How could Chevrolet communicate the Cruze’s cutting-edge technology like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to the connected millennial? Research. By finding the connective tissue between smartphone technology and modern global messaging, our magnetic idea was born – combining a traditional press release with the socially relevant language of emojis in the first all-emoji media alert would reach the target in the language they are speaking.

Why emojis? They strengthen messages, provide context, and add humor to communications. They are globally recognized and are frequently utilized by the target demographic Chevrolet aimed to reach. Careful consideration was taken on which emojis would best represent the key features and reveal information shared in the alert.

On June 22nd, the all-emoji media alert and the “Emoji Academy” series featuring celebrity influencers were released. Paid search, paid social, a Mashable homepage takeover, and radio promotion began. The next day the translated version of the media alert went live.

On June 24th Chevrolet revealed the 2016 Cruze to millennials identified on Twitter that were fans of our social media influencers. Afterwards, the auto media reveal event occurred and the full press release and reveal site went live.

On June 25th, Chevrolet leveraged a promoted Twitter trend, providing extra opportunity to create one-to-one engagements and reward our audience for participating. At random, Chevrolet surprised and delighted fans with items such as emoji pillows, coffee mugs, pajamas and notebooks. The Twitter trend also amplified content like emoji-centric .gifs and launched the music video, “Speaking My Language.”

#ChevyGoesEmoji set out to reach a brand new global audience and succeeded! At the campaigns conclusion, there were:

• 20.2K mentions of #ChevyGoesEmoji in 132 countries, 99% being favorable

• Chevrolet had a 43% lift in share of voice

• 21.7MM video views

• 5K new followers during the promoted trend

• 113 unique articles covered #ChevyGoesEmoji

• Estimated reach of 6.3MM

• 26% of the articles were outside the standard reading list

• 23.8 influencer engagement rate

• #ChevyGoesEmoji garnered 39 broadcast stories, representing 9,460,931 viewers

• Chevrolet’s third highest traffic day of the year for site engagement

Chevrolet achieved its goal of sharing the Cruze technology message to a new audience in a fun, authentic, and innovative way.