When it comes to viral campaigns sometimes they don’t hit the mark, do you remember the criticism that Harvey Nichols received for its ‘walk of shame’ campaign, and the outrage towards House of Fraser for posting a pug puppy with a red bow tied around its neck captioned, “what’s on your Christmas list this year?” on its Facebook page, well the department store’s latest campaign jumping on the emoji bandwagon led its social media followers to think the brand had been hacked.
The Valentine #Emojinal social media campaign started on Monday morning, when the brand tweeted three emojis, a house symbol, a gun pointing and a face with tears of joy. This tweet was then followed up with a series of photoshopped emojis onto celebrity trending topics, including Harry Styles birthday, Pep Guardiola’s move to Manchester City, and even an image of Kim Kardashian West’s bum being replaced with a giant peach emoji.
— House of Fraser (@houseoffraser) February 1, 2016
Leo¹s not tooting his own horn or anything, but @RevenantMovie deserves an Oscar! @LeoDiCaprio #SagAwards pic.twitter.com/CPaE0Ipuop
— House of Fraser (@houseoffraser) February 1, 2016
The brand even decided to use emojis to ‘re-tell the love story’ of Prince William and Kate Middleton, as one of its Emojinal Love Stories, which will also include the love affair between Elton John and David Furnish. To make things even more confusing the retailer decided to just respond to Twitter concerns by just using emojis.
We’ve come over all #Emojinal this Valentine’s! Hear the story of Wills and Kate, told like never before…https://t.co/qKrb855qUB
— House of Fraser (@houseoffraser) February 1, 2016
The campaign led Twitter followers to ask whether the retailer had been hacked, while others reckoned the social media manager was drunk, and others suggested that the tweets were actually being written by children.
One Tweeter, @le_petit_cochon said: “Ugh. The person running the House of Fraser Twitter account has entrusted a 12 year old with the password. Make it staaaaahp.”
Another tweeted, @holly: “Wow. #Emojinal is a masterclass on how to ruin a century-old upscale brand with one terrible social media campaign.”
Even the retailer’s competition joined in with the fun, with Asos tweeting a gif of Britney Spears looking bemused with the caption, “U OK hun, @houseoffraser? #Emojinal.” Asos has since deleted the tweet.
However, the campaign apparently is the department store’s way of connecting with a “younger audience” around Valentine’s Day, and the social media emoji drive will continue on its Facebook and Twitter accounts for the next two weeks.
A spokesperson for the retailer said: “We wanted to try something less traditional for Valentine’s Day this year in order to engage with a younger audience.”
Apparently the idea came about on the back of research from Bangor University that suggests 72 percent of 18-25-year-olds find it easier to show their feelings with Emojis than words. However, this did make its followers question whether this age range was really their target market.
While most of the comments towards #Emojinal were negative, the campaign was a trending topic throughout the day, and some people even tweeted that they couldn’t keep their eyes off the House of Fraser account to see which emoji would be next. It does suggest that the campaign grabbed people’s attention, just maybe for all the wrong reasons, and I wonder how people will feel after two weeks of the activity.
Where’s the facepalm emoji when you need it?
Ok, something is going wrong, with us.
— House of Fraser (@houseoffraser) February 1, 2016
Image: House of Fraser