual
language innovation
FIGURE01
Currently, 80% of the time a consumer
spends on their smartphone is with
4 or 5 chat and social apps – the
environments in which the popularity
of emojis skyrocketed.1 However, when
it comes to growth rates, the leaders
in online, social behavior are no longer
the social networks themselves, but
rather the social messaging platforms
(see Figure 1).
The growth of messaging now trumps that of social networks.2
One of the largest shifts in consumer behavior related to the evolution of visual
language usage is that of the overall growth of messaging. Messaging has been
the fastest-growing online behavior within the social landscape over the past five
years, passing social networks.
Growth of messaging platforms vs. network platforms
Monthly Active Users (MAUs) 2001-2015E*
WhatsApp
Monthly Active Users (millions)
900
Launched 2009
750
FB Messenger
Launched 2011**
600
WeChat
Launched 2011
450
Instagram
Launched 2011
300
Snapchat
150
Launched 2011
Pinterest
Launched 2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015E
Year
Social Messaging
Social Network
Hybrid Messaging / Network
*Messaging defined as communicating primarily in real time with other contacts; social defined as broadcast sharing
of status updates, images, videos, or other content. All data measured from Q2/Q3 each year.

** Became standalone app in 2014.
Source: Activate. “Media, Journalism and Technology Predictions 2016.” http://digitalnewsreport.org/publications/
2016/predictions-2016/.
Aggregate sources from: Fortune, Business Insider, Mashable, Instagram, AppAnnie, AdWeek, Quartz, Yahoo
Finance, Experian, TechCrunch, Forbes, Tech in Asia, eMarketer, Compete, Activate analysis.
Forrester Research. “US Consumer Technographics Study.”
1
Activate. “Tech and Media Outlook 2016.” http://www.slideshare.net/ActivateInc/activate-tech-and-media-outlook-2016?ref=http://activate.com/.
2
3
At the end of 2015, messaging apps
like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger rose at significant rates, with varied
success across different regions (see
Figure 2). This is one of the largest shifts
in consumer behavior for the evolution
of visual language usage and is setting
up the emoji (along with its visual kin) to
become one of the most engaging tools
in marketing communications.
FIGURE02
Geography of messaging apps' dominant user bases3
Clear leaders are emerging in the messaging landscape: Facebook Messenger
and WhatsApp are global, while others dominate locally.
Name
It is a rare privilege
to observe the rise
of a new language.
Emojis are becoming
a valid and nearuniversal method
of expression in all
languages.
– Thomas Dimson,
Software Engineer,
Instagram
Monthly
Active Users
(in millions)
Geography of
dominant user base
WhatsApp
900
Global
Facebook
700
Global
600
China
WeChat
QQ Mobile
Gchat
iMessage
Viber
~600 *
>425
*
China
USA
~400 ** USA
249
EMEA
LINE
211
Japan
Snapchat
200
USA & EMEA
Kik
200
EMEA
Telegram
85
EMEA
Tango
80
APAC
South Korea
KakaoTalk
48
Hike
35
Zalo
~18 *
Path Talk
10
FireChat
<5
The third largest
messaging platform
is Chinese – WeChat
(and its predecessor
QQ Mobile owned
by Tencent).
India
Vietnam
USA
*
EMEA & APAC
YikYak
4
SOMA
<2
Jott
<1
USA
N/A
India
Nimbuzz
While founded in the
U.S., both WhatsApp and
Facebook Messenger have
attracted global audiences.
USA
Saudi Arabia
Microsoft Send
N/A
USA
Vurb
N/A
USA
*Indicates estimates.

**Estimated based on number of iPhones sold.
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/ActivateInc/activate-tech-andmedia-outlook-2016?ref=http://activate.com/.
Activate. “Tech and Media Outlook 2016.” http://www.slideshare.net/ActivateInc/activate-tech-and-media-outlook-2016?ref=http://activate.com/.
3
4
This movement towards messaging
and, now, image-based messaging
– although originally fueled by teens –
has spread across demographics (see
Figure 3). To quote Thomas Dimson, a
software engineer on Instagram‘s data
team, “It is a rare privilege to observe
the rise of a new language. Emojis are
becoming a valid and near-universal
method of expression in all languages.”
And a new language it is. Emojis now
stand where Internet slang once did –
LOL, remember? This shift can be seen
clearly on Instagram, where nearly half
of all comments and captions posted to
the platform contain at least one emoji.6
And, while emoji usage has seen a
boom in the past three years (especially
after Apple introduced the emoji keyboard on iOS in 2011), the usage of
Internet slang is continuously dwindling
(see Figure 4).
