Everyone loves emoji, which are cute mini pictures that convey simple ideas. The emoji keyboard as we know it today first appeared on the iPhone in 2011 with the release of iOS 5 (Cultofmac). It slowly increased in popularity over the years due to word of mouth on how to enable it until apple took notice and finally made the emoji keyboard enabled by default with the release of iOS 8 on September 17th, 2014 (Getemoji). Ad Age says that emoji started showing up in ads in 2014 and in 2015 there were enough emoji ads for Ad Age to make a top 10 emoji ads article this past December. (Ad Age)
Ad Ages number 1 Emoji advertising campaign was Dominos revealing that customers can order pizza by tweeting a pizza emoji at them. (Ad Age) The service started on May 20th of last year. (USA Today) The ordering works by accessing a customer's profile saved in Domino's Easy Order system. (Mashable) This worked out very well for dominos because after 6 months of the service running people were ordering pizza with emojis four times more than people who were texting dominoes to order. (Ad Age)
— ℳakayla. (@Makaylalee322) February 8, 2014Another food related Emoji marketing campaign started out of people tweeting at taco bell how they were not happy that there were Burger, Fries and Pizza emoji but there was no taco emoji. Taco Bell seeing this as a good marketing potential started a change.org petition asking the Unicode Consortium to approve the taco emoji for use in iPhones and Androids. (Change.org) Believe it or not, all emojis that are added to the emoji keyboard on both android and iPhone have to get approved by the Unicode Consortium first which is, a non-profit corporation that regulates the coding standards for written computer text that includes emojis. (Unicode.org) The petition gained almost 33,000 signatures after seven months and on June 17th, 2015, The Unicode Consortium Approved the emoji for use in android and iPhone. The taco emoji was added to the iPhone on October 21st, 2015 with the iOS 9.1 update.
The impact of emojis on the future of social media advertising will continue for as long as society keeps using them though I believe the usage will decrease it is still a great way for companies advertising to stand out from the crowd. For example, Twitter allows for companies to be able to use special custom emojis seen above with these specifically being able to be used during the SuperBowl. The price of a custom emoji? 1 Million dollars worth of advertising according to Adweek. These custom emojis are hashtag specific and will appear next to the hashtag only on twitter. These custom Hashtags are part of the 17 custom hashtag twitter has made to date. (Adweek)🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮🌮— Taco Bell (@tacobell) October 21, 2015
Emojis are great to use in advertising now and for the future but I see advertisers toning down their usage because no one can understand an ad that is in all emoji and ads that try to convey a complex idea as a string of emojis is just confusing their target audience. Ads in all emoji that clearly represent something will continue to do well like bud lights July 4th post last summer. Emoji advertising works much better if the message is clear instead of a mystery.
Bibliography🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸— Bud Light (@budlight) July 4, 2014
🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸#4thofJuly
"The State of Digital Brand Advertising" Nielsen.com. 2014. Web.
9to5 Staff. "Standard Emoji Keyboard Arrives to IOS 5, Here's How to Enable It." 9to5Mac. 2011. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.
"Ios 8 Emoji Keyboard Is Enabled by Default." Emoji Blog. 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.
Horovitz, Bruce. "Domino's to Roll out Tweet-a-pizza." USA Today. Gannett, 14 May 2015. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.
Johnson, Lauren. "Twitter's Branded Emojis Come With a Million-Dollar Commitment." AdWeek. 2 Feb. 2016. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.
Kaye, Kate. "The Top Ten Emoji Campaigns of 2015." Advertising Age. 14 Dec. 2015. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.
