Emoji and gender
Analysis of tweets of Chevy’s emoji-based campaign, #ChevyGoesEmoji
Keywords:
social media, campaign, emoji, Twitter, hashtagAbstract
Purpose—Companies that are considering using emojis in their promotional efforts need a deeper understanding of their effectiveness, including which groups of audiences would actively respond to the emoji-based strategy. This study examines Chevrolet’s #ChevyGoesEmoji campaign to understand whether there are any gender differences in responding to a campaign when emojis are used in companies’ promotional activities.
Design/methodology/approach—To examine whether there are more females than males among those who posted tweets that include the campaign hashtag (#ChevyGoesEmoji), tweets were collected that included the campaign hashtag and posted six months after the announcement of the campaign. To examine whether the proportion of females who posted tweets including the product-related hashtags (e.g. #ChevyCruze) significantly increased after the launch of the campaign, tweets that included the product-related hashtags that were posted over the three-month period before the launch of the campaign and over the three-month period after the launch were collected. The type of user for each tweet was coded to identify female and male users.
Findings—Based on the analysis of the tweets that included the campaign hashtag, it was found that more females than males posted tweets related to this emoji-based campaign. Based on the analysis of the tweets that included the product-related hashtags, it was found that the proportion of females who posted tweets that included the product-related hashtags significantly increased after the launch of the campaign.
Originality/value—The findings of this study contribute to the existing literature on the use of emojis in corporate communications messages and also provide important practical implications by suggesting that it may be a good idea for companies to use emojis in their promotional activities if their target audiences are female.
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