Other behavioral data depicts the same
clear, strong push towards future innovation in image-based communications.
According to Swyft Media, 41.5 billion
messages and 6 billion emoticons
and stickers are sent around the world
every day on mobile messaging apps.7
In fact, one 2014 study conducted by
Sean Dolinar, a predictive analytics
specialist, found that 10% of Tweets
contain at least one emoji.8 Facebook,
another big player in the messaging
field, paid $19 billion for WhatsApp,
and their bet on chat apps as the next
big wave seems to be right. WhatsApp
took 21 months to grow from 200
million users to 700 million. Facebook
took 25 months.9
FIGURE03
Emoji users by age4
Emoji users by gender5
Non-user
Non-user
Occasional user
Occasional user
Frequent user
Frequent user
80%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0%
<25
25-29
30-34
Women
35+
Men
Age
FIGURE04
Emoji usage vs. Internet slang
Emoji and Internet slang usage by join date
Emoji
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
Internet
Slang
5%
0%
2012-07
2013-01
2013-07
2014-01
2014-07
2015-01 2015-07
Emogi. “2015 Emoji Report.” http://emogi.com/documents/Emoji_Report_2015.pdf.
4
Ibid.
5
Instagram Engineering. “Emojineering Part 1: Machine Learning for Emoji Trends.” http://instagram-engineering.tumblr.com/post/117889701472/emojineering-part-1-machinelearning-for-emoji.
6
Digiday. “The emojification of brand advertising.” http://digiday.com/brands/emojification-brand-advertising/.
7
STATS[dot]SEANDOLINAR[dot][com]. “The Most Popular Emoji Characters On Twitter.” http://stats.seandolinar.com/popular-emoji-on-twitter/.
8
Facebook. “June 2015 Investor Meeting.”
9
5
The nearly ubiquitous state of emoji
and sticker usage depicts consumers’
desires for increased personalization
across their digital interactions. These
idea-graphs or pictograms, along with
the platforms and offerings that package them, allow users to gather and
communicate with the images that best
fit each of their identities and emotions.
And, as the paradigm continues to
shift away from voice communication
(even email) and leave off a significant
amount of contextual information, these
pictograms arm digital consumers with
new tools for expressing themselves in
confined digital spaces.10
How do emoticons, emoji,
and stickers differ?
and understanding. These limitations
may have been the catalyst for the next
innovation: emojis.
Emojis
What began as a non-standardized
form of sending picture messages
through text (see the sidebar entitled
“The origins and evolution of emojis”
on page 8), emojis – or “picture words”
– have become a world-renowned
language. The Unicode Consortium,
the international standardization body
for the unicode markup language for
text (what allows both sender and
receiver to see the same image for
each emoji), sets the rules for what
code gets turned into emojis.
Emoticons
Emoticons are punctuation and ASCII
text-based icons that represent facial
expressions – such as the happy
face :). They serve to improve how
messages are interpreted by drawing
recipients’ attentions toward senders’
tempers. For example, a terse text
message without a wink can be read as
something far more serious than if the
sender adds a simple wink. If you have
been in a serious text or chat discussion, then you surely know the feeling.
The one benefit of emoticons is that
they are based on text. Your :) will show
up exactly the same on your friend’s
device regardless of its operating
system or the program being used –
a universality that made emoticons very
popular. However, while emoticons
can get fairly complex, their text-based
nature is also what limits them in usage
Coke recently announced the end of voice mail in their corporate headquarters. Bloomberg. “Coca-Cola Disconnects Voice Mail at Headquarters.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-22/coca-cola-disconnects-voice-mail-at-headquarters.
10
6
Platforms such as Apple, Facebook,
Microsoft, Samsung, Twitter, Yahoo,
Google, and many others agree to use
the same Unicode source to define
things like a hat, a dog, or even poo
(don’t pretend that you don’t know…).
The Consortium thus makes emojis
platform-agnostic.
But this work is never quite done.
The Consortium periodically releases
an update with new emojis added
to the Unicode. Though there are
hundreds of emoji, there seems to
be a continuous appetite for more.
In 2014, for example, questions were
raised about the lack of diversity (lack
of certain gestures or faces) in emojis,
so changes were published.
