It’s Fun to Play: Emoji Usage in Interactive Marketing Communication

Abstract

Emojis are widely used in everyday interactions. This chapter provides a systematical review of emojis in interactive marketing. First, this chapter summarized the functions of emojis from three aspects: emojis play emotional functions (expressing sentiment, strengthening sentiment, weakening sentiment, establishing emotional tone, and building social relationship) and semantic functions (substituting textual messaging and influencing sentiment processing) in sender-receiver communication, lead to positive emotional and behavioral responses (such as memory accuracy, engagement, positive affect, and high purchase intention) in brand-consumer communication, and are used to measure peoples’ emotional expressions and conceptual associations. Second, this chapter noted the factors (age, gender, language and country, relationship types) influencing using emojis. Third, this chapter examined the effects of emojis (the presence of emojis, the position of emojis, the repetition of emojis, the meanings of emojis, and the type of emojis). In summary, emojis greatly influence the interaction between the brand and consumers and connections among active consumers. Important implications, as well as limitations and future research directions, were addressed.