Verizon's Emoji Shopping Assistant

Creative Direction, Innovation, Content, Influencers and Strategy

The Ask

The holidays are the most anticipated time of year, but with that excitement comes the pressure of trying to find the perfect gift for those “challenging” people to shop for.

So, how could Verizon mitigate the stress of shopping, while also reminding people that it’s better to give than to receive?

The Solution

Our response to gift-giving woes was to develop a chatbot using AI that turns emojis into gift recommendations.

Holiday shoppers could find the perfect holiday gift options by simply describing the person they’re shopping for in 5 emojis 😎🐶📸✈️🎮.

Based on the provided emojis the AI would then ‘guess’ what sort of person was described and recommend the best holiday gifts to match their interests.

We worked with influencers to seed our chatbot, having them use it to get recommendations for their loved ones.

The Emoji Bot Experience

164 unique shoppable products featured
Used library of 2,568 emojis across 3 OS
Over 4 million possible combinations
Dozens of easter egg responses created
Unique category replies based on emojis used
Custom shareable emoji GIF created based on OS

The Results

390k+ messagesexchanged in 2 weeks
356%+ more shopper traffic than 2017
Average of 1.5 minutes time spent with chatbot
85% interaction rate
82% positive sentiment
Influencer videos reached 750k+ users