Strange, Adario. "Domino's Will Now Let You Order Pizza through Twitter via Emoji." Mashable. 13 May 2015. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.
https://www.tacobell.com/feed/tacoemoji
http://www.unicode.org/emoji/
https://www.change.org/p/unicode-consortium-the-taco-emoji-needs-to-happen-2
Zach,
ReplyDeleteI really like this blog and I think the idea of using emojis in advertising is very interesting, and I do agree that adds that strictly use emojis can get very confusing. A good example of that happening is the new Deadpool ad. It is a billboard ad using the skull emoji (dead) the poop emoji (poo) and then a capital letter L. It took me a while to figure out what this ad meant. I think that a lot of marketing teams will be continuing to struggle to figure out what is a clear message, and what is not.
One of the articles talks about how there are more people using messaging platforms then using social media platforms. In fact, according to Ad Age, messaging platforms already have a 25% bigger audience then social media. (Ad Age). Because of this it makes sense for companies to start using emojis in their advertisements. Not only are audiences seeing these emoji ads on social media, and other advertisements but I believe that they are more likely to relate the emoji with the company when using these emojis on messaging platforms. Zach, you bring up a good example of this in your blog. Taco Bell using their fans to get a taco emoji placed in the new IOS software. Now, many of the fans who use the taco emoji correlate it with Taco Bell. Essentially it is free advertising for Taco Bell, and a genius marketing campaign.
I think that emoji use also has to do with convenience. By being able to just tweet at Domino’s the pizza emoji to order pizza makes things incredibly easy for the consumer. This trend towards convenience is not surprising and marketing teams are working diligently to target this audience. This can also be seen with social media buy buttons. According to Sarah Hazlack in her Washington Post article “1 out of every 5 minutes spent on a mobile phone is on Facebook or Instagram.” It only makes sense for companies to target on these sites. In fact “buyable pins” on Pinterest are generation a lot of interest. That same Washingotn Post article talks about a clothing company called Spool no. 72 who uses these buyable pins saw that “84% of its costumers who have purchased with buyable pins are ones that had not bought from the store before” (Hazlack). New consumers are shopping with convenience now, instead of having to browse the web for what they are looking for, it is now a one stop shop. You can see an outfit you like, click one button and it’s yours. Much like how you can just tweet an emoji at Domino’s and you can order a pizza.
Work Cited
Halzack, Sarah. "Why the Social Media 'Buy Button' Is Still There, Even Though Most Never Use It." The Washington Post. N.p., 14 Jan. 2016. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.
Pineiro, Victor. "Five Social Trends Marketers Won't Be Able to Ignore in 2016." Advertising Age DigitalNext RSS. N.p., 16 Dec. 2015. Web. 08 Feb. 2016.
The use of emojis in advertising is a extremely clever marketing strategy. Todays up coming generations are tech savvy and always seek connivence and clarity in daily activities and tasks. The way the world functions today is built around user friendliness. It shows that companies have done there research when they are present in all social media outlets. This is how they really connect with their target markets and consumers. Providing advertising that appeals to this group will be extremely effective in the long run for the company.
ReplyDeleteThe use of emojis is a genius way to engage consumers in providing free advertising for the company. For example, Dominoes pizza ordering through a pizza emoji offers convince when ordering. This is how todays generation functions is through connivence and they are also always searching for anyway to save time.
I found this blog entry to be very compelling. When I first heard about Dominos using emojis as a way to order, I thought it wouldn't be able to really work or catch on. As you pointed out, the ideas of emojis within advertising is expanded everyday. There is definitely power with emojis and todays tech savvy generation. Taco Bell and fans were able to make such an impact a whole new emoji was added.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that came to mind when I was reading your blog post was how television shows are now using emojis as well. Just last year, the American Music Awards used emojis to promote their award show. When you tweeted #AMAs with one of performers name a limited time emoji appeared next to the hashtag. This was a brilliant way for the AMAs to promote their show.
They had a different emoji for each artist. There were dozens of different emojis for the performers of the show. The AMAs is a fan based award show. Most of the awards are voted for by fans, so, this was a great way for the AMAs to promote their show. They were able to team up with Twitter and create a marketing scheme that almost ran itself. By giving fans emojis, the AMAs were able to generate all of this free marketing. It's incredible how something that was meant to be silly and fun, like emojis, can be adapted for marketing.
