Brief:

• Mars candy brand Snickers generated 42 million views among the 61,000 people who made themselves into brand advocates by decorating their mobile messages with branded images and stickers, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer. The candy brand worked with messaging tech company Emogi, which this week changed its name to Holler.
• As part of the rebranding announcement, Holler also touted an integration with Badoo, the world's biggest dating app with 425 million users. The integration means that Badoo's users can liven up their messages with Holler-created animated images. Holler said branded content has three times the engagement compared to static content among its users.
• Holler uses contextual artificial intelligence (AI) and in-house animators to deliver the right content at the right time, per the announcement. It works with brands including Ikea, Clif and Tide on creating emotion-based stickers for online conversations.

Insight:

Snickers' positive results with Holler's platform demonstrate how marketers can integrate their brands into text conversations as mobile users decorate their messages with animated images. Branded content including animated GIFs or stickers can be an effective marketing tool when used in an entertaining way to generate awareness among tech-savvy young adults who are typically in tune with smartphone messaging.

The emotional power of visual expressions in messages is a good fit for a dating app like Badoo. About 71% of Americans use emoji, GIFs and digital stickers because they believe they can express their emotions better through images, according to a survey by GIF-sharing platform Tenor and Harris Poll. The survey also found that 69% of U.S. adults feel more connected to the people they frequently message with when expressing themselves through a combination of visuals and words.

Snickers has been active with promotions that rely on mobile technology and social media. The candy brand last month launched its first micro-gifting campaign that let fan send a personalized message and gift redeemable for a Snickers bar at any Walmart store. Mars also pledged to give away 1 million free Snickers bars if the federal government changes the official date of Halloween to the last Saturday in October, instead of the traditional October 31. For Valentine's Day, the brand supported the launch of Creamy Snickers with a campaign that urged Twitter users to "smooth over" their holiday "nomance" gaffes.