The JAM Jar

Last week was World Emoji Day. If this blog post were a text message, my next sentence would look a little something like this:

These textable icons have taken on a life of their own in recent months, with Apple releasing multi-culturally diverse emojis in February, plus an announcement that 38 new additions are to be made to the emoji keyboard, including a clown face and an avocado, as a result of their increasing popularity.

They aren’t exactly new; emojis have been around since the dawn of the computer and Apple introduced them to the iPhone keyboard in 2011. However, 2015 has seen them make a marked integration in to everyday language and an incredible 8 in 10 people use them to communicate.  Six billion emojis are sent each day, so it’s no surprise that brands are chomping at the bit to demonstrate their fluency in the universal virtual language.

Brands were all over the social media conversation with #WorldEmojiDay trending by 9am. Some of the most emoji-tastic tweets included efforts by Pepsi
McDonald’s and
Google Play.

Social media platforms are also competing to master language Emoji: Twitter adopted them in recent trending campaigns such as the general election and wedding equality campaign, #LoveWins , while Snapchat has incorporated them in its user interface as a secret code for the status of a sent snap.

Suitably confused yet? Just wait. Our personal favourite emoji conundrum came from the Manchester Evening News, with its cryptic round up of popular food and drink venues in the city, listed – you guessed it – only in emojis. It was like a less sophisticated game of Pictionary at JAM towers, as we puzzled through the list! How many can you name?

A fun fact to leave you with: Emoji Day is celebrated on 17th July because that is the date depicted on the calendar emoji and is the is the date iCal was premiered by Apple at the MacWorld conference in 2002.

This week at JAM towers we were very excited to find out that not only had Insider North West ranked us Jammers above some of the Manchester PR heavyweights, but the vote was based on the judgement of our peers, so a M-A-S-S-I-V-E thank you to those who considered us worthy!

In an effort to understand the region’s ever-changing PR and marketing scene, Insider had invited consultancies to rank the three agencies that they believed had done the best work in the North West over the past year, which were then put in a ranking table (see here for the full list).

This achievement for JAM comes hot on the tail of being placed 41st in The Prolific North Top 50 PR Agencies (see here for the full list).

Aside from giving us the chance to blow our own trumpet (not very British of us we know), we thought we would use this as an opportunity to review the thriving Manchester PR scene and congratulate all of our fellow agencies on doing such a sterling job.

Manchester PR is most definitely rivalling our London counterparts, with around 120 currently in business. Where once the capital city was where it was at when it came to PR (primarily because that’s where all the major media was) companies have now cottoned on to just how great Greater Manchester is and recognised that us northerners can generate amazing coverage and create one hell of a PR campaign. Illustrated by the fact that 22 out of The Prolific North Top 50 PR Agencies 2015 were based in our beloved city.

The arrival of MediaCityUK in Salford in 2007 and the consequent moving of large portions of the BBC, including BBC Breakfast and BBC Sport, (and hundreds of journalists respectively), has certainly helped matters as it has gone some way to ridding the media industry of the North-South divide. For some reason or another, it was believed that important and famous people wouldn’t travel.

Maybe it’s our friendly northern demeanours or the willingness to go that extra mile, but whatever it is we are certainly all doing something right.

The turn around in the economy has meant businesses are actively looking for help with publicity and with networking events going on all year in the North West, including Twitfaced and Thirsty Thursdays, there’s plenty of opportunity for PR professionals to immerse themselves in the industry. The number of North West PR awards is on the rise too, including CIPR Pride and PRMoment Awards to name but a few.

So if you’re looking for a PR agency, why not consider a Mancunian one?

If you think JAMpr could be the one for you, why not get in touch? Drop us a line on 0161 850 0565 or email jaime@jampr.co.uk.

Following Facebook’s subtle logo redesign last week, it has now launched a new friends and groups icons – with the female silhouette adopting a much more prominent position.

Previously, the female was placed slightly in the background but now she is placed alongside the male on the friends illustration and is featured in the foreground with two males behind her in the groups icon.

Caitlin Winner, design manager at Facebook, noticed the imbalance in the previous artwork and even spotted a ‘chip on the female’s shoulder’ or a strange dent in her silhouette. She has amended this to include two robust, matching shoulders and given her hair a re-shape, removing the ‘helmet hair’ she had before. The male icon has also had a new haircut and redefined shoulders, bringing him up to date with today’s modern man.

She said: “As a woman, educated at a woman’s college it was not hard to read into the symbolism of the current icon; the woman was not in a position to lean in…” –  ‘Lean In’ being the best-selling book by Facebook CEO, Sheryl Sandberg, focused on encouraging women to pursue their ambitions, and a favourite read of the JAMpr team.

From what we can gather, the new icon is only displayed on mobile devices, not on desktop formats as yet, but a full, global roll out is planned.

As experts in social media management and digital PR, we love to keep abreast of all the latest digital and technology news. It’s great that Facebook is embracing social trends and becoming more aware of gender issues – hopefully the tech world in general will follow suit very soon!

In a triumphant and historic move last week, the Supreme Court in the United States ruled that same sex marriage is legal across all 50 states.

The team at JAM was delighted to hear this announcement and we found it fascinating to see how the internet responded to such a contentious issue.

Google kicked off the celebrations by implementing a very special search result. If you were to type ‘gay marriage’ into the search engine last Friday you’d have seen a string of cartoon couples holding hands across the top of the screen with rainbow colours that represent the gay pride flag. It was seriously cute! Just in case you missed it:

Not to be outdone by Google’s celebrations, Facebook unveiled a new feature that allows users to apply a rainbow-coloured filter to their existing profile picture, mimicking the gay pride flag. If you’ve not added this filter to your profile picture yet, you probably feel very lost in a sea of rainbow right now.

According to the social media giant, in the initial first hours after the ruling on same-sex marriage was announced, 3.8 million people in the U.S. had 10.1 million interactions (likes, posts, comments and shares) on Facebook related to the decision.

Twitter also joined in on the action by adding a rainbow heart to any tweet with the hashtag #LoveWins. Snapchat, too, was gleaming with pride as it added a rainbow-colored filter that read “Making History” for users to embed in their posts. Users could watch a live feed of Snapchat stories from America, as the news broke across the states.

Not wanting to miss out on the celebrations, we’ve been flying the gay pride flag at JAM Towers too:

It was fantastic to see the support for gay marriage last week both on and offline. Our favourite picture this week has to be this amazing shot of the White House proving that love wins:

Thanks to the likes of Google and Facebook, it was easy for the world to join in with America’s celebrations. Well done, Internet! And well done, USA!