Dive Brief:
- Brand messaging platform Snaps is partnering with Lady Gaga for a "GagaMoji" iMessage sticker pack featuring 52 animated stickers and gifs curated by the pop star, according to a company blog post.
- GagaMoji's are reflective of the musician's lifestyle and brand, with signature catchphrases like "YAAAS GAGA" and #JoanneLife ("Joanne" was the title of Gaga's fifth studio album). The keyboard also has drag-and-drop stickers like hats and sunglasses that can be placed directly onto user messages.
- The GagaMoji keyboard can be updated regularly by Lady GaGa to keep content fresh and relevant. It's available for $1.99 in the iOS app store.
Dive Insight:
Stickers are becoming a bigger part of brands' conversations as messaging takes over mobile habits, and Snaps' deal with Lady Gaga demonstrates how influencers — or at least big name celebrity endorsers — might intersect more with that field. IMessage now has over 1 billion active users, according to Snaps co-founder Vivian Rosenthal, and a celebrity like Lady Gaga likely has a fan base on the platform that will be eager to engage with the keyboard and throw more of the pop star's signature glam into their messages.
IMessage has quickly become the central hub for digital stickers efforts like GagaMoji despite facing down growing competition from apps like Facebook Messenger. Recent research from the firm Bare Tree Media found that half of all branded digital stickers are shared through iMessage, while Messenger sees about 20% of sharing.
For mobile marketers, stickers and similar message-based tools like emojis present a relatively low-cost means to frequently engage users where they interact most on their phones. Bare Tree Media reported users of its platform send 5.5 digital stickers per session, and branded sticker packs and app sticker add-ons saw an average engagement of 3.5 minutes per session.
Branded keyboards can also be highly personalized and act as a sort of living document to be expanded and reworked over time, as GagaMoji shows.
