Blue Branch Ltd share their opinion on the use of emojis in marketing

Advances in technology have had a huge impact on how companies market their products and services; they have been forced to evolve and move with the times. The latest trend in marketing is the incorporation of emojis into advertisements with big brand such as McDonald's, Pepsi, Ikea and the World Wildlife Fund playing up to the current trend. Blue Branch Ltd has shared their thoughts on the new trend.

About Blue Branch Ltd: http://www.bluebranch.org/about/

Emoji is a computer language created to send lots of information in a small amount of data. It is the equivalent of a list of predefined messages users can select that show up as pictures. Emoji started in Japan, so many of the icons are closely tied to the Japanese culture but emoji's are a global language. There are about a thousand emoji characters now officially recognised by Unicode Consortium, the official keepers of coding that forms the basis of the Internet.

There are nearly 2 billion smartphone users worldwide so the use of emojis that make expression quicker and easier has rapidly grown. Emojis are everywhere you look in communication between people. For example Instagram reported that nearly half of all comments and captions on Instagram now contain emoji characters. And now, more and more brands have started to find creative ways to use emojis within their marketing.

Brands are becoming more innovative and creative by making the most of existing emojis to further communicate to their customers and drive business value. WWF launched #EndangeredEmoji, a campaign which recognised that 17 animal emojis that people use every day depict endangered species. People can donate to the WWF by tweeting one of these emojis, agreeing to donate €0.10 for each one used.

Blue Branch Ltd believes that emojis can be very effective within a marketing strategy because they lighten the mood and create an informal approach to boost consumer engagement. The firm supports the use of emojis in marketing.

Blue Branch Ltd is an events promotion company based in the Haymarket area of Edinburgh. The firm send clear messages directly to consumers every day through their specialised event marketing campaigns and without the high cost of commercial marketing strategies. The firm believes direct marketing is still the most effective form of marketing available to businesses because it produces the highest ROI for the lowest cost.