These branded hashtags were something that Twitter was really able to capitalize on. Brands like Dominos started bringing these emojis to social media networks like Twitter, and they were able to see the kind of impact it made. Branded emojis were the perfect way for Twitter to look at brands and find a way to make some money. In an article by Ad Week called "How Branded Hastag Emoji is Taking Over Twitter," the author shares that Coca-Cola was one of the first companies to use the Twitter branded hashtags, "it was widely successful as soon as it launched, with more than 170,500 mentions globally in the first 24 hours" (Lafferty 1). So, not only is it a great way for companies to advertise, but it's a great way for social media sites to make money on advertising as well.
Lafferty, Justin. "How the Branded Hashtag Emoji Is Taking Over Twitter."
SocialTimes. Ad Week, 01 Dec. 2015. Web.
Katherine Chirillo
ReplyDeleteDr. Burns
MSS 495
8 February 2016
The Economics of Media: Advertising and Audiences
Zach,
For the most part your blog entry supports the idea that marketing through social media is how advertisers will better reach millennials. I have to say that I agree with Joe that this is a very interesting topic. I also agree with his point that using an emoji in an ad is a good example of companies utilizing the convenience factor. This easily accessible side of marketing goes perfectly with the stereotypical image of a “lazy” millennial. If all it takes to get a pizza is a tweet, there may be more people, especially in that age range, ordering a large pepperoni on thin crust.
How companies decide to get their advertisements through with emojis is definitely a little more complex than one would think. In the article from Ad Age, “Five Social Trends Marketers Won't Be Able to Ignore in 2016”, the very first social trend to pay attention to was the emergence of messaging platforms over social networks where people post daily. The article states, “Branded emoji keyboards are a strong first step into this space, but we'll need more innovation…”(Pineiro). I can agree with this statement, and based off of your blog post I think the best way to do this is at a seemingly minimal level. What if the large corporations owned one or two of their own emojis that appear in a normal keyboard? This would allow them to send their messages without seeming invasive or even too complicated.
Why implement words when you can use a perfectly good image? However, that’s also where advertisers have to be careful. You and Joe both point out that just using emojis can be confusing at times. That’s why I think they are perfect vehicles for advertising as long as these symbols are conveying a very basic and straightforward message. If the message is not simple the consumer will most likely not receive the meaning correctly.
This leads me to another point about confusing messages in advertising. The Huffington Post Article concerning the expensive ads in this year’s Super Bowl really hit home with this one. I agree with the author, Ira Kalb, that many people watch this sporting event just for the commercials, and that’s not just because I am one of them. This would then seem like a perfect opportunity for a company to reach a very large audience, but maybe not. The commercials are so expensive in the first place, and what happens when your investment is not even effective? The article explains that the problem is that many of the commercials go for a level of entertainment or shock value as opposed to selling their products (Kalb). I can completely agree with this. Many of the commercials this year were in a way so random that they were forgettable. In this case of advertising a simple message, like an emoji, would have been a much better fit.
Works Cited
Kalb, Ira. "Super Bowl Ads Provide a Great Way for Advertisers to Waste $6 Million." Huffington Post 20 Jan. 2016. Web.
Peneiro, Victor. "Five Social Trends Marketers Won't Be Able to Ignore in 2016." Ad Age. 16 Dec. 2015. Web.
Zach,
ReplyDeleteI thought your blog post was really clear, relevant, and would be of interest to anyone with an smartphone. It's truly a phenomenon that a small cartoon-like picture can get a big message across to the public. This is the perfect tactic for millennials, considering we are an image-driven generation. Let's face it, we can be lazy, and these little pictures are convenient. Convenient enough that we don't even need to pick up the phone to dial a number anymore, we can just Tweet out a pizza emoji to get a Domino's at your front door step. Not only is this convenient and user friendly, but it automatically makes Domino's one of the most genius establishments for advertising.
