Interracial emoji love wins after global Tinder campaign via Marcel Sydney and Heckler
Interracial couples will soon be able to represent their emoji love following a global Tinder campaign created by Marcel Sydney in collaboration with design, animation and visual effects house Heckler.
The Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit organisation that provides standards for text on the internet and oversees emoji, has this week announced interracial couples are on the list of 59 new emojis which are set to roll out this year.
The move means people will be able to reflect their own relationship status in emoji form based on the skin colour and gender of each person. Other options announced by Unicode include emojis showing a hearing aid, prosthetic limbs, sign language, a cane or a wheelchair.
Marcel launched #representlove, petitioning Unicode to add the interracial couple emojis in February last year. The agency partnered with key influencers in interracial relationships in seven markets, creating their own bespoke emoji which were then shared with the world.
A social film produced by Heckler was also launched across Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube. In the film, emojis replaced real-world objects, but the featured interracial couple were left with nothing to represent them. The video had more than five million views and a change.org petition received 52,119 signatures.
Says Ryan Bernal, managing director, Marcel Australia: “This was a globally unique campaign to help deliver real social change. It takes a long time to navigate through Unicode and it’s great to see that the creativity we brought to the table was able to deliver a tangible result. Marcel’s mantra is, ‘We make things that change things’ and you don’t get a better example than this.”
Says Will Alexander, co-founder and executive producer, Heckler: “With around five billion emoji sent every day it’s staggering that it has taken so long for interracial couples to be properly represented in the digital world. Finally, they have and Heckler is proud to have played a role in helping raise awareness and drive action to influence this important change.”
Agency: Marcel Sydney
Production: Heckler
Director: Tim Kindler
Executive Producer: Will Alexander
Head of VFX: Jamie Watson
Live Action Producer: Charu Menon
Post Producer: Amy Jarman
Editor: Andrew Holmes
Colourist: Clement Bouchet
Illustrator: Fred Venet
Animators: Shaun Leong-Williams, Adrien Girault
Compositors: Maxence Peillon, Bertrand Polivka
Music Supervisor: Anton @ Trailer Media
PR: MBooth
14 Comments
Last piece from Marcel Sydney?
Feeling under-represented.
Yep Marcel def appears to be on the way out… there’s not even any individuals left to name in the credits!
Some unkind people might say this sort of work is pretty minor compared with the major brand work advertising usually does. I agree with them.
5 million views
50,000 signatures
59 new emojis
7 AWARDaward finalists
1 idea that led to cultural change
http://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/technology/new-emoji.amp.html
Race-mixing, non hetero-normative – typical liberal agenda bs.
Get help dude.
Great. A neat campaign with actual results.
@Tiresias.
“In Greek mythology, Tiresias (/taɪˈriːsiəs/; Greek: Τειρεσίας, Teiresias) was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years.”
Appropriate pseudonym you chose for yourself, since you’re obviously blinded by your bigotry, and have issues with gender.
What about the combinations of mixed-race that won’t be featured? Can’t believe this kind of erasure would happen here.
Lol-ing so hard. Thanks for looking up my pseudonym for me, on wikipedia no less, great reeesurch. You think I didn’t know who Tiresias was when I named myself that. Now, read my comment again and have a little quiet thinking time, over in the corner.
We’re spoilt for choice. The more precise the emojis get, the more people step up and say: hey, I don’t identify with that.
Let’s just strip it all back again and go back to 🙂 and 🙁
Then you’re an entitled, closed minded
Idiot because White is Everywhere