“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
According to Swyft Media, 6 billion emoticons or stickers (lets call them ‘emojis’) are sent around the world every day. I suppose I could stop here, point made. Emojis are popular. And Swyft just gave you 6 billion reasons to incorporate them into your social media and mobile marketing strategies. But, I have another idea. What I propose is to not simply add emojis for the sake of a trend, but to instead find an existing emoji that most closely resembles something inherent to your brand and own it. It could be a mascot, it could be a mantra, or it could be that slightly creepy man emoji with the mustache that happens to look just like your head coach. Whatever it may be, pick one and own it.
How can you own an emoji, you ask? Well, by consistent and frequent usage, of course! (My two friends consistency and frequency are never too far away). By now, every major athletic program has a Twitter, Instagram and in some cases Snapchat account. Each bringing with them a canvas on which emojis can be painted. If you’re one of the fortunate programs with an obvious emoji connection, start now. Every post from this day forward should incorporate that emoji in one way or another. Whether it be a sign-off or integrated into the body of your message. After a while, I guarantee, your fans will begin to see that visual as an extension of your brand and start using it to identify your program through their own social channels.
Now I know some of you are feeling pretty uneasy at this point. Nervously thinking to yourselves: “But that doesn’t follow brand guidelines!” Relax. Take a deep breath. Everything is going to be alright. No one is asking you to put a tiger emoji at the center of your basketball court. But, the next time a McDonalds All-American narrows his list of schools to include LSU and uses that same tiger emoji to represent the school on his Twitter profile, remember that these kids are already doing this and will continue to do it, whether your art department likes it or not. So, rather than trying to retrain your most important audience to stay “on brand”, I say join them. Ride the emoji wave.
And if you’re the Tulane Green Wave, own the wave emoji.
“I Have An Idea…” is a series written for College AD by the author of Brands Win Championships, Jeremy Darlow.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.