For Friendship Day campaign ideas, click here!

World Emoji Day Marketing: 10 Captivating Ideas for Every Brand

There are two kinds of people when it comes to texting: those who use words and those who rely heavily on emojis to express themselves. Which one are you?

Digital conversations today feel incomplete without these tiny icons. After all, emojis capture emotions in a faceless text. And today, we’re diving into an occasion that celebrates this visual language—World Emoji Day (celebrated on July 17).

So, why are we talking about World Emoji Day today? Simple! It has become a popular social media holiday. In today’s competitive marketing space, brands don’t just celebrate major holidays anymore. Social media holidays like World Emoji Day have become just as important. Why? Because these are low-pressure days. No holiday planning, no gift lists—just fun and celebration. Therefore, these holidays make the perfect occasions to initiate conversations and engage in intriguing discussions with your audience. 

So, how can you, as a marketer, tap into World Emoji Day? We’ve got some ideas for you. But first, let’s explore the origins of this fun holiday.

The Story Behind World Emoji Day: Where It All Began

Emoticons, those text-based smiley faces typed sideways, were the precursors to emojis. Emojis are more expressive, easier to understand, and come in a much wider variety. According to Emojipedia, the first emoji set was launched in 1997 by SoftBank, reportedly designed for use in iPhones. 

However, research suggests even earlier emoji sets might exist. Regardless of their origin story, emojis have become widely popular. From social media posts and digital ads to billboards, they’ve become a ubiquitous form of communication, a universal language understood across cultures.

But why July 17th for World Emoji Day? The answer is literally at your fingertips! Check your phone – what date appears on the calendar emoji? You guessed it, July 17th!

This seemingly random date is significant because Apple unveiled its iCal app on July 17th. Hence, their calendar emoji featured the date July 17th. Consequently, when Jeremy Burge, founder of Emojipedia, decided to create a day for emojis, he saw that July 17th was the perfect fit.

The calendar emoji on iPhone 

Interestingly, other platforms eventually adopted this same date for their calendar emojis as well. It makes perfect sense – a day celebrating emojis deserves an emoji-based date, right?

So, that was a quick peek into the backstory behind World Emoji Day. Let’s now explore some ideas for brands to jump on this trend and make the most of this holiday to enhance engagement or even boost their digital presence. 

World Emoji Day: 10 Ideas + Tips For Brands 

1. Engage with a meaningful message 

Some brands maintain a strong moral stance or professional tone that aligns closely with their core values. For these brands, participating in light-hearted or frivolous conversations may not resonate with their audience. However, they can still effectively engage in conversations centered around emojis that uphold their serious and principled image.

For instance, HeForShe, a global solidarity movement for gender equality initiated by UN Women, exemplified this approach on World Emoji Day. Here’s their post: 

In this post, they encouraged users to express their commitment to equality only through emojis. This post shows how you can take part in holidays like World Emoji Day without compromising your brand identity or credibility. 

2. Emoji-themed product launch 

Like most social media holidays, a themed product launch is a timeless idea even for World Emoji Day. This could be in the form of:

  • A limited edition of your bestseller but in emoji-themed packaging.
  • Or an emoji-focused product bundle that has a product for every emotion.
  • Perhaps a new temporary product whose name or design draws inspiration from emojis. 

For instance, Kim Kardashian once launched a collection of perfumes shaped like Kimojis (Kim Kardashian-themed emojis). 

3. Use digital branded content as lead magnets 

If you cannot create an entire product or tweak your packaging to go with the theme, there are some low-budget alternatives to try – digital branded content. Furthermore, these can also be valuable lead magnets for your brand. 

Here are a few ideas to explore:

  • Create emoji-themed templates – either relevant to your niche or some generic templates like monthly planners. 
  • Draft an ebook that delves into the history and interpretations of emojis – like an emoji dictionary for those who are still amateurs when it comes to the emoji language. 
  • Or design brand-themed emojis that users can download. These can be emojis that put your brand mascot as the central element or contain some expressive versions of a symbol or illustration relevant to your brand. 

Once you have your branded digital content created for World Emoji Day, promote it through diverse channels like social media, website banners, and email. In addition to these, paid social media ads that lead to a landing page with these downloadables can act as potent lead-nurturing tools. 

4. Sponsored emoji campaigns 

While the above idea was about creating digital content that can be accessed and downloaded easily through diverse channels, this next idea is to create sponsored content for specific distribution channels. Like paid stickers and emojis on X (formerly Twitter). 

For example, Coca-Cola became the first brand to sport a paid emoji on X. This emoji was available to users who shared the #ShareaCoke hashtag in their posts. This idea is great for brands that wish to boost their brand mentions on social media and amplify their brand identity as well. 

Coca-Cola emoji for World Emoji Day 

The very next year, Pepsi became the first brand to use paid stickers on the same platform. Considering that X is one of the most popular spaces for text-based posts and since emojis work particularly well in text posts, a lot of such events happen on X during World Emoji Day. Therefore, this is one of the most pivotal platforms to focus on for this holiday. 

Pepsi’s stickers for World Emoji Day 
5. Host a contest or giveaway 

Online contests are great for boosting interaction and brand awareness as well. Therefore, they work well on occasions like World Emoji Day. 