The one thing I find interesting about the emoji phenomenon is the temporary emojis. For example: the #ShareACoke emojis that Coca-Cola started advertising. Working in conjunction with Twitter, Coca-Cola created a custom hashtag in September that automatically generates a branded emoji recognized the world over. The brand reported #ShareaCoke was used over 170,500 times globally in the first day. When I read that you mentioned the price of a custom emoji was 1 million dollars, I was a shocked.
Emoji's are trendy. In order to keep up with an audience, it is important to keep up with trends. All of these companies are using the best marketing strategies they can to keep their audience interested. Emoji's are a huge method to attract an audience. "According to data from eMarketer, there are nearly 2 billion smartphone users worldwide, and 41.5 billion messages and 6 billion emoticons or stickers are sent around the world every day on mobile messaging apps, according to branded digital startup Swyft Media. Most important, emojis represent a marked cultural shift in the vernacular toward a more visual form of communication, presenting brands with an opportunity to convey their messages even more creatively. For linguists, emojis add the zing to communication, going beyond the vanilla semantic part of language and making it more fun and expressive."
Emoji has also given other Apps room to be creative and use different versions of emojis on different platforms. My new trendy obsession has been the "BitMoji". For anyone that hasn't heard of Bitmoji, it is an emoji app that allows you to create your own avatar to look exactly like you. It gives emoji personality, and it's way more personal. The emojis are hilarious, and is a reflection off your own personality. I use them a lot via text message, and sometimes post them on Twitter.
I completely agree with you when you said "The impact of emojis on the future of social media advertising will continue for as long as society keeps using them though I believe the usage will decrease it is still a great way for companies advertising to stand out from the crowd." Like FaceBook, SnapChat, and Instagram, these are things that aren't dying out. Neither will emoji's. They are vital to communication, and now they are on their way to becoming necessary for advertising.
http://digiday.com/brands/emojification-brand-advertising/
http://adage.com/article/digital/top-ten-emoji-campaigns-2015/301687/
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteZach,
ReplyDeleteI think the way that you approached this topic was awesome. I think emojis are becoming more and more popular each day and that advertisements can go a bit overboard with how much they use them. I also feel like emojis have taken over our lives in a way. Using emojis has almost become its own language and people can have entire conversations just using emojis and they will know exactly what the other person is saying. It is also important to think of how far emojis have come. It started for only iPhone users and then Androids were added. Today, there are over 300 new emojis to chose from that come in all different races and allow for endless possibilities. It has gone to the most extreme when Oxford Dictionaries word of the year for 2015 was the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji. It was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015. It’s insane to think that we have replaced actual words with tiny little pictures.
In “Five Social Trends Marketers Won't Be Able to Ignore in 2016,” Messaging platforms are growing rapidly and are expected to expand from 2.5 billion to 3.6 billion global users by 2018 (Pineiro). This growth shows how much we value our communication. It is not just about sharing photos or video anymore it is about being able to talk with whoever whenever. So since there are a lot of people using messaging apps it only makes sense that companies would aim there more for advertising. Networking sites are being compared to “Hotel California”, which describes them perfectly. You may be off your phone but you are always thinking about what is going on online (Pineiro). We have come to the point where technology has taken over our lives and the thought of being without technology is scary.
The old fashion way of ordering a pizza was replaced with online ordering, and online order has been replaced with emoji ordering? Part of me does not know whether to laugh at Dominos or applaud them because I never thought that ordering a pizza with an emoji would be possible. As consumers, we always need to be updated on all the new advances in technology, and as things becoming easier and easier our attention span is becoming smaller and smaller. The normal process of ordering a pizza has just taken us too long and we need a much shorter way to get what we wanted because we physically can’t wait. Although there is a large amount of people who will be purchasing pizza on Twitter there is another large amount that won’t because shoppers frequently say they don’t buy on their smartphones because it is a hassle to enter payment information and go through a checkout process on the small screen (Halzack).
