Don’t Let Emojis Hurt Your Brand: The Right Way to Employ Them For Positive Brand Perception

It’s June 22nd, 2015. Chevrolet sends out a press release to announce the reveal of the new Cruze. But guess what? It’s all written in emojis🤔 No words, just funny pictures (some even made up by Chevy, like its own “bow tie” logo.) The goal was to appeal to the younger generation of buyers. But that backfired, as it was a real struggle to make sense of it until they provided a ‘translation’ - the standard press release using English written words.

Nobody can deny the popularity and impact of emojis in modern digital communication, from social media to email, SMS and websites. The current version 16.0 of the emoji encyclopaedia (Emojipedia.org) boasts 3790 pictographs and is constantly growing (Unicode.org 2024). In the last ten years, almost 22% of global tweets (close to 3 billion) contained at least one emoji! And 92% of the world's online population uses emojis (Daniel 2021).

No wonder both big and small brands have joined the trend. Emojis can make your brand look friendly and fun. But only if you use them right. Think about your own behaviour on social media and imagine this: you’re scrolling Instagram and see two different posts from your favourite local coffee shop.

The first one reads: 👉 “Our new smoothie tastes so good 😋” The second one is slightly different: 👉 “Our new smoothie tastes 😋”

Which one feels entertaining and natural to you? Of course, the first one. The second makes you pause. Wait! Tastes what? It’s that tiny moment of confusion with enough potential to lower your impression of the brand. How bad can it get? Well, you might even decide to skip trying out that new smoothie.

Reinforce or Replace?

There’s a body of research proving the value-add of emojis. They are a form of paralanguage, a written manifestation of the nonverbal: what we feel, hear, touch, or see (Luangrath et al. 2017, 98). In digital communications, they can amplify consumer engagement (Ko et al. 2022) up to 57% according to studies across tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram content (Decker 2021).

A most recent experiment (Deng & McShane, 2025) went deeper and tested the variables in emoji use across digital brand communications that result in visible changes to brand attitudes, product expectations, or the intent to buy.

Hundreds of participants in three lab studies have confirmed the two main roles emojis play in driving brand perception: reinforcement (they emphasize what the accompanying text states) and substitution (they replace words that we are mentally required to identify and give meaning to).

Let’s remind ourselves of the example above: “Our new smoothie tastes so good 😋”. Here, the message is supported with a smiling face savoring food. Pretty clear, right? It’s easy to read, relatable, and possibly more persuasive.

With the second option, “Our new smoothie tastes 😋”, where the emoji replaces the words ‘so good’, your brain has to work harder to translate that meaning.

Our brains process text and visuals differently. When an emoji replaces a word, it disrupts the reading flow. The scientific term is ‘processing fluency’: the ease with which we process information, which is highly subjective (Alter and Oppenheimer 2009, 219). As a brand, you want to simplify your message, not complicate it.

Every little bump in processing fluency makes the message feel harder to process. In turn, it makes the brand feel less appealing. Reinforcement, on the other hand, keeps the reading smooth. The emoji adds warmth and personality without forcing extra mental work. It’s a subtle difference between the two types of emoji use in brand messaging. Yet, this new research shows it can make or break the market response.

Use Emojis The Right Way for Engagement

For any brand that engages with its audience in a digital environment, reinforcing text with emojis seems to work better, although not always. They must be congruent (make sense) with the original text. If substituting words, the emojis you use should enhance rather than detract from the audience’s understanding of and engagement with your text.

It turns out that it’s critical to consider the complexity of the written message. If your post is already challenging to decode, requiring lots of brain fuel, substituting meaning with emojis can be tricky. It can lead to more confusion, your brand might look less professional and be perceived negatively, or even reduce consumers’ intention to purchase.

Think of emojis as seasoning that adds flavor to a well-balanced dish. Use emojis to add, not replace. Your written words should be the main carrier of meaning. Emojis should make the message easier, not more cumbersome to get.

Apply the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) formula! Customers scroll fast. When they stumble over your message, they’ll have seconds to decipher it. If not, they’ll move on to the next post.

Match the tone and meaning strategically. Use emojis that reflect your brand personality and fit your text clearly. Confusion costs you engagement.

Context matters when using emojis, so the best scenarios are short text for light- hearted brands, with a direct connection between the text meaning and the chosen emoji. For professional or premium brands, there is not enough experimental research yet to prove how emojis would influence the bottom line when extensively used in a content strategy.

As this latest study was exclusively focused on the emoji role in the context of X (formerly Twitter), strategies used on Instagram, Facebook and other social media might display different reactions from consumers. Other variables can influence the results of using either one of the two emoji strategies in your marketing: the kind of product or service you offer, the time of the day when people read your message, the type of device they use to access the communication channel, or the type of audience you’re reaching out to. There’s scope for further research in this respect.

One of the most successful brands to take emojis to the next level are Taco Bell, Domino’s and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Taco Bell created their own taco emoji that we now use on both Android and iOS. Domino’s increased sales and created high brand recall by allowing customers to tweet their order with just a 🍕 emoji. And WWF came up with custom-made emojis of endangered animals and donated every time people used one of these emojis.

They are big brands with big budgets. But that shouldn’t stop you. What is clear is that emojis can bring your brand closer to people when done right, mainly by matching your brand personality with your content. It’s all right to be creative in your strategy, as long as you remember to always relate to your consumer base.