SPEAKEMOJI

TitleSPEAKEMOJI
BrandSAPIENTNITRO (SELF-PROMOTION)
Product/ServiceAPP
Category A09. Innovative Technology
Entrant SAPIENTNITRO London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation SAPIENTNITRO London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Mark Hunter SapientNitro ECD
Greg Mitchell SapientNitro Creative Director
Andre Hull SapientNitro Creative Director
Adam Hosfal SapientNitro Account Director
Sarah Burns SapientNitro Project Manager/Producer
Rowan Kerr SapientNitro Senior Manager Mobile Solutions
Illia Lekhter SapientNitro Manager Mobile Solutions
Erin Walsh SapientNitro Developer Mobile Solutions
Takbir Sarker SapientNitro Interactive Developer
Felipe Roriz SapientNitro Junior Developer Mobile Solutions
Irma Arianti SapientNitro Senior Experience Designer
Ignacio Gonzalez SapientNitro Senior Designer
Adam Shipp SapientNitro Designer
Adam Brewster SapientNitro Senior Manager Designer
Marcus Quinn SapientNitro Manager Designer
Stephen Vaughan SapientNitro Manager Designer
James McCleod SapientNitro Senior Manager Interactive Development
Kevin Chapman SapientNitro Manager Interactive Development
Stephen Worley SapientNitro Director Creative Operations
Mick Bailey SapientNitro Service Delivery Lead
Mark Caswell-Daniel SapientNitro Creative Technologist
Craig Smith SapientNitro Director Marketing
Gaynor Armit SapientNitro Manager Marketing

The Campaign

The Problem Whilst the media were awash with emojis, there was an elephant in the room. Emojis left most people over the age of fifteen completely confused. This confusion meant the older generation was becoming more excluded and alienated than ever from the younger generation, who were using emojis in all their online and mobile conversations as an adopted native tongue. An intervention was needed. Someone had to make sense of it all, to stop the rise of the emoji fracturing our ability to communicate with each other. The Solution 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.

Creative Execution

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.

Target audience: Our clients, the industry press and the mainstream media. 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. You can watch this 'Cool Dad' film in the supporting digital content of this entry. 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.