Work Cited
Halzack, Sarah. "Why the Social Media 'Buy Button' Is Still There, Even Though Most Never Use It." The Washington Post. N.p., 14 Jan. 2016.
Pineiro, Victor. "Five Social Trends Marketers Won't Be Able to Ignore in 2016." Advertising Age DigitalNext RSS. N.p., 16 Dec. 2015.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteZach,
ReplyDeleteThis was a really cool approach for a blog post, and I have to agree with a lot of what you said especially how companies should keep their emojis clear and concise.
It is crazy for me to think about how a simple emoji keyboard has transformed the way that messages are conveyed on social media platforms. Due to their popularity in every day texting situations, I can see why companies are now using them to their advantage.
Nothing is done without a purpose, and including a custom emoji with a hashtag is an excellent branding strategy for artists, companies, and major events to increase buzz. Taking the Super Bowl into consideration, since it just passed, I would like to touch on the use of a custom emoji for a shorter commercial time slot. According to your reference, “A whopping 86 percent of U.S. smartphone owners say they use their devices as second-screens while watching TV" (Nielsen). In this case, a good percentage of people will be checking Twitter for updates even during commercials so if a company chose to include a custom hashtag then they would be increasing their brand awareness greatly.
Something about having a little picture show up at the end of their tweet makes people giddy with excitement. This is a good thing, and should be used to a companies advantage, because those are the emotions that they want to play off of in order to sell their product. Having a 20 second well thought out commercial with a call to action connecting people to Twitter could be more beneficial than paying $200,000 per second. Yes that’s right – my college tuition means nothing because it only pays for a second of a Super Bowl ad. In addition to this “When you look at the data, Super Bowl ads are typically not very good investments” (Kalb). This is because a company tends to focus all of their efforts on a 30 second commercial all the while ignoring their options that reach large engaging audiences.
A Super Bowl commercial is just that – a commercial. If a company wants to experience a healthy ROI then it needs to take advantage of a platform such as Twitter, which engages with its audience members. Something as simple as having a big company favorite an audience members tweet could give them a leg up in sales over their competitor. Another reason why companies should look to other platforms during major events is because, “According to a post by Jack Neff in Ad Age, a study shows that 80 percent of Super Bowl ads don't improve sales” (Kalb).
I am probably one of the biggest commercial critics out there (self-proclaimed of course), but if I see a commercial and I don’t see the relevance to the product then there is an immediate disconnect in my mind. If companies were to have a well thought out commercial that was short and sweet with a call to action to Twitter with a custom emoji hashtag then people would be more apt to engage with the commercial because most of them will have access to Twitter with the touch of a finger. According to a study done by Nielsen, “49% [of people] say they watch live video programming content more if it has a social media tie in” (Nielsen). Therefore, rather than wasting money companies should look to emojis for answers.
Works Cited:
"Advertising & Audiences: State of the Media, May 2014." Nielsen.com. May 2014. Web.
Kalb, Ira. "Super Bowl Ads Provide a Great Way for Advertisers to Waste $6 Million." Huffington Post 09 Feb. 2016. Web.
“Screen Wars: The Battle for Eye Space in a TV-Everywhere World.” Nielsen.com. Accessed 09 Feb. 2016. Web.
Zach, this blog stood out to me because emojis are something I use on a daily basis. Being a millennial I can see why many companies would want to start to use the Emoji in social media advertising to help make ads appeal to us. Like it said in the article we read for class Myths About Millennials, gen exes and millennials are operating in this world with a completely different perspective. I agree with this statement because I believe millennials look at things differently as well as value different things. I think we can have the same goal but we will use different means or something we value more for example Dominos using emojis on twitter in this case oppose to something thats always been used in the past such as a newspaper or tv ad. As you mentioned in your blog, Nielsen reported that social media advertising has been increasing each year and that one of the reasons behind that is the amount of usage of cell phones, because so many people are always on their phones (even while watching tv) many companies and advertisers want to keep up and in a way have to keep up with the millennials and the emojis are whats trending right now.
