To Emoji or Not To Emoji? The Marketing Dos and Don'ts To Using Emojis

Ahh, the Emoji, a common part of our everyday lives. Whether it’s a reaction to your friend’s dog running in circles 😂, or your newly born niece looking incredibly cute 😍. The friendly little emojis have made their way into everything we do, including brand marketing. But, as we approach #WorldEmojiDay, let’s discuss how Emojis can (and cannot) work with your marketing strategy.

Before we delve into their uses, let’s dive into a bit of history first, after all these smiling friendly faces didn’t just appear by magic on our phones one day. Tracing Emojis back, they officially began in 1999 with a designer called Shigetaka Kurita, who designed 176 Emojis for the Japanese cell phone company NTT DOCOMO. Fun fact - the word Emoji is a blended word that comes from the Japanese words for ‘picture’ and ‘letter’.

Fast forwarding to the Emojis we know and love today (AKA the Apple ones 👋) these were first released as part of the iPhone OS 2.2 on the 21st of November 2008. They released a whopping 471 emojis, designed by Apple’s UI team: Raymond Sepulveda, Angela Guzman, and Ollie Wagner.

Today over 3,000 Emojis are in existence, being used across the globe in daily life - they even had their own movie in 2017 (with a not-so-impressive 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

The benefits of using emojis 

So now we know a little more about the background of Emojis, what exactly are the benefits of using Emojis in your marketing? Let’s start off with the obvious, whether you do or don’t use them or to what extent you might use them, depends on your audience base. Whilst it makes complete sense to include them in your marketing if you’re speaking to Gen Z audiences, it might not make sense to do that for older audiences such as the Millennials/Baby Boomers. But, why is this?

Younger audiences have been bought up with technology at their fingertips, not knowing a time before the internet has a big impact on how they are marketed to. Did you know that Apple classes Emojis as a language, and is actually used via its own keyboard? That’s exactly how Gen Z view emojis, a part of our language. 83% of Gen Zs are more comfortable expressing their emotions through emojis than through a phone call. So, with this in mind, there is a key benefit to using Emojis in your marketing if your brands target audience is a younger generation, allowing you to grab their attention and communicate with them in a quick, concise and emotional way.

If we take a look at Gen Z brands, we can see that they’ve grasped this notion and have successfully integrated Emojis into their marketing. For instance, in 2016, Dominos ran their first Gen Z campaign, ‘Tweet a Pizza’ where essentially the user could link their Twitter account to their Dominos profile and order a pizza simply by tweeting 🍕.

Other than thinking about specific audiences, emojis are a fantastic way of breaking the corporate feel of a brand, expressing emotion over copy, and of course, speaking internationally in a singular recognised language. However, as with all things in life, there are downsides.

The disadvantages to using emojis

So now we’ve spoken about the benefits, let’s have a look into the disadvantages of using Emojis in your marketing. An obvious point here again, is your audience. If you are speaking to predominantly older millennials or baby boomers, you might find Emojis fall a little on deaf ears (or blind eyes?), although they’ll know what an Emoji is, they won’t necessarily have the same effect as they do for Gen Z. Whilst it might not damage your brand, it may make you look unprofessional or out of touch with your audience.

With any brand, we would always recommend you do a full deep dive into who your audience is and include Emoji usage within your brand guidelines and tone of voice. By doing this deep dive you’ll see if Emojis fit with your brand tone of voice, where they fit and how best to use them.

For instance, a brand that stretches across many different age groups, say Burberry, will have uses for Emojis which will work differently on each platform. Their tone of voice, is clear and elevated but they flex themselves to allow themselves to engage with Gen Z (their future audience) by using the odd Emoji on TikTok, however, you would absolutely never see the usage of Emojis within their website or email copy. You can tell this is a brand that has done its homework to allow its brand tone of voice to flex across its audiences.

How we use Emojis

When it comes to The Doers, and how we use them, we like to take the approach of thinking about the value they bring before sticking them everywhere without thought. So here are is a guide to our emoji do’s and don’ts if you are considering adding them into your marketing mix:

• Do: Use them to aid in instruction
  
  Emojis can help your audience to understand instruction. Something we use a lot at The Doers is the pointing finger, to show where to click a button on Instagram for instance 👆👇👉👈. Another great example of instruction Emojis is how Monzo use them, you’ll often find when you spend money, you’ll get a notification of what and where you spent money on, including an emoji - it’s an instant clarification (and a way of softening the spending blow!)
  

• Don’t: Replace words with them
  
  Believe it or not, there is such a thing as too many Emojis. You may think that writing sentences, and replacing words with emojis makes life a little easier, but actually, it can make your writing harder to read, and in marketing that is going to lose you potential customers.
  
  Which do you find easier to read?
  
  It is so 🌞 outside, you should have a 🍗 and a few 🍻
  
  or?
  
  It is so sunny outside, you should have a bbq and a few beers 🍗🍻
  

• Do: Use sparingly
  
  Less is definitely more when it comes to Emojis, a great way to keep your usage minimal is to pick some Emojis that suit your brand. Once you have them, like a keyword, sprinkle them through your preferred platforms (IG/TikTok/Twitter/newsletters), and use them sparingly where needed.
  

• Don’t: Get the tone wrong
  
  It’s safe to say that some Emojis have a slightly different connotation to what you might perceive them to be. If in doubt - double check with your Gen Z colleague or family member, they’ll be sure to fill you in on all the latest Emoji slang!
  

• Do: Think about who your audience is
  
  Some audiences will love emojis, and others not so much. Make sure you’ve done your audience research for your brand overall and by each marketing channel you use before you decide if and when to add the emojis.
  

• Don’t: Overthink it
  
  Emoji use for your brand should feel natural, if it feels like you’re having to justify their use too much - it’s probably not right for your brand. If in doubt, have a look at how your competitors are using them, and how it’s working for them.

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There we have it! A full debrief on how to use Emojis for your marketing. Whatever you do, make sure to find a way that works for your brand, and do the necessary research on your target audience first. But, seeing as we have #WorldEmojiDay coming up, maybe try out one or two, just for fun 😉

Need some support with your brands tone of voice or to make your marketing have more of an impact? Book in a free discovery call with us today 👇