Who said that a picture is not worth a thousand words? This Wednesday, July 17, World Emoji Day is celebrated. The history of these friendly symbols began in Japan, at the end of the 1990s, when designer Shigetaka Kurita created the first 176 icons for a mobile internet service from the operator NTT DoCoMo. These simple ideograms quickly became popular, gaining the world with the dissemination of mobile technology. Today, emojis are a universal language, present in almost all digital communication platforms. After all, who can resist the charm of a smiling face or a loving heart
According to a survey by Discovery, most Brazilians (82%) prefer to express their emotions online using emojis. But it is not only ordinary people who use the famous symbols, brands are also keeping an eye on this preference, using it as a strategy to capture the consumer's attention. According to a study by Adobe, 60% of global emoji users are likely to open an email or push notification that contains these icons, while 42% of these people are more likely to buy products that use them. Thinking about it, a CleverTap, digital marketing platform specialized in user retention and engagement, produced areport with the most used emojis globally: theCleverTap Art of Emoji.
The report found thatnotifications containing emojis generate a staggering 12% higher click-through rate compared to those that do not use the symbols. According to the study, in Latin America, the favorites are: 👋📲🛒🔴🔺💸😂💡👇🧊🍇🥳📱🐰🤪🆕👑🎧😉🥰🏆😏👉🏃. As shown in the image below:
In addition to the best-performing icons among South Americans, that is, those that generate the highest click-through rate, the study also analyzed which are the most used and those that should be avoided by brands.
"Emojis are like magical spices in the pantry of any marketing professional". When used correctly, these small symbols can bring any message to life. But, just like in gastronomy and in personal life, "throwing them anywhere can confuse the recipient" explainsMarcell Rosa, General Manager and Vice President of Sales in Latin America at Clevertap. "Companies should play with various emojis", discover which work best for your target audience and use them only when they make sense in context. Otherwise, lose their power. Remember that communication should be modern, recognizable and, above all, culturally sensitive when using such a powerful tool
Below, the data from other regions of the world
Furthermore, the report shows that, regardless of the region, e-commerce brands incorporate only 20% of the best-performing emojis in their messages; while in some regions, up to 30% of the most used emojis perform unsatisfactorily.
Talking about the future of emojis in customer engagement, Rosa adds: "With the advances in MarTech, brands will be able to hyper-personalize this experience, discovering which emojis work best for each user. Eventually, these symbols will be dynamically adjusted based on the sentiment and context of the conversation, increasing the emotional depth of communication. Furthermore, integrações mais abrangentes com AR/VR (como os Animojis da Apple) vão permitir que os clientes se expressem de forma mais vívida em ambientes imersivos. This could redefine how customers interact with products and services, improving your overall shopping experiences.”
Methodology
To build the research, Clevertap analyzed 10 billion data points in 40 million push notifications sent by e-commerce platforms worldwide, with the aim of understanding customer preferences, the impact of emojis and how marketing professionals are using them