ReplyDeleteEveryone loves emojis, and I think Dominos was very smart when they decided to come up with the twitter emoji pizza ordering idea. I know me and my friends when we come home after a long night out we always use their app to order pizza. I didn't even know that you could text dominos because that would be even easier! They're so up to speed with millennials because now that you can just tweet a pizza emoji that would make our life so much easier than trying to order on the app. I am not surprised that they are selling four times more pizza than when you could only text them. It’s crazy to think about how when the app came out it was supposed to be a much easier way to for people to order and now its down to a simple pizza emoji, thats all it takes.
Because millennials grew up texting, using Facebook, and twitter they are used to immediate responses and being able to connect with anyone in the world instantly. In the articles Millennials vs. Baby Boomers - Who Would You Rather Hire they talked about how even in the work place we strive for immediate feedback unlike older times where we would wait for our work review once every six months or even once a year.
Another thing I found interesting about your blog is how you mentioned that new emojis have to get approved by the Unicode Consortium. I am sure many companies wants emojis now and even people have been asking for emojis, ex. the middle finger emoji. I surprised that got approved recently by the Unicode Consortium.
I agree with you when you said that the future of social media advertising will continue as long ass society keeps them. Until the next new thing comes out and companies have to adjust and think of new ways to advertise.
Marston, Cam. "Myths About Millennials: Understand the Myths to Retain Millennials." About.com. Accessed Jan. 3, 2014. Web.
Schwabel, Dan. "Millennials vs. Baby Boomers - Who Would You Rather Hire?" Time 29 March 2012. Web.
MaryKate Lavan
ReplyDelete2/9/16
Zach,
I think that this is a really interesting topic to consider when looking at the changing landscape of social media advertising. I really do believe that, as you say, social media advertising is increasing at rapid rates because of our smartphone use while watching television. It is also really interesting to see how emojis have now shaped our experiences online and in ordering a product. The fact that Dominos started a new system of tweeting emojis to order is pretty clever; I am also fascinated by the fact that people were ordering four times more than people who were texting orders in. It seems that for this example emojis are really a great move on Dominos part because one, it is an easily understood system and two; it creates repeat customers and a sort of loyalty to the brand.
It is also kind of insane to think that the price of a custom emoji is $1 million worth of advertising as you mention from Adweek. While this is an interesting approach I would agree that sometimes the message could be ambiguous and lead to further confusion. As you state, the message needs to be clear for more people to understand what the company is trying to state. I don’t think anyone can be expected to buy, or at least be interested in a product/brand that is not clearly defined in some way. As mentioned, I believe that Dominos does a nice job of putting forth their brand while also encouraging more social media use. In relation to the “buy button” in Sarah Halzack’s article I do think there is some use to this concept if knowledge and awareness is created. While emojis might be a bit different, this is still an applicable scenario in which companies like Dominos are looking to expand their brand on social media while also bringing in repeat customers. An emoji allows the process to be a bit different from the norm and also ties in social media. In the future, Dominos could also expand this system by creating other emojis to perhaps adjust the order while still allowing for the same overall experience. While some might think of this as a cryptic way of ordering it seems that this might be a lucrative business venture.
It is also important to note the high prices of Super Bowl emojis when looking at the potential value they might have toward a brand. Ira Kalb provides a nice explanation and critique of this expensive advertising attempt. I agree that the main cause in creating a commercial and even an emoji is to sell the product but if an ad does not do this then there really is no point to it. So while custom emojis seem nice, if they do not help sell the product there is really no gain. I would also agree with your point about the future of emojis. While I think they are really interesting and eye-catching at times, they can also be confusing and might take away from the overall goal of increasing sales. That being said, I do think that if the emoji is strongly recognized and well received, such as the pizza and taco ones, that it might help the brand as long as it is easily identified and cohesive.
