Why Emojis Can Hurt Marketing If Misused

NEW YORK — What was that cloud puff emoji in the advertisement supposed to mean?

And the upside-down smiling face? The nail polish?

Although the intent of an emoji may be completely clear to the sender, it can often leave recipients baffled, said a Fairfield marketing professor.

That ambiguity could prove problematic for marketers, who are increasingly using the symbols to sell products to consumers, said Rajasree Rajamma, chair of marketing at Fairfield University. In a recent study, Rajamma found that a deep understanding of emojis – and their varying interpretations across generations – can significantly impact marketing effectiveness.

"If there is consumer confusion between what the company means and what the consumers gather, research has proven that it leads to reduced trust and heightened dissatisfaction," Rajamma said. That confusion typically leads the consumer to distrust the company – and worse, she said. "That could lead to you not buying the product," or perhaps generating bad word of mouth about the product, she said.

Take the skull emoji, for example. Rajamma said among older generations, the emoji is traditionally associated with death or horror, whereas Gen Z (born between 1997 – 2012) uses it to express "dying with laughter." That distinction, she said, is one of the reasons she and her colleagues urge companies and managers to remain alert to consumers' shifting emoji usage in order to mitigate misunderstandings.

Rajamma's study comes in the wake of a Baylor University study that found that 92% of Americans use emojis – although 81% of Americans are confused by them, according to another study by the online language learning platform Preply. The visual shorthand is so popular, it even has its own World Emoji Day on July 17, according to the Economist.

Rajamma cautions against dropping the emoji from one's lexicon. That's because they're cool and they work, she said. "Emojis actually increase the number of reads if you use it in social media posts," she said. "These emojis also increase the readability of your potential customer base... It increases audience engagement."

Nevertheless, some consumers find emojis unprofessional or inappropriate, said Rajamma.

That means marketers need to understand that a "thumbs up" emoji intended to indicate approval or an obliging "okey-dokey," may be understood as a dismissive "yeah, right," by some consumers, she said.

And interpretations are heavily influenced by culture, she said. The thumbs up sign widely used in the United States to signify agreement translates differently in other countries, she said. "Let's say you have a Middle Eastern person in your organization. This is considered to be an extremely offensive symbol in their culture," she said. "So you have to be aware of where your audience is coming from."

In her latest research, titled "Consumer Confusion: Examining Emoji use in Online Communication," Rajamma and her co-authors examine how differences between a company's intended use of an emoji and consumers' interpretations can lead to confusion – and even have the potential to pose "significant risk for brand communication."

Rajamma advises marketers to stay up to date with the changing meanings of emojis by using resources like emojipedia. "It's extremely important to constantly adopt the audiences' perspective to ensure messaging clarity," she said.

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