Baltimore Ravens? emoji keyboard sees 53K downloads in first weekend
Recognizing that emojis can be a fun way for mobile-savvy sports enthusiasts to express team spirit, the Baltimore Ravens recently launched a customized, team-branded keyboard, complete with a Ravens helmet and Ray Lewis? jersey, that was quickly embraced by fans.
The emoji keyboard has quickly become a success for the National Football League team, with 56,300 downloads to date. Additionally, the keyboard has delivered 3.38 million impressions, saw 358,000 total sends and 901,000 interactions.
?As one of the first teams in the NFL to make customized emoji available to its fan base, the Ravens are leading the charge when it comes to the best way to engage fans with fun and spirited content that they can share with friends, family and social networks,? said Evan Wray, co-founder and vice president at Swyft Media. ?Emoji keyboards are the equivalent of digital swag that diehard fans can carry with them wherever they go to represent the team they love.
?The Swyft Emoji Keyboard technology offers brands and advertisers all sorts of built in tools to drive ROI, everything from video and gif support, to sending updates to fans about a new product or sales via push notifications,? he said. ?The ability for the Baltimore Ravens to have a continual engagement with their mobile fanbase is one of the most important factors.?
Go Ravens
As the football season approaches, the emoji keyboard is a great way for the team to stay in touch with fans while building some excitement, as not a lot of teams have their emoji keyboards yet.
Using the emoji keyboard, fans can easily express their team spirit in messages to friends, family and on social networks.
The team is showcasing the new keyboard with its own messages to team members on social media using the emojis.
The most popular emoji on the keyboard so far has been the Maryland state flag, accounting for 14 percent of use. The popularity of this emoji may be due to the fact that the football season has not started yet.
Following close behind in terms of popularity are the emojis for the Ravens log, Go Ravens! and a purple crab, each with 13 percent of use.
Marketing trend
The keyboard is the latest example of how the Ravens team is embracing social media, having also recently joined Snapchat.
Emoji keyboards are quickly becoming a marketing trend this year, with other brands such as MillerCoors, 1800Flowers, Fox and others jumping on board.
For example, Universal Studio?s Minions film recently released an emoji keyboard prior to its box office opening, adeptly leveraging the lovable qualities of the film?s characters to support the franchise and let users have fun with the brand (see story).
Additionally, The Oprah Winfrey Network introduced videos into an emoji keyboard to encourage fans of Tyler Perry?s The Haves and Have Nots to share content while having fun with the show and building awareness (see story).
?Emoji are the new ?conversation currency,? amongst mobile phone users,? Mr. Wray said. ?They have grown to become especially popular among millennials and young consumers, who have been sharing emoji in unprecedented numbers in places where they?re spending most of their time ? in mobile and social messaging apps.
?By including emoji in their text messages, mobile users are able to express themselves in a highly personalized and fun way,? he said. ?The overall adoption rate that emoji have experienced over the past few years is nothing short of astounding.
?Emoji represent a new frontier for brands and advertisers, who are now realizing the power of creating branded emoji that consumers want to collect and share with their networks. Emoji change the brand-to-consumer relationship by making the branded messaging a far more engaging experience.?
Final Take
Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Marketer, New York
