Saying it all in not so many words

Pop culture blends into marketing strategy, and even becomes the word of the year, as Oxford Dictionaries has shown with its choice of ‘selfie’ and the ‘tears of joy’ emoji in 2013 and 2015. Emojis have been around since the late Nineties, but their use skyrocketed in 2015. Oxford University Press partnered with Swiftkey, a mobile technology business, to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world, and the ‘tears of joy’ emoji was chosen as it was the most used emoji globally in 2015, says a blog post on the Oxford Dictionaries website.

SwiftKey found that it constituted 20 per cent of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015, and 17 per cent of those in the US: a sharp rise from 4 per cent and 9 per cent respectively in 2014. The word emoji too has seen a similar rise; usage more than tripled in 2015 over the previous year, according to data from the Oxford Dictionaries Corpus.

Six billion a day This, and a couple of other reasons, were why Vodafone launched the Zoozoo emoji last week on Twitter, says Siddharth Banerjee, National Head, Brand Communication and Insights, Vodafone India. A study attributed to SwyftMedia has it that 6 billion emojis are sent out everyday. “The Zoozoos are lovable creatures and we want to keep reinventing and refreshing them. Traditionally, they have been active around IPL and other cricket tournaments, so we were connecting all these aspects,” says Banerjee.

The emoji comes on when users use #HakkeBakke or #BeSuper. You could even be saying #BeSuper about Rajnikanth’s Kabali teaser, and the Zoozoo emoji would make an appearance! “Absolutely!” says Banerjee. “The whole logic is that it’s extremely simple. Brands cannot get greedy about their own brand name. This hashtag is about being a superhero everyday, with a kind word or a kind act.”

Vodafone India says its Zoozoo emoji is India’s first corporate emoji. Last year, Twitter collaborated with the Union Government to launch a ‘Make in India’ emoji. Taranjeet Singh, Business Head - India, Twitter, was quoted in a press release as saying that innovation through custom emojis enhances a brand’s personality and engagement. A post on Twitter’s blog in November 2015 on the use of emojis to discuss TV shows says 86 per cent of emoji users are 24 years of age or younger and nearly half are aged between 18 and 24. Across all of those who Tweeted emojis about TV, 57 per cent are female.

Get customers talking Emojis humanise the written word, make conversations clearer, and add a fun element, a fact that many brands are capitalising on for better customer engagement. Facebook recently launched a range of emojis as an addition to its Like button, to make the emotions expressed more accurate. In the West, many brands have launched custom emojis, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Star Wars being just a few of them. When polling customers about something, brands are asking them to respond with emojis to add both clarity and foster involvement. US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton asked students to tell her how student loans made them feel in “3 emojis or less”. For a promotion, PepsiCo India made emojis of India Inc’s business leaders.

Are emojis just a fun thing or should they go beyond that to add some tangible value to the customer and the brand? Last year, ahead of World Aids Day on December 1, sexual wellbeing brand Durex launched an international campaign calling for the creation of the world’s first official safe sex emoji. It would help young people express themselves easier when discussing sex, and raise awareness and reduce the “worrying” apathy towards the subject, it said. Domino’s went a step ahead and enabled customers in the US to order a pizza by tweeting a pizza slice emoji.

At Goafest 2016 held earlier this month, Tara Marsh, Global Head – Content of ad agency group Wunderman, mentioned that visual communication of the emoji kind is only set to grow. She tells cat.a.lyst that the rise in messaging apps has contributed to the rise in emoji use.

“Humans are visual communicators. Consumer brands in particular have had a lot of success in mobile messaging by providing branded emoji keyboards – Dove’s curly hair keyboard, or the Starbucks keyboard.”

Marsh says logos and product and food images can be big hits. “You could say that most of the applications so far have been somewhat ‘gimmicky’ and more for fun than anything else - but the potential is clear.

“Anything that improves communication can be leveraged far beyond ‘fun’. For example, use of emojis to order products or in customer service conversations to explain what's wrong or provide advice, or to give feedback. It could improve efficiency and accuracy of understanding in all of these circumstances.”