Brands began taking a liking to
emojis, as well. Taco Bell, for example,
successfully petitioned the Unicode
Consortium for a taco emoji through a
Change.org campaign. Then, in 2015,
childhood bullying became the first
cause with a dedicated emoji (see
Figure 5). The eye in a speech bubble
was created to raise awareness for
childhood bullying – the thought being
that if you see it happening, then you
should let others know. Perhaps emojis
will become the new postage stamps.
Stamps were traditionally used in a
similar fashion to commemorate or
celebrate causes, events, locations,
and people.
The Consortium has accepted 74 new
emoji characters as candidates for
Unicode 9.0, scheduled for release in
mid-2016. However, now and again,
you may hear mention of Apple or
Android releasing their own emojis.
These individual operating systems
(OS’s) periodically add additional code
– beyond the Unicode standard – to
their own systems, allowing their users
to access even more emojis.
As you can see, things can get confusing. Now, let’s talk about stickers.
Stickers
Stickers are non-standardized icons
with no governing consortium. They are
not code-based, but rather individual
images that a user can access via a
proprietary text or chat system. Instead
of having an emoji keyboard, stickers
are little images downloaded by users
directly to their devices. Thus, platforms
such as LINE, WeChat, WhatsApp,
KakaoTalk, and Facebook Messenger
(among others) create and distribute
their own stickers. They generally come
in sets and, while some are free, many
are available for purchase in exchange
for a few dollars. For example, LINE (a
Korea-based chat platform popular in
Japan) makes $10 million a month by
selling stickers to its consumers.11
FIGURE05
The “I am witness” anti-bullying
emoji campaign
The “eye in a speech bubble” emoji
represents an anti-bullying campaign
called “I am a witness” launched by
The Ad Council in 2014 in collaboration with Adobe, The Bully Project, and
Behance. The campaign flips the equation by targeting those who witness
bullying and empowers kids to go from
passive to active.
#IAmAWitness
“Stickers” is a great descriptor for
these images. Stickers are more than
mere pictograms and isotypes that
describe an object or function. They
are much more emotive, funny, and
branded. And within the last few years,
animated stickers have become even
more popular. These stickers are just
what they sound like; they have text, an
emotive action, or simple animations of
an action. So now, instead of sending
a heart emoji, you can send a beating
heart or a broken heart or a heart that is
given by a character. In fact, the power
of stickers lies in their characters.
11
As of August, 2013. TNW News. “Japanese Messaging Company Line Makes Over $10 Million Per Month From Selling Stickers.” http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/08/21/
japanese-messaging-company-line-makes-over-10-million-per-month-from-selling-stickers/.
7
THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF EMOJIS
In 1999 in Japan, people were beginning
to use small picture messages in their
text messages. But what we now take
for granted was somewhat difficult at
that time. The bandwidth required to
deliver even small images was significant. So NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile
provider, asked their engineers to come
up with a way to send images while
saving on bandwidth. They came up
with a markup protocol for emojis.
With this, a colon alongside a bracket
sent to a friend’s device (if using the
same protocol) would be interpreted
client-side as a smiley face. However,
just like any markup language, that
interpretation had to be embedded in
both the sender and receiver's messaging programs for it to work. And that is
where things got interesting. Emojis, or
“picture words”, were then standardized
and a set of 180 emojis was created.
Standardization, however, was
still missing.
The Unicode Consortium is the
international standardization body for
the Unicode markup language for text.
This is what easily allows a Mandarin
speaker to choose Mandarin on a device
and have the device interpret different
keyboard inputs to create Chinese characters. That code is then sent via text
or email and is, in turn, re-interpreted
as Chinese on the receiver's device. Even
with this standardization, there are still
misinterpretations across platforms and
that is why quotes may look strange
on another device. Given the number of
devices and operating systems across the
globe, it is truly remarkable that there
are merely a handful of tiny errors.
Before there was a universal device
and OS-agnostic set of emoji codes,
your emoji might have looked like a
box with a question mark on another
person's device. And, although they
were popular in Japan, emojis did not
begin to take off in the West until there
was a tipping point. As the story goes,
that tipping point was Steve Jobs.
When the iPhone was introduced in
Japan, it was not an immediate bestseller. So Steve Jobs went to Japan to
to promote the iPhone by meeting with
carriers and device manufacturers. One
of them was SoftBank who, although
had agreed to sell the iPhone, wanted it
to have the same features that their customers had already grown accustomed
to – emojis. Thus, emojis were added to
the iPhone for SoftBank, the Japanese
market, and – subsequently – the global
market. This highlights two of the
reasons why emojis became even more
popular: availability and ubiquity.
