International Emoji Day

The Surprisingly Emotional History of Emojis.

Every 17th July, marketers, developers, and bored office workers gather in digital spirit to celebrate International Emoji Day. But before you plaster your Teams chat with 🥳🎉🫠, it’s worth exploring where these tiny pictographs came from, why they matter, and how they’ve reshaped the way we communicate – and market – in the 21st century.

Because behind every 😎 and 💅 is a rich (and surprisingly emotional) history.

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Why 17th July?

Let’s start with the date.

Why is this day emoji day?

Quite simply, 📅 17 July is the date displayed on the iOS calendar emoji. A wonderfully circular logic. Originally, that date commemorated the launch of Apple’s iCal app in 2002. When the calendar emoji was released in 2010, the 17th stuck. The creators of Emoji Day figured: why not make that the day we all celebrate the humble pictogram? Apple endorsed the date, and the rest is digital history.

The Prehistory: From Emoticons to Emojis

Before emojis, there were emoticons.

Think of the humble :-)

This format, combining keyboard characters to simulate facial expressions, first emerged in the early 1980s. Computer scientist Scott Fahlman is often credited with suggesting the use of :-) and :-( to distinguish jokes from serious statements in online forums. A kind of primitive tone indicator, before we had italics, GIFs or passive-aggressive full stops.

Then came Japan.

The Japanese Origin Story

In 1999, Shigetaka Kurita, a designer at NTT DoCoMo (a Japanese telecom company), created the first true emoji set: 176 12×12 pixel images.

Kurita’s goal?

To enable quick and expressive communication on early mobile platforms. Text limits were severe (think 250 characters, not Twitter’s generous 280), and emojis became a way to compress emotion into tiny symbols. The first set included weather icons, hearts, smiley faces and symbols for places like train stations – practical, punchy, and distinctly Japanese in aesthetic.

From Niche to Global: The Unicode Revolution

Emojis might’ve stayed an East Asian quirk were it not for Unicode Consortium – the international body responsible for text standardisation across digital platforms.

By the early 2010s, tech giants like Apple, Google, and Twitter began lobbying for emojis to be integrated into Unicode, making them universal across devices. Apple added an official emoji keyboard in 2011, and things snowballed.

Suddenly, marketers, celebrities, and teenage texters were all speaking the same visual language.

Emojis as a Marketing Language

For marketers, emojis aren’t just cutesy fluff. They’re semiotic shortcuts.

Studies have shown that emojis increase engagement in email subject lines, social posts, and even push notifications. But more than just attention-grabbers, they help build tone and brand personality in fast-paced channels. When done well.

A few key ways marketers have embraced emojis:

  • Contextual creativity: Domino’s allowed customers to order pizza with a 🍕 tweet. Gimmicky, yes – but memorably brand-aligned.

  • Emotional signalling: Brands like Innocent Drinks pepper their tone with emojis to convey friendliness, light-heartedness, and empathy.

  • Micro-campaigns: World Wildlife Fund’s #EndangeredEmoji campaign used animal emojis to raise awareness of endangered species – with real impact.

That said, emoji marketing comes with a strong health warning. Use them clumsily, and you risk appearing out-of-touch, overly casual, or, frankly, a bit try-hard. Like a dad wearing a backwards cap at Wireless Festival.

Emoji Diversity and the Push for Representation

As emojis became global, so too did calls for inclusivity. The early emoji set was… let’s say, limited in representation. In 2015, Unicode introduced skin tone modifiers and gradually expanded to include gender-neutral options, same-sex couples, accessibility symbols, and more.

The evolution of the emoji keyboard mirrors wider social changes, and brands must tread carefully here. Don’t just slap on a rainbow emoji during Pride Month and pat yourself on the back. Emojis may be small, but they’re politically loaded.

The Business of Emojis

And yes – there’s an industry behind this. Brands can’t just create new emojis on a whim. Submissions must be proposed to the Unicode Consortium with clear justification, expected use cases, and evidence of demand. It’s a bureaucratic affair involving proposals that can run into the dozens of pages.

There have been successful campaigns to add everything from the dumpling emoji (a global grassroots push led by Jennifer 8. Lee) to the period emoji (spearheaded by Plan International to tackle menstruation stigma).

Marketing, once again, played a key role in emoji evolution.

What Marketers Should Learn from Emojis

So, what does all this mean for marketing professionals?

  • Simplicity communicates: Emojis are proof that less is more. A single image can evoke more than 280 characters ever could.

  • Tone matters: Emojis offer nuance. They soften a CTA or add playfulness. But they’re not always appropriate – especially in crisis comms or formal B2B messaging.

  • Symbols evolve: Stay up to date. New emojis are added annually, and cultural interpretations shift. The 🍑 isn’t always just a peach.

In other words, emojis may look like fun, throwaway symbols, but they’re potent tools of communication – capable of nuance, impact, and the occasional PR disaster.

TL;DR – Emoji Day in a Nutshell

  • International Emoji Day is celebrated on 17 July, the date shown on the 📅 emoji.

  • Emojis were born in Japan in 1999, thanks to designer Shigetaka Kurita.

  • Their global adoption took off in the 2010s when added to Unicode and adopted by major tech firms.

  • Emojis now play a huge role in marketing – from emotional engagement to brand personality.

  • Be careful: they can amplify tone, but misuse can feel gimmicky or inappropriate.

  • Representation matters. The emoji keyboard is constantly evolving – and brands should stay current.