Role of emojis in modern-day storytelling

Ashish Rana, Business Head, IdeateLabs, sheds light on how brands are transforming their advertising message via emojis to effectively reach audiences.

Emojis are the small icons that are constantly used by the audiences on a day-to-day basis. It indicates everything including emotions, objects, nature, accessories, fruits, foods, drinks, games, instruments, vehicles and much more. As it is highly adapted by the mass, it helps the brands to take out a few catchphrases and grab the eyeballs of the consumers by making the conversation fun and interesting.

Emojis are now replacing brief sentences and phrases that brands previously used for conveying their message. The message tends to be shorter and crisp with the help of emojis. Daily conversation on messengers, social media, personal chats are filled with emojis and this is exactly the role that it is playing in the modern-day communications.

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Brands are transforming and weaving their messaging by leveraging emojis and trying to build a similar form of communication to engage with their audiences. It helps them in minimizing the word count without compromising on the crux of information. Emojis are witty, cool and in vogue. It completely relies on how the brand constructs and narrates their stories.

However, it is equally essential to understand the target audience before initiating conversations using emojis as not everybody understands all types of emojis. It is crucial to keep in mind the focused group and then building on using emojis for brand communications.

Emojis can help brands that look forward to creating a fun element for a short period.  It is most important to get the accurate message registered in the minds of the people. Using emojis just for the sake cannot help the brands in building big. If the emojis fails to be the replica of the message and still gathers the consumer’s attention, it might help once or twice but not in the long run. It must be intrinsic to the brand message to make it successful.

Selection of right emojis for the brand is a must. It helps them to communicate their messages effectively. Personalization is the key. Instilling human elements to a brand increases connectivity and boosts customer loyalty. Prominent brands like GE, Star Wars, Pepsi, Burger King, PETA, Ikea, and others have creatively used emojis for promotions. Salman Khan also introduced custom emojis which went out extremely well with the audience.

Emojis highly appeals to the audiences which are 18-25 years of age. Millennials understand emojis better and use it the most as this generation is least interested in reading long-form content. A single character replaces long sentences, this makes the emojis acceptable. However, using the only emojis doesn’t work for the brands and it cannot be the core means of approach for them. It can be an add-on tool for marketers.

Brands
are still experimenting with emojis and it is ad-hoc in nature. Finding the
right balance about when to use it and how much to use it is immensely vital. Emojis
are the novel take for the brands to make their advertising and communications more
attractive. It is a qualitative call of the brand and a brilliant language
which is easy to understand.

Emojis are still at a very nascent phase. Developments in this context could be explained at a later stage when more and more brands witness success while using emojis as the core messaging tool.

This piece is authored by Ashish Rana, Business Head, IdeateLabs