What began as a
non-standardized
form of sending
picture messages
through text,
emojis – or
“picture words”
– have become a
world-renowned
language.
:)
(^_^)
Emoticon vs Kaomoji
Emoticons, such as the smiley face, are interpreted into symbols by users
tilting their heads to the left. Thus, a colon alongside a bracket becomes a
smiley face. Kaomoji (Japan’s ASCII set), on the other hand, is designed so
that the user does not have to tilt their head.
8
Opportunity-ripe, image-based
messaging platforms
A majority of the key players in imagebased messaging have not only contributed to the proliferation of emoji and
sticker usage, but are also standing at
the forefront of the subsequent branded
content trend. Facebook Messenger,
WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, LINE, and
KakaoTalk (among others) have all
added branded pictograms to their
partnership offerings in some capacity.
Facebook Messenger, who dove into
the sponsored visual content game
back in 2013, is a good illustration
of how this overarching visual communication hype comes together.13
Along with its default collection of
32 Meeps (larger, static, and more
emotive smiley-like stickers), Facebook
Messenger’s sticker search reveals a
sub-menu of ten categories including
In Love, Active, Angry, Confused, and
more (see Figure 6). These categories
comprise the platform’s sticker store,
which houses dozens of third-party
sticker packs based on themes –
from Star Wars and Disney to Naughty
Foods and Hacker Girl – and marks the
sponsorship business on which emoji
and sticker advertising stands.
This fun, quirky
communication
method has developed
as a kind of 'digital
slang' for young teens,
delivering the rapid,
image-led messaging
mirrored in apps
such as Snapchat.
– Tessa Mansfield
Senior Vice President,
Stylus12
FIGURE06
The breadth of visual language options available via Facebook Messenger.
By clicking on Facebook Messenger’s “Sticker” option (the smiley face), users open
the default menu of Meeps (pictured on the left). These caricatured faces look like
smileys, but are larger, static, and show a wider range of emotions from happy to
sad to aggravated. Though there are currently 32 of these Meep images available, a user can reach even more options by searching through the sticker store
(pictured on the right).
But if you really want to see where
visual language innovation is occurring,
then you need to go back to the community that invented emojis – Japan. In
Japan, LINE is the most popular chat
platform with over 215 million monthly
active users.14
CNBC. “Messaging apps hit gold as ‘emojis’ head west.” http://www.cnbc.com/id/100976844.
12
TechCrunch. “Facebook Launches First Branded Stickers, Previewing a Potential Sponsorship Biz.” http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/27/facebook-branded-stickers/.
13
Statista. “Number of Monthly Active LINE Users Worldwide Q4 2015.” http://www.statista.com/statistics/327292/number-of-monthly-active-line-app-users/.
14
9
The Japanese language has a set of
characters that includes a number of
pictograms for words. And the culture
is one that both loves cute things –
“kawaii” – and has an animist history of
anthropomorphizing objects including
trees, rocks, plants, and animals. This
can be seen in action through the use
of numerous “cute” characters across
the nation’s advertising.
LINE has one of the most robust and
diverse collections of sticker and animated sticker sets among the world’s
chat platforms. In addition to the
expected Hello Kitty and Disney sticker
packs in its store, LINE is also aggressively signing deals with celebrities to
incorporate more exclusive stickers.
Paul McCartney, for example, has two
sticker sets on LINE: One set uses his
image together with words like “wonderful”, while the other has him voicing
words in both English and Japanese.
And he’s definitely not the only one.
Many of these branded stickers are for
sale and drive a lot of revenue for LINE
– as we noted, $10 million a month.15
Most interesting is that there is also a
character set, named Brown and Cony,
that was created just for LINE. Brown
is a bear, Cony is his girlfriend, and
together they are part of a larger story
involving several other characters.
The consistent updating of the story,
along with the fact that it’s published
on a regular basis, creates a preference
and stickiness for the chat platform
through the branded experiences (like
Brown and Cony) that it provides. More
importantly, success like this is also an
indication of what is possible: Brown
and Cony became so popular that
they leaped over the digital divide
into physical merchandise (e.g., plush
toys) and now generate offline sales
of millions of dollars.16
Brands are increasingly
speaking visually
The movement towards image-led
communication presents a multitude
of opportunities for marketers to drive
differentiation and service communication. By using this visual language and
participating in its continued evolution,
brands position themselves as allies
of the technological disruption curve.
They literally show that they speak
the language of their consumers and,
so, depict their ability to consider
behavioral data and act accordingly.
