The Spread of Smartphones and Emoji-Fied Communication

■ "Emoji" – The Character That Defined 2015

In Japan, the history of emoji is long (said to date back to around 1998), and they were widely used as a daily communication tool even during the feature phone era. Some may also recall ASCII art on 2channel as another form of communication using "pictures." Overseas, "emoticons"—such as ":-)"—were used in parallel, but in recent years, "emoji" usage seems to have become dominant.

A symbolic example of this trend, familiar to those in advertising and marketing, is Domino's Pizza's "Emoji Ordering" winning the Grand Prix in the Titanium category—the festival's highest honor—at the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. This system allowed users to place orders by sending pizza emojis to Domino's Pizza's Twitter account. The idea was recognized for expanding sales channels by leveraging emojis—a familiar tool—on the communication platforms favored by younger demographics.

Amidst this trend, campaigns utilizing emojis have rapidly increased, particularly overseas. For example, Unilever's Dove released the "Love Your Curls" emoji featuring curly hair as part of its promotional activities for the Dove Quench product line targeting women with curly hair. The campaign highlighted the insight that while about three out of four people in the US use emojis, only straight-haired emojis existed until then. It effectively represented societal minorities vicariously through the Emoji tool.

Additionally, MTV launched a condom emoji ad campaign ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1st. Metaphorical emojis like bananas, donuts, eggplants, and peaches encouraged condom use. This approach also aimed to cultivate awareness among its target youth audience not through lengthy verbal education, but by seamlessly integrating the message into the everyday communication tool of Emoji.

Thus, this form of communication—leveraging emojis to connect with younger audiences—is beginning to gain traction.

This trend extends beyond brands to social media platforms themselves. For instance, Facebook and Twitter are reportedly testing the introduction of emojis as reaction tools for posts. While Facebook was synonymous with "Like!" and "Like!" was synonymous with Facebook, it has long been noted that "Like!" alone cannot convey all the nuances of communication. Against this backdrop, it's anticipated that the power of emojis will soon bring greater variety to the expressions we use to nurture our social connections.

Another major talking point regarding this trend is that "Emoji" was chosen as the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 (incidentally, the 2013 winner was "Selfie," meaning a selfie). This decision sparked heated debate overseas. Prominent positive opinions online included statements like "Yeah, Emoji were definitely used a lot this year" and "It's fun, so what's the problem?" On the other hand, the fundamental criticism from the negative camp seems to be "They're not even letters to begin with." While there is certainly some truth to these arguments, the perspective of viewing them as a form of "writing" is crucial.

■ Why Younger People Use Emoji More Frequently

Overseas, Emoji are actually treated as the prime example of a communication tool "adults don't understand." Similar to Snapchat, which is primarily used by teens and twenties due to its usage and appeal being hard for adults to grasp, Wired magazine and others point out that Emoji are also perceived as being for younger generations. So, why are Emoji thought of as being for younger people?

Deeply tied to this is the "smartphone shift," centered on younger generations. This shift extends beyond changes in device usage time to transform communication itself. Due to device characteristics like screen size and usage environments—often involving quick use during spare moments—communication methods relying on images, videos, Emojis, or stickers are becoming mainstream, surpassing text-based communication.

This perspective aligns with research findings from DENTSU SOKEN INC. Media Innovation Research Department, which investigated how young smartphone users actually utilize photo and video apps. User interviews revealed that today's smartphone users increasingly rely on visual elements to convey their feelings and the atmosphere of a situation. This includes using Emoji, stickers exchanged via instant messengers, and the use of photos as messages (capturing the scenery or situation they are experiencing to share their current feelings or the message they wish to convey).

So, what exactly are the factors driving this trend? Let's examine them in three points.

■ Three Reasons Emoji Are Popular

First, Emoji doesn't require literacy skills like reading or constructing sentences. This lowers the barrier to communication and broadens its reach, suggesting that the number of people using this form of communication will likely increase. Indeed, one reason for its popularity in the U.S. is its ability to facilitate communication regardless of literacy levels within a multilingual, multicultural society. This perspective focuses on the inherent functionality of Emoji itself.

Second, Emoji are flat, resulting in a familiar means of communication. Today, many users own smartphones and interact daily on shared communication platforms via social media. Some marketers point out that never before in history have information spheres overlapped so much across generations. This environment demands new, flat communication methods from us. This perspective focuses on us, the users exchanging Emoji.

Finally, the third point is their remarkable versatility: they can casually transform anything from pizza to curly hair to condoms into communication tools. This perspective focuses on the senders and brands using Emoji as a communication method.

From here, it's only natural that comparisons turn to the messenger apps popular in Japan and the "stamps" that various brands have turned into communication tools. The fundamental change stems from the same root. We are already becoming accustomed to a world of visual communication where showing or exchanging something directly resonates more than verbal explanations.

■ The Significance of Focusing on Emoji and Visual Communication

Summarizing the above discussion, we can observe that for smartphone users, communication through visuals—represented by Emoji—is beginning to encroach on areas previously dominated by verbal exchange. Drawing a parallel to the Meiji-era concept of "gobun ichiji" (matching spoken and written language), this phenomenon could be seen as "eibun ichiji" (matching pictures and words), where images and words are used equivalently.

The future implications of this shift toward picture-text communication suggest the growing importance of engaging consumers through visual communication. Creating such mechanisms will undoubtedly become a key point in communication business strategies, as exemplified by Domino's Pizza's "Emoji Ordering" at the outset.

Taking this further, to truly capture consumers' needs, we must analyze communication not just through words but through visuals—and not limited to emojis. Emojis are merely one facet. Looking ahead over the medium to long term, the inevitable challenge we'll face is whether we can effectively cultivate the space to extract rich marketing insights—desires and needs that cannot be verbalized.