Works Cited
Halzack, Sarah. "Why the Social Media 'Buy Button' Is Still There, Even Though Most Never Use It." The Washington Post. N.p., 14 Jan. 2016. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.
Kalb, Ira. "Super Bowl Ads Provide a Great Way for Advertisers to Waste $6 Million." Huffington Post 20 Jan. 2016. Web.
Zach,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting topic idea. I've been pretty blind to the impact that emojis have had on our current time. They used to be just fun things to send to your friends or put in their contact name on their phone. But now I see them used in things like snapchat, Facebook, and they're basically found all over the internet. If I want a pizza from Dominos, all I have to do is send them a pizza emoji and they'll get me my order. The commercials for these, endorsed by celebrities, were a brilliant move by the company. I expect many more companies will take this route in the future.
It makes sense that companies would start to use emojis to advertise their brand. Emojis and emoticons are kind of how we express emotion through text. So much of our conversations nowadays are through texting or type, and even if we type something like "I'm sorry" or "I love you", things that should contain a lot of meaning, it can be hard to express that emotion just through letters. Emojis help us get our points across in ways that we can't just through typing. If you add a heart, it can mean something different than adding a tongue out face. Emojis being used by companies seems like a no brainer. Even Monica Lewinsky is using them in her new advocation for preventing cyber-bullying (Lewinsky).
It's understandable that millennials can be hard to reach sometimes. When adults often look down on us, or criticize us for our behavior, it can be damaging and it creates a hostile relationship between the boomers and us. Using emojis, or "our language", in a sense, is a kind of a peace offering between the two groups. It's like an acceptance of our culture. 4 out of 10 millennials prefer pictures to words (Winfrey) so it's very smart of companies to use emojis in order to reach the younger generations.
Lewinsky, Monica. "Monica Lewinsky: Meet the New Emoji Tool to Combat Cyberbullying." Vanity Fair. 8 Feb. 2016. Web. .
Winfrey, Graham. "How Brands Are Using Emojis to Win Over Millennials." Inc.com. 2015. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.
Hi Zach!
ReplyDeleteIt seems as if you had a lot of fun writing this blog, it is so relevant and interesting to see how many companies have turned to social media and emoticons to get the attention of their viewers. It is almost sad that we resort to a simple emoji to express or emotion or our craving for a pizza. At the same time I love them because when I saw something to someone I can use a fun emoji to show my expression as if we were talking face to face. The first paragraph of Advertising & Audience dives right into how advertising companies are rapidly changing with our tech-savvy ways, “The advertising landscape is evolving at an unprecedented rate, influenced largely by two factors: media fragmentation and population shifts. Changes in the population are creating a younger, more diverse, more tech-savvy consumer base. Identifying how to reach them has become more complicated due to an exploding number of viewing options.” (Nielson). Advertising companies hit the nail on the head with incorporating emoticons into their marketing campaign, especially companies in the food and beverage industries.
I recall seeing the Dominoes commercial for the first time and thinking to myself, “there is no way this is going to work.” I couldn’t grasp tweeting a pizza emoticon to Dominoes would place the exact and specific order I am looking for. Now it makes a little more since that they use a customer profile, but I am not on that level with Dominoes and I don’t think I ever will be. It is shocking that this ordering system is actually working for the company. I guess it is a fun way to place an order especially after a night out with friends. As for Taco Bell, they hit the jackpot with starting a petition for a taco emoji. This campaign all stemmed from a silly request from people wanting a taco emoji! I am curious as to how many times these people have used the taco emoji since it was released.
