Emojis to conversion on social media: Insights into online consumer engagement and reactions

Dušan Mladenović, Kamil Koštiál, Nikolina Ljepava, Ondrej Castek and Yash Chawla

No WORMS/21/13, WORking papers in Management Science (WORMS) from Department of Operations Research and Business Intelligence, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology

Abstract: Emojis have become extremely popular in online marketing. Marketers use emojis to humanize their voice and elicit an emotional response from their target audiences. However, little is known about how emojis are perceived and what kind of reactions they evoke in consumers. The aim of this study is to examine whether exposure to emojis leads to an increased purchase intention, and whether its use leads to higher revenue generation and campaign effectiveness. The results show that the use of emojis had a negative effect on purchase intention; however, it was positive when mediated by positive affect. Emojis increased the effectiveness of marketing campaigns for hedonic products and had a strong impact on the return on advertising spend. However, for utilitarian products, the effect was marginal. The findings have theoretical and practical implications, particularly for the type of products emojis are most effective in promoting, gender differences, and real-life consumer behavior.

Keywords: Emojis; Online marketing; Social media; Campaign effectiveness; Revenue generation; Return on advertising; Return on investment; Hedonic product; Utilitarian product (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D40 D81 D83 D87 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2021-11-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mkt and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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https://worms.pwr.edu.pl/RePEc/ahh/wpaper/WORMS_21_13.pdf Original version, 2020 (application/pdf)

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