Here’s how you do it: 

  • Choose the right contest format that works for your brand. 
  • Define clear guidelines to make it easy for the participants.
  • Offer rewards that actually matter to your target audience. 
  • Keep it fun. 

Popular confectionery brand Smarties added the below post for World Emoji Day. They included a contest hashtag to make it easier for participants to take part and for them to keep track of their participation as well. Posts like these are great sources of user-generated content. 

Need help designing promotional graphics for your online contests? Get KIMP! 

6. Zodiac emoji challenge 

Have you come across those fun posts that give light-hearted predictions for each Zodiac sign or birth month? You can use a similar idea for your brand’s social media post for World Emoji Day as well. 

For instance, come up with a post that contains a list of emojis based on Zodiac signs. Ask users to leave a comment with the emoji based on their sign. Or one with a birth-month-based prediction like the post here:

Here’s another prediction-style post that describes users based on their favorite emojis which makes the content even more relatable. 

Ideas like these let you engage in conversations with your social media followers and also boost the engagement on your post. Additionally, posts like these are more likely to get shared. 

7. Emoji-quiz 

Now let’s talk about a post idea that’s both engaging and entertaining – an emoji quiz. 

You can execute this idea either as a generic emoji quiz or a brand-focused one. 

For example, this post from Nokia has a series of emoji strings each representing a country. This is fun and appeals to a broad range of audiences. 

Similarly, you can come up with emoji combinations that represent book names or movie titles or even words or concepts related to your niche. While the former engages a broader set of audiences, the latter helps target niche audiences. 

Secondly, you can also craft emoji quizzes specific to your brand. How about a set of emojis to represent popular products in your catalog? Your bestsellers and flagship products maybe? 

Popular plant-based performance products brand Juice Plus+ added the below post asking users to guess their product based on the given emoji. 

Tim Hortons also adopted a similar idea in this post here:  

As can be seen, this idea tests your customers’ understanding of your catalog. Additionally, it also helps gauge the reach of your products giving you an opportunity to work on boosting their awareness as required, in future campaigns. 

8. Tap into the power of simple conversations 

One of the best uses of social media holidays like World Emoji Day will be to initiate conversations to foster a sense of community. 

In the below post, popular health and beauty retailer Boots asked users to describe how they were feeling in emojis. Besides, they also added their emoji message to start the conversation. This is a simple yet effective idea to encourage users to comment on your posts and to converse with your brand. 

Another way to do it is to encourage users to share their opinions about your brand in emojis. However, to ensure that this idea does not backfire, ensure that you analyze the sentiments surrounding your brand. Taco Bell used this idea in the below post. 

As you can see, for these conversation starter posts to work, you must initiate the conversation. That breaks the ice and also helps your audience better understand the idea in your post. 

9. Build on the emoji theme with a visually intriguing post

World Emoji Day is all about celebrating the expressive power of these small digital icons. Why not take it a step further and create a visually stunning design? 

There are many ways to do it: 

Recreate your logo entirely using emojis! This can be a fun and challenging exercise, forcing you to think creatively about how to represent your brand elements with emojis. Additionally, this gives you a chance to incorporate your brand identity while staying true to the theme. 

Or you could create a symbol or an image consisting primarily of a mosaic of emojis. This could be imagery related to your brand or your niche or a message you wish to convey. For instance, Detroit Hives, an organization focused on the conservation of bees and the creation of bee farms shared an image of a bee built entirely using 2,020 emojis. 

NASCAR shared a driver portrait built fully with emojis. It’s hard to ignore visually stunning designs like this one. Therefore, users are sure to appreciate the creativity and efforts that go into posts like these. 

10. Tell a story through emojis 

Another great idea for World Emoji Day will be to use the expressive nature of emojis to tell a story or communicate a specific message. 

  • To do this, identify what you wish to convey to your audience on that occasion. Is it something about your brand or your brand’s origin story? Or perhaps an announcement about an upcoming product or event? 
  • Once you have the narrative, identify the easiest way to represent it. Stick to well-known emojis and stay away from ambiguous ones. You also do not want to use emojis that have negative interpretations in certain cultures. 
  • And finally, come up with a design that incorporates these emojis. Add supportive visual elements like icons and arrows that indicate the relationship between the chosen emojis and establish a hierarchy in the design. 

Here’s a post from the popular gut-health supplements brand, Happy Mammoth. It uses a simple collection of emojis to represent the difference their products make. 

Ready to Celebrate World Emoji Day? Unleash Your Creativity With KIMP 

In conclusion, World Emoji Day brings with it a great opportunity to show your brand’s fun side and to boost engagement in the process. The possibilities are endless. Moreover, given the light-hearted nature of the occasion, there’s much less pressure when coming up with ideas as well. In the end, it all boils down to how you execute your ideas and how you use designs to bring these ideas to life. 

And sometimes, bringing your creative ideas to life can be a challenge. That’s where an unlimited design service like KIMP comes into the picture. With an unlimited design service, you can tackle all the design requirements for seasonal campaigns like World Emoji Day without interrupting your regular marketing design workflow. So, are you ready to explore the benefits of an unlimited design service? Register for a free trial! 

Posted On

20 Jun, 2024

Related Posts
The Marketing Brilliance of Inside Out 2: Lessons for Brands
11 Jul, 2024
Read More
Beyond the Bowl: 8 Marketing Lessons From Cereal Brands
19 Jun, 2024
Read More