Not to mention the fact that speaking
visually can incite higher engagement
from consumers – either in conversation with the brand itself or through
downloads (and usage) of branded
stickers in personal communications.
Both are great examples of proactively
introducing your brand into users’
stories, rather than waiting for them
to become part of yours.
Dominos Pizza, for example, seized
the emoji opportunity when it enabled
ordering via the sending of a pizza
emoji. Along with making its process
easier and faster, the brand displayed
its ability to speak with and function at
the speed of digital change. Piggybacking on that success, Dominos further
committed to this shift by offering
emoji flashcards to parents who wish
to communicate better with their kids.
NAs of August, 2013. TNW News. “Japanese Messaging Company Line Makes Over $10 Million Per Month From Selling Stickers.” http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/08/21/
japanese-messaging-company-line-makes-over-10-million-per-month-from-selling-stickers/.
15
SapientNitro estimates based on sales figures. Fast Company. “How Japan's LINE App Became A Culture-Changing, Revenue-Generating Phenomenon.” https://www.fastcompany.com/
3041578/most-innovative-companies-2015/how-japans-line-app-became-a-culture-changing-revenue-generat.
16
10
Similarly, Aloft Hotels launched
“Text it, Get it” in their Manhattan
Financial District location to streamline
guests’ experiences and personalize
their interactions with the hotel’s
services even further. TiGi, for short,
integrates consumer behavior trends
by allowing guests to make their room
service selections, request wake up
calls, and even notify the hotel that they
are locked out of their rooms – all by
texting 2 or 3 emojis (see Figure 7).
Put simply by Paige Francis (Vice President of Global Brand Management for
Starwood’s Specialty Select Brands),
“Our guests can now talk to us like
they talk to each other.”17
We are only now beginning to see
brands tiptoe into this opportunity.
And, while this is not the new and
improved Internet of Apps, it is a shift
in how we speak to each other and to
brands. Consequently, it requires far
more than updating your logo to be
more “emojiable” as iHop has done
or hoping that people will say, “That
meal was so Starbucks,” and add a
coffee icon. Other brands, for example,
are using image-based platforms just
as they would Facebook – you can
friend a brand and opt-in to receive
push communication. These are
nascent efforts.
understanding of people’s context will
reveal opportunities to create icons,
story systems, games, tools, and a
host of other services that people will
willingly and delightfully adopt into their
communication habits.
The true opportunity lies in recognizing
that there is a fundamental shift in how
we are communicating and that brands
have a unique opportunity to become
a relevant part of their consumers’
conversations. But let us say it again:
Brands have to be thoughtful. This is
not a one-off campaign, but rather an
investment. And this is not a digital
fool’s gold rush (i.e., Second Life Part
2.0). This time, brands are (and should
be) treading carefully.
FIGURE07
Aloft Hotels and their “Text it, Get it” emoji menu
TiGi offers several services via emoji requests, alerting the hotel of asks ranging
from toiletry refreshers and tech needs to hangover cures and the munchies.
To become associated with unique
service in their industries, brands
should take further steps of proactive
integration with their consumers’
language behaviors. Brands need to
be thoughtful and empathetic. A deep
Mashable. “Emoji room service is now a thing if you’re too lazy to call the front desk.” http://mashable.com/2015/10/21/emoji-room-service/#69tTxr6Wx5qT.
17
11
THE CULTURAL AND POLITICAL NUANCES
OF EMOJI USAGE
Emojis continue to grow in sociocultural
importance, a fact that becomes evident
when perusing through current news.
Not only are brands referencing the
rising relevance of this visual language,
but the little icons themselves have
even become means of social and political commentary.
SOCIOCULTURAL REFERENCING
IN ADVERTISING
For 2016's Super Bowl, Avocados from
Mexico created an ad (targeted to the
111.9 million viewers of the Big Game)
in which aliens roam through a spaceship’s museum full of 20th and 21st
century human relics – one of which is
an emoji display.18 Upon reaching the
digital display, the tour guide refers to
the emoji language as “[humans’] alphabet” and goes on to explain how “a few
symbols could express the vast extent of
[human] emotion.”
SOCIOPOLITICAL COMMENTARY
In an effort to counter the unbelievable
popularity of Kim Kardashian’s Kimoji
(an emoji set, based on the celebrity,
that still remains one of the top-selling
apps on Apple’s iTunes), U.S.-based web
designer Ben Gillin created an emoji set
mocking North Korean leader Kim Jongun (along with his father and grandfather). The creation of these Kimunji
was triggered by Gillin’s pure amazement at the success of Kimoji and his
disgruntled reaction to the thought of
young people actually using them (and,
subsequently, being influenced by them).
