Have you ever wondered how emoji come to be? Most likely think companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple create emoji as they see fit based on pop culture and social trends. This is actually false. There is a large group responsible for the approval and creation of all emoji, the Unicode Consortium.
In conjunction with World Emoji Day on July 17th, Canadian allergy medication company, Reactine® has created a petition on Change.org and is asking the public to share their “#AllergyFeels” on social media with the hopes of encouraging the Unicode Consortium to create the first allergy emoji. The petition can be found here: The Silent Sufferer Will Finally Be Heard: Make the #AllergyFeels Emoji a Reality!
As of this writing, the petition is just shy of 3,000 signatures. Reactine’s goal is 5,000.
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Reactine has also done the hard work of designing the emoji as part of their campaign, and like most allergy sufferers, this emoji looks miserable.
This may seem like a silly thing for a company as large as Reactine to invest marketing into, but it is actually quite clever. Emoji are one of, if not the most dominant ways we communicate with each other online today and that trend shows no sign of slowing. This year the Unicode Consortium is adding 157 new emoji’s with red hair and curly hair men and woman, hot face, cold face, party face, and pleading face topping the list. Adding an emoji that allows severe allergy sufferers to share how they feel using today’s most popular form of communication, while also getting some positive publicity from the campaign. I am sure they hope the increased social presence will make customers think of their product when making an allergy relief selection in the drugstore. I would actually like the see Reactine do some custom packaging for the summer which features their emoji creation.
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As someone who suffered from seasonal allergies in my younger years I hope Reactine’s campaign is successful and the Unicode Consortium approves the Allergy emoji for this years additions.
if you would like to check out all 157 of this years Unicode additions, you can see them over on Emojipedia.
GadgetSyrup 