• by Ben Frederick , Staff Writer @mp_benfred, July 14, 2015

Hill Holliday and a nonprofit, the Partnership for Drug-free Kids, launched a new ad campaign using emoji to communicate the “challenges of negative influences” to teens. The campaign, titled #wegotyou, encourages teens to “crack the code” of its messages and live above the influence.

“The entire campaign was born out of a very simple idea: speak to teens in their language. It just so happened that language was emojis,” said Amanda Roberts, Hill Holliday copywriter, in a statement.

This isn’t a new development. Burger King, Budweiser -- even Lucasfilm, promoting the new "Star Wars" movie -- have all turned to emojis as a part of a Twitter/social marketing strategy aimed at a youthful online culture whose use of language is constantly expanding. Used effectively, emojis create a less-formal atmosphere in mobile communications.

Every year the Unicode consortium, a nonprofit that develops the global Unicode standard for software, approves about 40 new emoji, ranging from skin tone modifiers to icons of religious worship. That doesn’t include emoji keyboards specifically created by brands like SNL, Ikea, and Mentos.

It might seem as if the world has gone emoji-crazy in recent years, and while it would behoove marketers to understand how to use the weird icons effectively, they still need to understand their audience and shape their message thoughtfully.

Emojis can in no way replace written or spoken language, but they do augment it that works well for marketers to quickly engage consumers on mobile. That doesn’t mean that everyone should suddenly jump on emoji usage for their campaigns when it might be inappropriate to do so.

Thankfully, the news media hasn’t hopped on the trend: “BREAKING: Warning light, Gun, Running person, money bag, Policeman, police car.”

As far as I can tell, the brands and individuals that have enjoyed the most engagement use emojis with a healthy dose of wit and irony, though there are some that have been able to address more serious topics fairly successfully. For example, animal rights group PETA used music to help add gravitas to a recent emoticon message about animal cruelty in the fashion industry. 

Emojis signify emotion without creating it, allowing a sense of separation from the message, as well as introducing a sense of tone into normally emotionless text. Marketers need to understand this when crafting mobile messaging that incorporates emoticons. With the millennial success of mobile messaging apps like Kik and WhatsApp, and social apps like Instagram and Snapchat, more and more mobile ads are going to use emoji. Let’s just hope they do it right.