Two new brand engagement campaigns launched this week demonstrate how emojis are influential in shaping a memorable brand sentiment and customer journey.

For the Millennial shopper, who expresses themselves and their experiences through technology, emojis are fast becoming the language of the digital age.  According to a recent survey by Talk Talk, 80% of the UK population use emojis on a regular basis.

There are nearly 2 billion smartphone users worldwide. As consumers become increasingly socially savvy and communication on mobile devices becomes more image based, emojis are becoming a universally effective brand engagement tool. After all, a picture can speak a thousand words.

A host of brands, such as IKEA, General Electric, WWF, Budweiser and Domino’s Pizza have all created their own branded emoticons to converse with their consumer in a new way.

From Mento’s branded ‘Ementicons’ to Coca-Cola’s ‘Emoticoke’, these social stickers are a new way to perform a similar role to tone of voice for the telephone communication and gestures, tones and facial expressions for face-to-face communication.

In celebration of its new Coconut Water, Innocent are the latest household name to raise their brand engagement game with an emoji led conversation. Yesterday, saw the pop-up of the world’s first ‘Emoji Café’ at Shoreditch’s BOXPARK (a hot bed of retail innovation and a Retail Safari of ours).

Innocent offered a touch of island life to East-London shoppers with a Tiki themed bar set out with deck chairs and a Caribbean steel band. A selection of coconut water mocktails could be conjured up with a social share of the Innocent watering hole, tagged with their unique emoji hashtag:

Coconut-themed beauty treatments were to be enjoyed and experienced too.

McDonalds are another brand to introduce emojification for its latest OOH offering, ‘Good Times’. Strategically placed in congested areas around London, the billboards depicted a series of 18 emojis; all well known traffic and roadworks symbols to reflect the city’s notoriously congested roads.  McDonalds even added in its own addition to represent a drive-thru.

With the size and scope of a connected audience growing, it will be interesting to see how emojification finds its place in the advertising landscape, and to observe which leading brands will be next to communicate with the Millennial consumer and how they in turn will engage and share their experiences with others.

If you’d like to discover the latest in retail innovation, please get in touch about our Retail Safaris!

Jemma Connor

Jnr. Account Manager