Twitter and Coca-Cola Co. have teamed up to take advantage of the current craze for emojis.
The companies are “testing the effectiveness of the quirky pictograms in helping to advertise big-name brands.”
“In a form of paid ad placement, an emoji of a pair of Coke bottles clinking has been appearing on Twitter when users post a tweet with the hashtag #ShareaCoke,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Twitter will only be offering the feature to Coke and others as part of a package deal to its biggest clients that have already committed a certain amount of their ad budgets to Twitter.”
That, according to the WSJ, is a “typical move by big media companies … to offer sweeteners to major clients.”
Twitter is reportedly in talks with 10 of its largest brand-name clients “about getting in on the frenzy for winky faces and love-struck cats.” No one from Coke would divulge what the ad deal with Twitter is costing the company.
This isn’t the first time custom-built emojis have appeared on Twitter. Specialized pictograms were created to promote the coming “Star Wars” movie as well as emojis tied to live events like MTV’s Video Music Awards.
“But its work with Atlanta-based Coke marks the first time a brand has paid Twitter to have an emoji made for a specific marketing campaign,” explains the WSJ. “As part of its “Share a Coke’’ marketing campaign, Coke over the past few years has replaced periodically its brand name on bottles and cans with people’s names. The marketing effort, employed by Coke in dozens of countries, has been aimed at jump-starting flagging soda sales.”
Twitter, which depends on money from advertising, is busy trying new advertising products, improved targeting options, and new ways to measure their effectiveness. Early in 2015, Twitter launched and started selling auto-play video ads to advertising clients.
“Twitter said that it has nearly 100,000 advertisers as of June 30,” noted the WSJ. “Its goal is to hit at least a million. In comparison, Facebook Inc. said in February it has 2 million advertisers.”
