Brands have Found a New Way to Engage Us

Bobby used a lot of smilies, GIFs, and memes when responding to posts on my WhatsApp group. I wondered how she was able to engage so many in the group with these silly visuals while I, who created the group and was posting relevant content, was failing to attract them.

Upon a careful examination of her messages, I realized that she always had a perfectly fitting funny visual or sticker. For me, most conversations are business or learning-centric. And I thought smilies, GIFs, memes, or stickers had no place in a business conversation but then I saw that Mike too was using a lot of them in his offers and invites to his sessions. Thinking it was inappropriate I ignored the messages. In less than a month many groups were bombarded with his simile-filled messages. And then I got an invite to join his new group. I joined and saw that many members were already there in it. And people were actually asking questions and putting comments on his smiling posts, this left me obfuscated. How did it work?

Are we playing a new game?

Combining my observations about Bobby and Mike, I found that a new game is played in the world of Online conversations, where people are talking in visuals and not in words. And the rules of the game are:

● If you have an expression or an emotion as your response, you use stickers.

● If you want to attract people’s attention or make them curious about what you are saying, embed smileys and stickers in your posts.

● Use a sticker or GIF which is very specific and use it fast enough before someone else catches the limelight

● To create a viral effect, use a funny meme or sticker that creates LOL effect and people will start not just agreeing but even copying you and asking where you get it from

Brands have become aware that human touch and addition of sentiments are far more effective as tools for marketing and thus, are going beyond traditional texts, images, and signs when talking to us. While visuals were already a part of B2B and B2C now they are becoming a part of C2C marketing.

This has led us to conversation media marketing that is changing the way brands talk to us. Conversation Media Marketing is reaching the candid conversation of users.

We will talk more about conversation media marketing but before let’s dive a bit into the things that conversation media is made of.

The use of visuals like stickers and GIFs in branding has several advantages. First, it allows a brand to be integrated into the communication between people. Further, the use of these visuals creates humor which is an instant connection.

Clever use of small visual stickers can create strong visibility for a brand. A brand using these visuals is seen as more friendly and fun to engage with.

GIFs are trending on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Over 100 million GIFs were shared on Twitter in one year. The popularity of GIFs was a compelling enough reason for Facebook to add GIFs as a comment feature on chats in 2017. And the trend was then followed by other popular platforms like WhatsApp and LinkedIn.

Emoji are also making their way into the marketing space. As per HubSpot, the use of emojis in the subject lines of marketing emails increase the open rate by 25% and enhance engagement in B2B space. As per Wordstream, emojis increase engagement by 25% on Twitter, shares by 33% on Facebook, and engagement by 57% on any post. However, brands need to be careful when using GIFs, stickers, or emojis as their inappropriate use could have a negative impact on consumers and their overuse could appear unprofessional. But with the use of a tight tone for the audience, emojis can make the experience of consumers more personalized and fun.

Take an example of Zoom which is a popular video-conferencing application that is booming in use today. In its social posts, Zoom uses emojis as a part of their conversation to add a sentimental touch to what they have to say.

Recently, I saw the most striking and wonderful use of emojis in marketing where just by the use of a few emojis on a big hoarding the brand has created an appeal humorously.

The movie “Deadpool” which was marketed in creative ways was a big hit at the box office. That large hoarding with funny emojis actually attracted a lot of eyes of visitors.

The most common use of emojis is the reactions of the audience. Instead of giving them a plain vanilla option of clicking a like button, brands are now adding a human touch by giving them more expressive options through emoji. But why are brands using them? Imagine if there is a post that you appreciated not because the message is likable but because it is a sad touching story that made you cry or a devastating truth that is making you angry? Traditional likes do not express emotions but only appreciations but emojis allow you to show support in more ways.

Some brands have created customized emojis that are used when they are conversing with their audience. One example is WWF. They have created a set of #endangeredEmoji to create an appeal for saving animals on the verge of extinction. And now they have become a part of the regular conversation on WhatsApp. And here is where we can see conversation media marketing taking shape.

