Meet the Field & Pick the Winners of Our Emoji Marketing Madness Bracket
It’s March Madness time, baby! Always a fun time for college basketball—and marketing. This year we’re adding a little color and emotion to March Madness by pitting eight emoji marketing efforts against each other in a bracket to determine which iconic implementation gets the ultimate smiley face.
Below, we reveal the contenders and give you the chance to vote for the teams you think should win our first-round match-ups. But first, let’s dig into emojis a little bit and why they’ve become such a hot marketing commodity…
Why Are Emojis Such a Hot Marketing Trend Right Now?
If you don’t know what an emoji is, you’re probably not human. But since we love all creatures (including glowing mouth alien furballs), here’s a quick definition:
Emojis are digital icons used to represent emotions or ideas
They standard emojis you see on your iPhone or Android phone are controlled by Unicode, a universal “language”. Getting new emojis added to Unicode is a somewhat complex process (read more on that here).
Why has using emojis become such a hot marketing trend? For this simple reason: 92% of the online population use emojis. *This stat comes from the 2015 Emoji Report. Popularity and common usage (along with a perceived “hip” factor) have made emojis ideal for marketing communications.
As a final indicator of just how popular emojis are, the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji was named Oxford Dictionary’s 2015 “Word” of the Year—marking the first time a pictograph achieved that honor.
In a nutshell, emojis are taking over human communication and could eventually be the only language we speak. Now onto the bracket…
Meet the Contenders in Our Emoji Marketing Bracket
These eight big brands have made a splash using emojis in their marketing:
1. PETA Cruelty Beyond Words Emoji Video
This sad-but-true video from PETA uses a series of emojis to outline the cruelty that animals endure in the name of fashion.
2. Chevy Cruz Emoji Press Release
This is a press release announcing the 2016 Chevy Cruze done entirely in emojis that readers essentially need to “decode” to read.
3. GE Emoji Table of Experiments
In this online experiment, GE uses emojis to create its own customized periodic table to promote and educate people about science.
4. Mentos Ementicons Custom Emojis
This is a customized, downloadable emoji package created by Mentos to describe feelings that standard emojis don’t cover—like “hangry”, “bromantic” and “like-a-boss”. Mentos also created short videos to explain each “ementicon”.
5. Deadpool Emoji Billboard
This was a fun little marketing ad by Twentieth Century Fox to promote the new “Deadpool” movie via a billboard in Los Angeles. Get it?
6. Say It With Pepsi Emoji Packaging
An upcoming effort Pepsi is launching this summer to personalize their product packaging with over 100 different custom emojis.
7. Dominos Emoji Text Ordering
Dominos has created a way for people to simply text a pizza slice emoji to place a pizza order.
8. Durex Emoji Condom Campaign
The condom line Durex is pushing for the addition of a condom emoji so people have a way to represent sex (specifically safe sex) while texting.
