Just in time for Christmas, SapientNitro gave a gift to its clients, and the world – the gift of cross-generational communication.

Introducing SpeakEmoji – the world’s very first voice-to-emoji translator.

Available as an iOS and Android app, as well as on the web via Google’s Chrome browser, SpeakEmoji lets you create messages comprised entirely of emojis by simply speaking into your smartphone.

Custom sharing functionality lets you share your emoji phrase on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Messenger, as well as SMS and email.

Every emoji message has a link for recipients to translate it back into text, and a custom keyboard lets Android users speak emoji directly into any messaging app.

How did we do it?

First, we created a database matching thousands of key words to emojis.

We connected that to a voice-to-text API, wrote a proprietary search

algorithm, and SpeakEmoji was born.

We launched SpeakEmoji with an online film in which a ‘Cool Dad’ character

encouraged out-of-touch parents to use SpeakEmoji to reconnect with their

smartphone-zombie teenagers over the holiday.

This was seeded into social channels and PR’d to both the mainstream and tech

media, driving users to visit speakemoji.com and to download the app.

In its first two weeks, SpeakEmoji peaked at over 10,000 downloads a day, reaching 131 countries.

It achieved 23 million social media impressions, and a total reach of 350 million people.

Mashable and Digital Spy both featured it as one of the best new mobile apps.

By Christmas Eve, SpeakEmoji had broken into the top 20 social networking apps in the US, leapfrogging multi-billion dollar LinkedIn.

But SpeakEmoji’s proudest legacy will be in helping all of us – even the uncoolest and most middle-aged – communicate in our new universal language.