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Using emoji effectively in marketing: An empirical study

Author

Listed:
  • Leung, Chi Hong

    (Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom)

  • Chan, Winslet Ting Yan

Abstract

Emojis are increasingly being used to convey information and express emotions in SMS and other computer-mediated text-based messages (eg via social media channels). Marketers are now using emojis in their promotions to create awareness and attract the attention of their target audiences. As a new component embedded into a natural language like English, ambiguity is inevitable, however. Any receiver of a message containing emojis may misinterpret their meaning, resulting in a barrier to communication — a serious problem in marketing promotion. This paper studies how marketers have used emojis to enrich message content while avoiding the unintended interpretation of their meaning. The study draws on marketing tweets posted by various companies in the period between September 2015 and August 2016 and examines the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic functions of the emojis therein. The content analysis results suggest that emojis could be understood properly in the informative context. When emojis in commercial tweets are used pragmatically to express additional meaning in text-based messages, the possibility of multiple interpretations due to their syntactic and semantic roles may be reduced.

Suggested Citation

  • Leung, Chi Hong & Chan, Winslet Ting Yan, 2017. "Using emoji effectively in marketing: An empirical study," Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing, Henry Stewart Publications, vol. 5(1), pages 76-95, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aza:jdsmm0:y:2017:v:5:i:1:p:76-95
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Pažėraitė Aušra & Repovienė Rūta, 2018. "Content Marketing Decisions for Effective Internal Communication," Management of Organizations: Systematic Research, Sciendo, vol. 79(1), pages 117-130, June.
    2. Hsu, Liwei & Chen, Yen-Jung, 2020. "Neuromarketing, subliminal advertising, and hotel selection: An EEG study," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 200-208.
    3. Jennifer Fane & Colin MacDougall & Jessie Jovanovic & Gerry Redmond & Lisa Gibbs, 2020. "Preschool Aged Children’s Accounts of their Own Wellbeing: are Current Wellbeing Indicators Applicable to Young Children?," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 13(6), pages 1893-1920, December.
    4. Pedro Almeida & Paulo Rita & Diego Costa Pinto & Márcia Herter, 2024. "The power of facial expressions in branding: can emojis versus human faces shape emotional contagion and brand fun?," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 31(5), pages 543-556, September.
    5. Wu, Ruijuan & Chen, Jiuqi & Lu Wang, Cheng & Zhou, Liying, 2022. "The influence of emoji meaning multipleness on perceived online review helpfulness: The mediating role of processing fluency," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 299-307.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    emoji; marketing communication; linguistic function; tweets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M3 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising

    Statistics

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