The Kimunji, similar in their terrible nature, are said to be based on the “news
or fears that we have” regarding North
Korea (see Figure 8).19
POLITICAL RACING
Emojis are popping up in a few places
relating to the 2016 U.S. presidential
election. Twitter, for example, released
an official “iVoted” emoji for its platform, allowing users to wear the digital
badge proudly by simply typing in
#iVoted or #iCaucused (see Figure 9).
Emoji usage across social media not
only presents data around who votes,
but what their sentiments are prior to
voting. The Atlantic, for example, created a realtime tracker of how presidential contenders are coupled with Twitter
emojis – giving viewers a peek into the
Internet’s current voter sentiment.20
FIGURE08
FIGURE09
Kim Kardashian's Kimoji faces new
competition from Kimunji
Twitter released an iVoted emoji
for its platform
Kimoji
Kimunji
Statista. “TV viewership of the Super Bowl in the United States from 1990 to 2016 (in millions).” http://www.statista.com/statistics/216526/super-bowl-us-tv-viewership/.
18
BBC. “Kim Jong-un emojis take on Kim Kardashian Kimoji.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35557192.
19
The Atlantic. “The Presidential Race in Emojis.” http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/emojis-2016-presidential-election/420840/.
20
12
Which brands are doing it right?
As our visual language expands, several
brands are highlighting the various
applications that this evolution offers.
Shareable ingenuity on social media
Emoji usage on social media may
soon become table stakes for brands
attempting to penetrate their consumers’
ongoing interactions. We have already
reached the point at which users
expect brands to do more than simply
throw in the occasional emoji into their
posts. Consumers now applaud brands
and may award them with higher engagement for displaying emoji ingenuity.
Bud Light’s Fourth of July emoji flag
remains a great example of this trend.
The brand celebrated Independence
Day by recreating the American flag
using only three emojis: the American
flag, fireworks, and beer mugs. The
Twitter post alone has garnered over
145,000 retweets and 109,000 likes.21
solution means that not only can
brands create emoji content, but Snaps
will also distribute that branded content
across its partner platforms and provide
metrics around the emojis’ usage.
The list of brands using Snaps continues to grow, now counting Pepsi, MTV,
Victoria’s Secret, L’Oreal, and Sony
Pictures (to name a few). Burger King,
possibly the most renowned brand
using Snaps, saw its Chicken Fries
keyboard result in 55% more favorability towards its product and depict
the value of pictograms in a successful
launch strategy (see Figure 10).22
FIGURE10
Burger King's Chicken Fries keyboard
Emoji keyboard generation
The creation of branded emoji keyboards
remains one of the most prominent
use cases for this visual language in
marketing. Indeed, several startups
have seen great success by offering
emoji-based messaging services.
Snaps, for example, opens the door to
800 million monthly active users across
platforms such as Kik, Tango, WeChat,
and Viber. Its end-to-end messaging
Bud Light’s Twitter page. https://twitter.com/budlight/status/485050295517335552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw.
21
Snaps. https://www.makesnaps.com/.
22
13
And Snaps is not the only one. Swyft
Media, another small startup in the
branded messaging space, has also
partnered with several top messaging platforms including KakaoTalk,
Facebook Messenger, BlackBerry
Messenger, and LINE.23 Swyft offers
the creation and targeting of emojis,
digital stickers, GIFs, photo filters,
and more across 1.5 billion monthly
active users around the world.24 Their
clientele includes the likes of Disney,
Dreamworks, Universal, Miller, Warner
Communications, and Coors – among
a slew of others.
