Emojis have already proven to be powerful marketing tools in brand communication. Not only do they build engagement in social media and other digital conversations, they also shape new brand experiences. Take Domino’s Pizza for example, they’ve pushed the emoji sensation so far to let customers place their order with a simple text containing the pizza pictogram. No doubt this will give the brand both relevance and differentiation in a traditionally low-involvement category.
They started out as keyboard character combinations to help bring meaning and emotion to the online chat rooms of the late nineties. They’ve now evolved into a full crowd of pictograms able to convey specific non-verbal meanings and some of the most complex human emotions. Like it or not, emojis are taking over text-based communication. And the Oxford Dictionary’s selection of “Face with Tears of Joy” as Word of the Year 2015 is the ultimate confirmation these small-scale images are here to stay.
