Emoji marketing is getting big for companies

From Disney to Durex and McDonald's to Dominos, global brands across entertainment, personal care, food & beverages are embracing emojis. The intelligent and crafty use of emojis in their brand messaging and in campaigns across traditional and social media is gaining in much traction. Experts say if brands, both big and small, mass-market or niche, premium or masstige do not leverage emojis in their marketing and messaging, they stand to lose in the face of stiff competition.

"Using emojis in marketing is a great way to connect with the millennials, as it is their preferred mode of communication on multiple app platforms. It has been discovered that when we look at a smiley face online, our mood changes and we might even alter our facial expressions to match the emotion of the emoticon. Brands have to adopt emojis," says Sonam Shah, founder and CEO, Treize Communications.

Says Shradha Agarwal, COO, Grapes Digital, "Emoji is equivalent to fun and at the same time are very engaging because people love to interact with these icons. This helps in bringing the engagement rate up for the brand. It also establishes the brand's personality to be more young, social and relevant for the millennial target audience."

A recent survey by Adobe of over a 1, 000 emoji users in the USA revealed that 44% respondents are more likely to make a purchase when products are advertised with an emoji. Moreover, 61% of respondents stated that they want brands to use emojis that match their personalities, while 51% felt that brands using emojis in their social media posts are more likely to get users to engage.

There is also industry research which states that Facebook posts that contain emojis garner 57% more likes and 33% greater engagement through comments and shares. On Instagram, the increase in comments is 50% on account of emojis, while on Twitter brands gain by having 25% more engagement with followers by using emojis.

However, despite the abundance of emojis, what brands need is a sound emoji marketing strategy, feel experts, "as it's no good merely placing one emoji after another in any random manner without a thought process."

There are multiple ways through which brands can create emoji campaigns, says Agarwal, as "right from "guess what this means'' posts to a full-fledged emoji engine, the choices are many."

According to Sahil Siddiqui, associate vice president- creative strategy, WATConsult, the beauty of emojis is the instinctive nature of their usage. "They may seem like just an extension of a common language, but linguistically speaking they have their own rules and grammar. This is where brands and creatives need to be careful and explore. Instead of taking emojis at just their 'face' value, respect the medium and challenge the audience,'' says Siddiqui.

Experts say brands should add a personal touch to their emoji marketing strategies. This begins by using emojis that are relevant to the brand vision, ethos and offerings. "Brands should figure out the kind of emojis used by their rivals and then zoom in on the kind of emojis that will work well for their target audience. The whole idea behind having emojis is to boost engagement and ultimately sales and revenues,'' say experts.

"Two of my favourite emoji-led campaigns are the Taco Bell emoji engine where they created the first emoji for Taco Bell and then with the help of a Twitter autoresponder, they celebrated the victory. People tweeted Taco emoji with 600 other emojis in order to get a surprise fun gif on their timeline. Another one is the animoji campaign where VLCC used iPhone's 8 animoji to break the Diwali clutter and drive engagement for the brand on social media,'' says Agarwal.

According to Siddiqui, easy recognition of the message by the audience and instant reduction in seriousness (if any) of the brand personality are obvious advantages to emoji marketing. "This makes it a great rebranding and repositioning tool. One largely overlooked aspect of emoji campaign is the colour palette they bring to a brand. For brands with stringent colour policies, emojis are a great way of exploring beyond their norms in a safe way. Lastly, all prominent platforms have support in-built for emojis. That makes it possible to focus only on communication in the absence of development needs.''

Experts feel emoji marketing also works out cost-effective for brands. "Although costs depend on the scale. To be honest, a simple emoji post will cost nothing as your current social agency will pull this for free. However, an emoji campaign also needs to be amplified in the media to get the right reach. But as compared to shooting a video with real people or celebs, emoji marketing is 1/10th of the cost," says Agarwal.

Irrespective of the advantages, emojis are unlikely to ever challenge the hold of celebrity ambassadors. Says Shah, "emojis will never take over celeb ambassadors of the brand. In fact, celeb endorsements will have to start including customised emojis in their campaigns as per their needs and requirements."