Conversation Media Marketing: A new way to reach us!

The world is going more visual. GIFs and stickers have become common elements of conversations. In the 21st century, people are talking in a visual language, and brands are putting themselves in these conversations through conversation media marketing.

Brands have found a new way to reach us — conversation media marketing, which allows them to interact with us in visual and vernacular ways. In our routine conversation messages, brands are embedding their names in visuals like stickers, GIFs, Bitmojis.

A normal face to face conversation is rich with not just the influences of words but also of expressions which is why it is so effective. In the virtual world, that magic is normally lost but when we add visuals like GIFs, emojis, smilies, and stickers, the magic is back because we are not only using words but also adding sentiments. Using this power of visuals, brands are giving us ways of conversation and by inserting their brand into visuals we commonly use such as stickers, they have also become a part of the game. But how?

Sticky Stickers!

Imagine yourself sending a Disney thank you …

to a friend, blurted DHL laugh…at a joke,

took a Coca Cola break,

and wished a McDonald’s Good night.

While I was a person who mostly engaged in serious talks and never believed in the use of funny stickers or GIFs, I cannot deny the fact that the marketing game is changing and these visual elements are actually going to play a major role in conversations in the coming decade.

It is like a win-win situation in conversation media marketing. Consumers get fun and brands get visibility. Visuals humanize brands allowing them to connect with us at a deeper level.

So, I flipped through the WhatsApp app and tried searching for stickers similar to these stickers for myself. I also found some interesting stickers that had brands integrated into the consumer to consumer conversation. This made me wonder how wise it was for them to create such GIFs and stickers.

As we are losing patience to consume longer content and preferring smaller bytes of information, the world is moving towards active visuals and the marketing space will soon be dominated by small visual strokes. Brands that have no inhibitions in trying new gimmicks have now realized the power of visuals. I found some more amazing examples of how brands are getting wise with visuals. Take a look:

Sports Buzz with Bitmojis

Coca-Cola sponsored ESPN college games and to encourage participation from students, they collaborated with MELT to create customized Snapchat filters and custom Bitmoji Avatars allowing fans to use them when talking about the game.

Bitmoji TV

Snapchat has made amazing use of conversation media marketing and has even started Bitmoji TV which shows animated clips starring Snapchatters.

Snickery Chats!

Snickers, the famous candy brand created branded stickers, to reflect upon emotions, using the Hollers platform that was integrated into the text conversations. Around 61,000 people used these stickers while chatting mobile that got over 42 million views.

Rihanna says Hi!

Rihanna says hey, winks at you, laughs, and even gets angry through GIPHYs. This is a cool way to brand a celebrity when people are looking for ways to express their feelings in an engaging way when chatting with friends on digital media.

There are many other celebrities who are also using the power of conversation media marketing. Influencers like the NBA star Victor Oladipo, investor Thomas Tull, and musician Yoshiki have created their Genies.

That Feeling When…

That Feeling When Gucci Meme campaign was another explicit example of the success of conversation media. The #TFWGucci campaign was remarkable and a sensible move by Gucci who invited 31 international artists to create remix art memes for Gen X-ers. The campaign reached over 120 million net users, got 1.98 million likes, and 21,780 comments. But this was not the only time when Gucci used the power of conversation media marketing to lure its customers. The brand has used it several times to build a conversation appeal for Gucci fans.

Conversation media marketing is a non-intrusive way of engaging people in brand conversations which can help a brand go on the top of the mind of the consumers. As long as the visual looks interesting and is suiting a conversation situation, consumers would not mind using them voluntarily. In fact, you look for something new every time and you won’t mind using a newly created rich branded meme, sticker, or emoji. The examples above are on but a few but if we flip through our mobile apps, we will see many more enriching our conversations. Brands have truly found a new way to engage us!