Brands
World Emoji Day: Emojis For Brand Marketing
It is rightly said that ‘Pictures speak louder than words’. Emojis are the small icons that depict emotions or objects like food, snacks, clothes, weather, animals, accessories and many more! These are highly impactful if used correctly at the right place, right time and to the right people. It is a fun mode of interaction. Emojis provide advertisers and brand marketers a huge opportunity to effectively convey their messages to their audience.
The reason behind emojis being highly impactful is that they are used in daily conversations. Previously, brands picked-up phrases that were used in daily conversations. For instance, big marketing campaigns like Maruti’s ‘Kitna deti hai’ and Surf Excel’s ‘Daag Ache Hain’. Such campaigns spoke about the regular questions of the consumers and highlighted the benefits of the products. Maruti’s campaign was a huge success as it spoke about the most common questions that the consumers ask.
Emojis are regularly used in chats, emails and other means of communications. The brands which are focusing on effectively reaching out to their audience should be well-versed with the language and tonality that they use regularly. Millennials constantly use emojis regularly, if they are the targeted mass, then they will have to start using emojis as it will help them communicate their message better.
Many brands are coming up with custom emojis like Mumbai Indians which received a great response from the people. The moment a brand uses common lingo, they can connect with their audience better. There are 2 ways that brands can leverage emojis i.e. creating their own set of emojis or picking up the current popular ones. Custom emojis are unique and act as a brand identity. It can make wonders happen but on the other hand, if there’s a failure, people might hesitate to accept it. It gives the perception of the brand trying hard to look cool.
On the other hand, picking up current popular emojis and weaving them into your brand message proves to be successful, if it is smartly done. The fact that people are celebrating World Emoji Day is a testimonial that they have been using it in regular conversations for years. Emojis is a new language now.
Presently, using emojis actively for branding is still an open jury. As it is yet to be understood whether it is as effective as the regular language or phrases, it is crucial to select emojis that are relevant to your brand. Choosing the right emojis can make wonders happen, but a wrong choice may lead to confusion. The emojis must be relatable to the brand hence, it is advisable to carefully monitor and select them. It is not a one-time process, it is vital to use the brand emojis consistently to ensure that these are registered in the minds of the consumers.
The emojis should never be force-fit. It is better to understand what your brand messaging is and then try initiating a conversation with one consumer. If the conversation along with the emojis makes sense, then try exploring it and weave your advertising using emojis. Using emojis is a bad idea if a brand followed a serious messaging and caters to a serious audience. However, emojis are an add-on to the language and should be used as an add-on to your communications. It cannot become a primary tool for branding.
(The author is business head, IdeateLabs. The views expressed are his own and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to it.)
Brands
Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