Another advertising campaign that immediately came to mind while reading your blog is McDonalds all-day breakfast. They made a commercial targeting millennials tweeting things such as, “yo McDonalds serving breakfast all day now? (Five go ham emojis) #bae.” Their advertisement contains emojis, slang words like “bae” and so on to get the attention of their young viewers. McDonald’s advertising campaign really hit the “three Rs”—reach, resonance, and reaction.” (Nielson). This was along time coming for McDonalds and I think they struck gold with their timing of announcing all-day breakfast.
When I came across this article about Twitter striking a million-dollar deal with Pepsi and Budweiser on advertising packages, I was shocked. The most important piece to the package is the creation of their personal emoji, as seen for the first time during Superbowl 50. “Anheuser-Busch has created two distinct emojis for Budweiser and Bud Light; the latter’s Twitter ad spree will tie-in to its highly publicized ‘The Bud Light Party” promos, starring Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen.” (Digital Trends). Seven-figures spent on emojis is a bit extreme. I think for the first 10 minutes it will be cool but like all things it will fade away and quickly.
Finally, I think the use of emojis for advertising works for companies like Dominoes, Taco Bell and Bud Light but I have seen commercials that are a “string” of emojis that made it difficult to get their point across. I completely agree with you in that, “Emojis are great to use in advertising now and for the future but I see advertisers toning down their usage because no one can understand an ad that is in all emoji.” Emojis work for some people but not for all. Advertising use of emojis will definitely simmer down once something comes along.
Works Cited
"Advertising & Audiences: State of the Media, May 2014." Nielsen.com. May 2014. Web.
Shah, Saqib. "Twitter Is Reportedly Charging Brands a Million Dollars for an Official Emoji." Digital Trends. N.p., 03 Feb. 2016. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.
I agree with Zach when he says that emojis are the future in advertisements, at least, for as long as they are relevant. I remember watching the TV advertisement for Dominos and was amazed at the effortlessness of ordering pizza now with just a single emoji. Millennials look for simplicity in their lives when it comes to their messaging platforms, using abbreviations and faces to say what they are feeling as opposed to words alone, so why not bring that simplicity to advertising? Messaging platforms are continuing to dominate around the world and by 2018 it is expected that 3.6 billion global users will be actively using messaging platforms (Pineiro). Emojis will continue being the next big thing because pictures are more universal than words. As long as emojis are around I can definitely see them being more prominent in advertising in upcoming years.
ReplyDeleteThe one issue that Zach addressed, and I agree with, is that emojis can be confusing sometimes. I know, for me, that when I want to send a single emoji on how I am feeling I can get easily confused by what each emoji is really trying to convey, as opposed to what I think it is saying. In the future I do not believe advertising companies should go directly to emojis because everyone has their own interpretation of what each emoji means and in advertising what you are trying to say should be clear cut. The issue with Super Bowl advertisements is the fact that the products or brands aren’t blatantly advertised. Instead of using their 30-second air time to promote their brand, companies, “’blow it’ by focusing on the entertainment value of the commercials and neglecting what should be the main focus – selling the product,” (Kalb). I feel that emojis will have the same effect as Super Bowl ads in a way; trying to appease to the younger audiences but the message may be blurred by multiple interpretations from various users.
Emojis may be a good advertisement strategy at the moment, but only as long as the message is very clear. I don’t have a Twitter so I didn’t know some companies had created their own custom emojis. For the price of 1 million dollars you can create your own emoji, tailored to your company, and there would no longer be confusion by the generalized emojis that everyone knows. Taco Bell has their taco emoji, Pepsi has their soda can, and Bud Light has their bottle cap. There is no confusion because we know the brands and what they are selling; they show you right in the emoji. If all companies put in an investment towards a customized emoji, emoji advertisements could be more prominent in the advertising industry.
Works Cited
Kalb, Ira. "Super Bowl Ads Provide a Great Way for Advertisers to Waste $6 Million." Huffington Post 20 Jan. 2016. Web.
Pineiro, Victor. "Five Social Trends Marketers Won't Be Able to Ignore in 2016." Advertising Age DigitalNext RSS. N.p., 16 Dec. 2015.