User-generated content
Oreo gained quite a bit of attention and
credibility as a visual innovator when it
ran a user-generated emoji campaign in
China, at a time when emojis were still
nascent in the market. The brand built
a custom WeChat app that allowed
families to create their own emojis – an
effort stemming from parents’ worries
around decreasing communication
with their children. The app prompted
parents to snap photos with their
children, place them onto the emojis,
and then share their creations with
others. This visual initiative, supported
by Oreo-branded bus stops that
allowed for the projection and printing
of users’ emoji creations, saw 99
million emojis created in the first 11
weeks (with approximately 10 million
of those then being shared).25
Co-branded partnerships
Coca-Cola and Twitter teamed up
to create the platform's first branded
emoji, an actual paid ad placement. If
you type #ShareaCoke into a tweet,
two iconic bottles of Coca-Cola appear
in a clinking, “cheers” position (see
Figure 11). This is the first emoji media
buy, so to speak, as (unlike previous
custom emojis for branded properties)
it is part of an ad deal. And a good one
at that: According to Coca-Cola, the
branded hashtag and resulting emoji
were mentioned over 170,000 times
globally within the first day – a record
that Coca-Cola deemed the “World’s
Largest Cheers”.26
FIGURE11
Standing on its well-oiled platform for
visual and real-time communication,
Twitter continues to promote its
custom emoji designs as premium ad
offerings reserved only for its biggest
partner brands. Along with Coca-Cola,
other big spenders include PepsiCo,
Verizon, Starbucks, Spotify, Dove,
and Anheuser-Busch – all of which
are taking the leap into visual
language innovation.
#ShareaCoke
Fortune. “How one startup is turning emoji into cash.” http://fortune.com/2015/01/28/swyft-messaging-emoji/.
23
24
Swyft Media. http://swyftmedia.com/.
Marketing Magazine. “Oreo connects Chinese families through custom-built ‘Emoji’ app on Wechat.” http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1296558/oreo-connects-chinesefamilies-custom-built-emoji-app-wechat.
25
Coca-Cola Company. “#ShareaCoke Twitter Chat: @CocaColaCo Q&A on the Coke Twitter Emoji and World Record ‘Cheers’.” http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-unbottled/shareacoke-twitter-chat-cocacolaco-q-a-on-the-coke-twitter-emoji-and-world-record-cheers/.
26
14
Offering utility via emoji tools
As marketers and parents alike
scramble to learn the emoji language
that their consumers and children are
speaking, SapientNitro decided to build
a tool that would make the process a bit
easier (see Figure 12). We introduced
SpeakEmoji, an app that allows users
to translate what they say into the
iconic language of emoji – perfect for
sending off to members of younger
generations (whose attention spans
seem to only decrease).27
Breaching the physical world
Seamless activity across the physicaldigital divide remains a priority for
brands. And, for a communication tool
that is so visual and versatile, it was
only a matter of time before consumers’ desires for emojis – along with
the efficacy of the language itself –
pushed the little pictograms into the
physical world. Case in point, PepsiMojis – probably the first iteration of
branded emojis on physical products.
Pepsi first tested PepsiMojis (cans and
bottles featuring customized emojis)
in the summer of 2015 in Canada – a
country who has more than one official
language and, therefore, can vie for
the effectiveness of the pictograms.
The strategy led to such good results,
it seems, that PepsiMojis (all 70+ of
them) are making their global debut in
over 100 markets in the summer
of 2016.28
27
In an effort to capitalize on the visual
communication trend (and compete
with Coca-Cola’s Share-a-Coke
campaign in which unique phrases
and names were placed on bottles
and cans), Pepsi is betting heavily on
emojis’ ability to connect its playful
brand to consumers in their natural
habitats. In the case of Pepsi’s younger
target audience, these environments
include concerts, sports games, travels
abroad, or something adventurous of
the like – all moments better served by
quick and fun interactions. Paired with
their merchandising and adverts, Pepsi
created a robust, cross-platform emoji
campaign: Say It With Pepsi.
FIGURE12
SapientNitro's SpeakEmoji App
I like to read in the sun everyday
SapientNitro. “SpeakEmoji: The voice-to-emoji translator.” https://www.speakemoji.co.uk/.
AdvertisingAge. “Pepsi Preps Global Emoji Can and Bottle Campaign.” http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/pepsi-preps-global-emoji-bottle-campaign/302748/.
28
15
Innovating with animation
For those marketers looking to play in
the emoji sandbox, an awareness and
understanding of Graphic Interchange
Formats (GIFs) is key. GIFs – which
are short, looping videos used across
social media and messaging platforms
– have come to be considered the
animated siblings of emojis, often
deemed the “next step” in visual
language innovation after emojis themselves. Propagated by a similar user
base, the popularity of GIFs is also
growing at a rapid pace, riding on the
explosion of video consumption across
social media, messaging, and (in fact)
the Internet. Several brands have
noticed this trend and are, again, seen
innovating in the space.
ESPN, for example, has compiled a
library of animated GIFs commemorating moments and players, such as
the top 10 U.S. National Basketball
Association (NBA) players.29
Preparing for hyper-personalization
The next stage in image-based communications, beyond animation, will belong
to the world of hyper-personalization.
