Air New Zealand-Emoji Journey

AIR NEW ZEALAND - EMOJI JOURNEY

Research shows that more than 90% of people online now incorporate emojis into texts, instant messages and emails. In fact, according to Instagram, after Apple developed an emoji keyboard for iOS devices, it led to half of all comments and captions on the social network being emoji-based.

As a result, brands and organisations from Pepsi to the Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign have used emojis as part of their marketing.

The latest brand to get on board with emojis is, in the aviation sector, Air New Zealand, with its #EmojiJourney.

#EmojiJourney works as follows: Air New Zealand has created a series of social media posts around the Emoji Journey theme. Users respond with their own emojis. Air New Zealand then creates a map of New Zealand based on those emojis with suggestions on where to go and what to experience.

Alternatively, you can go direct into the interactive map, which is hosted on a web page, and choose a series of emojis at the top of the page, after which Air New Zealand customizes the map for you.

Though media coverage talks about Air New Zealand trying to appeal to millennials, Air New Zealand in fact says that is has created this campaign to reach millennials, but also the age group underneath - Generation Z.

That’s sensible, the oldest members of Generation Z were (depending on how you define them) born in the 1990s and so are now well into adulthood.

They have never known a time when it wasn’t possible to be online, and they are also more numerous as a population group than baby boomers.

The campaign was created for Air New Zealand by agency, ‘True’, who in their rationale behind the campaign called emojis ‘the only true global language.’

So far, engagement with the campaign seems to be good. According to Union Metrics, the hashtag is achieving around 150k impressions on Twitter a week.

KEY TAKE-AWAY

Often when you ask people to go through too much effort online in a competition or promotion, they don’t bother.

That means it is tough to come up with something eye catching and different, which is also easy enough for people to take part in.

Air New Zealand has succeeded. The barrier to entry is actually very low, all people have to do is type in a series emojis, which takes literally seconds.

However, at the same time, the mechanic of using those emojis to create maps is also different (certainly no airline or even travel company we are aware of has done this). Most importantly, the experience is personalised, you feel you are getting something tailored specifically for you.

Finally, Air New Zealand is using a visual language that, as its ad agency says is global (you don’t need English language fluency to understand emojis), and appeals to two important demographics - millennials and (the older portion of) Generation Z.