Brief:
- Beverage brand Spindrift released a lime-flavored sparkling water and issued a call for a corresponding lime emoji. The "Why #NoLimeEmoji?" campaign includes a fundraiser for the Whole Kids Foundation running until the end of next month, according to a press release.
- Instagram and Twitter users can participate in the campaign by sharing pictures of the ways they could use a lime emoji if they had one. Photos of lime-flavored food including guacamole, margaritas and key lime pie must include the hashtag #NoLimeEmoji to participate.
- Spindrift will donate $1 for every post that uses the hashtag, up to $50,000, to the Whole Kids Foundation, a charity that supports schools and raises awareness about improving children's nutrition and wellness.
Insight:
Spindrift's latest campaign seeks to engage Instagram and Twitter users with the brand as it launches a lime-flavored drink, its tenth flavor so far. Rather than creating its own emoji keyboard, as Dunkin', Sephora and Macy's have done in past campaigns, the beverage brand can reach social media users and stir up interest in its latest flavor with its petition-like campaign.
The campaign taps into consumers' growing use of symbols, emoji and other imagery in their everyday communication. The approach could help the beverage brand connect with younger consumers who frequently use digital platforms, emoji and GIFs to communicate with friends, family and businesses. About 36% of millennials who use "visual expressions" like emoji and GIFs say the images better communicate their feelings than words, Time reported, citing a Harris Poll and Tenor study.
Plus, the campaign could generate more buzz than if Spindrift appealed directly to the Unicode Consortium to have an official emoji added to the full list of emojis. However, the Unicode Consortium lets brands and individuals "adopt" a character via donations. IBM adopted the cloud emoji, Ford has two car emojis, Adobe has the ampersand symbol and Google has the hamburger emoji, for example.