Take Snapchat, for example, a leading
proponent of visual language innovation and the importance of creating
authentic, timely, and creative branded
content. Not only have brands evolved
their strategies to fit the platform, but
the platform itself has also matured to
encompass users’ habits and desires.
Its collection of lenses and filters
prompts users to introduce their faces
– their selves – into the visual communication tool itself. Much like usergenerated content, this ability to
combine physical realities with digital
language pushes the boundaries of
technology and storytelling into the hyper-personalized realm that consumers
revel in (hello, Millennials).
Success is thinking like an
“anthromojist”
Language is
changing. Emojis,
stickers, and GIFs
are signals that
a communication
shift is well
underway.
Like an anthropologist, brands need
to study the social customs, artifacts,
rituals, patterns, and values of their
consumers to understand (and even
anticipate) their changing tastes.
Brands should deeply monitor emoji,
sticker, GIF, and all visual language
usage in order to identify opportunities for meeting and exceeding users’
expectations through relevant content,
tools, and services.
The imperative is clear: Language is
changing. Emojis, stickers, and GIFs
– along with their adoption and use –
are signals that a communication shift
is well underway. Brands should pay
heed to these visual tools and the platforms that facilitate their usage. In order
to communicate with their consumers
and remain relevant, marketers need to
know where people spend their time,
how they express themselves, and what
tools they turn to.
Visit ESPN to get a glimpse of these animated GIFs. ESPN. “NBARANK Animated GIFs 5-1.” http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11777975/nbarank-animated-gifs-5-1.
29
16
Context is critical. With a deeper understanding of consumers’ online behaviors, especially in social and chat apps,
brands can discover relevant ways of
connecting with their consumers via
visual language tools that have yet to
be envisioned.
As with any new language, intimacy
builds over the course of multiple
conversations as opposed to one-off
campaigns. When a brand does decide
to create stickers, for example, it should
think more like a publisher and less
like a campaign marketer. Part of the
success of the Brown and Cony characters on LINE is that there is a steady
stream of new sticker packs in themes
like Valentine’s Day and Christmas.
There’s longevity in forming that kind
of brand-to-consumer relationship.
To begin innovating within this
visual language space, cultivate
emojiable strategies, and become
a part of consumers’ conversations,
marketers should:
LEARN
Study your consumers’ current and
future visual vocabularies to understand
what words and images are appropriate
to use when talking to them.
LISTEN
Expand your social listening efforts to
include visuals.
CREATE
Create opportunities where you can
engage with or fuel your consumers’
conversations. Work with your agencies
and identify new vendor partners for
both ongoing and visual campaign
opportunities.
EXPERIMENT
Engage with visuals to explore and
measure engagement. For example,
start a pilot program that allows your
consumers to text customer service using emojis. Better yet, could you write
an agency brief that was all in visuals
(like emojis)?
QUESTION
Can your brand guidelines incorporate
how to handle emojis, stickers, GIFs,
shareable images, and others of the sort?
TRAVEL
Get off your butt and go to Asia, especially Japan and China. Witness the
cultures who use – better said, propagate – these tools first-hand, meet with
their citizens, and talk to local agencies.
These insights will be a source of inspiration and will allow you to lead, instead
of copying what others are doing.
CATALYZE
Remember that this is your customers’
language. You want to help people tell
their own stories with some of your
content. It’s not about burger and fries
emojis, it’s about helping your consumers
to tell their nuanced stories with
delightful and thoughtful images, tools,
and services.
Our biggest suggestion, however, is for
marketers to simply walk the walk – or
text the text. The first step is to stop
thinking of the news and trends that
you read as being just fads for young
kids. Then, you and everyone in your
team, department, or agency should
start exploring the visual language
landscape. Prompt them to download
and use WhatsApp, LINE, WeChat,
Snapchat, or others. Prompt them to
learn by doing.
17
Rob Murray
Director of Consumer Intelligence,
SapientNitro New York
rmurray@sapient.com
Rob leads the experience strategy team for
SapientNitro’s Consumer Intelligence practice.
The practice uses best-in-class strategy and insight
methods, frameworks and tools to provide rich strategic insights informed by a contextual understanding of people’s behaviors. His team of strategists help
clients drive transformative omni-channel customer
experiences and digital business transformation.
Emily Twomey
Senior Account Director Luxury & Beauty,
SapientNitro New York
etwomey@sapient.com
Emily is a Northeast marketing lead for SapientNitro. She is responsible for driving regional integrated
marketing strategy and execution in line with
SapientNitro's business goals.
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