How Kim Kardashian Started the Rise of the Emoji Business

Whether it be memes, GIFs or hashtags, it’s clear the ways in which consume and share digital content is rapidly evolving. Now, it seems that emojis are leading the new wave of communication, evidenced by the success of Kim Kardashian’s custom emoji pack, KIMOJI. Jared Heinke of Whalerock Industries, the digital media company that developed KIMOJI, spoke with The Ringer about how the reality star approached them and had all of the ideas of the emoji pack, from the name to the designs, already in mind. “Kim’s the best marketer I’ve ever met,” quotes Heinke. When the app launched on December 21, 2015, it broke the Apple App Store and quickly rose to number one on the charts. While it certainly wasn’t the first custom emoji pack to be developed, it was the first to feature a pop culture icon, boosting the overall emoji business. With Kim’s signature “cry face” as the main icon, the tongue-in-cheek nature of the app made viral success inevitable. Brands and other celebrities have jumped on the bandwagon, but none to the level of KIMOJI. Oliver Camilo, founder and CEO of emoji-maker Moji states that “no one is paying to see ads, but they pay to see emoji. Each emoji can be a form of a digital ad,” proving its uniqueness in marketing to people.