An Investigation on University Students’ Emoji Usage and Their Attitudes Toward Brands Using Emoji

The question whether the emoji that is considered to fill an important gap in digital communication by being used as a nonverbal communication cue, has an effect on the attitudes toward brands and word of mouth communication is the main starting point of this research. Aim of this study is to determine whether the emoji usage of university students (both generally and according to gender) affect their attitude toward the brands using emoji, and if this attitude affect their positive word of mouth communication about these brands. Data were collected from university students by a questionnaire and analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The results show that emoji usage of students (both generally and according to gender) has a statistically significant and positive effect on the attitudes toward brands using emoji, and these attitudes have positive and significant effects on their positive word of mouth communication. Besides this, it was also found that the aforementioned effects did not show a statistically significant difference according to gender.