Universal Language Beyond Words

Lan­guage is a uni­ver­sal pow­er in which we com­mu­ni­cate. Its diver­si­ty spans across coun­tries, tribes, com­mu­ni­ties and nations. Our com­mu­ni­ca­tion comes through both speech and visu­al coun­ter­parts. Lan­guage allows brands to com­mu­ni­cate and con­nect with cus­tomers. We tai­lor our lan­guage to attract, inspire or encour­age them. How­ev­er, when we focus our com­mu­ni­ca­tion to only writ­ten lan­guage, we often lim­it the mar­ket we can reach. Uni­ver­sal lan­guage is impor­tant when you want to con­nect with the diverse world we live in.

Universal Language beyond words

1. Prehistoric Communication 

Dat­ing back to over 200,000 years, the ear­li­est form of pre­his­toric visu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion can be found in Africa. These cave paint­ings aren’t fine art. They were uni­ver­sal and util­i­tar­i­an. Plus, they even served for sur­vival pur­pos­es. Ear­ly civ­i­liza­tions didn’t have an estab­lished spo­ken lan­guage. The most uni­ver­sal lan­guage at that time, was beyond words — dots, squares, geo­met­ric signs, fig­ures and ani­mals. It would be years before humans devel­oped a for­mal writ­ten language.

2. Communication Today 

If we look at the way we com­mu­ni­cate today, we can cer­tain­ly see how diverse our world has become. Both ver­bal and visu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion allow us to tell pow­er­ful sto­ries. We’ve devel­oped dif­fer­ent lan­guages and dialects across the world. The dif­fer­ence is so much, that it’s a chal­lenge to com­mu­ni­cate to a world-wide audi­ence. When we attempt to reach a glob­al mar­ket, our mes­sage can be lim­it­ed to ONLY those that speak the same lan­guage. Brands that need to com­mu­ni­cate on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el, will often need to cre­ate spe­cif­ic col­lat­er­al tai­lored to each lan­guage. And that, can be incred­i­bly expensive!

3. Here Come the Emojis 

Emo­jis became extreme­ly pop­u­lar because it allows peo­ple to express emo­tions with­out long sen­tences. It became con­ve­nient. And it quick­ly became an inter­na­tion­al form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. A smi­ly face means the same across the world. Even that smil­ing poop emo­ji car­ries the same sig­nif­i­cance any­where you see it. While emo­jis aren’t real­ly cre­at­ed to bring us back to our pre­his­toric form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, it has allowed brands to reach a glob­al audience.

One brand that has dis­cov­ered a way to use lan­guage beyond words, is Pep­si. Their Pep­si­mo­ji cam­paign is break­ing the com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers that brands often face. By sim­ply using emo­jis! These are strate­gi­cal­ly used to express HOW we can feel when we con­sume their product.

Emo­jis can be a uni­ver­sal lan­guage that goes beyond words. It can help con­nect our diverse world. And if your brand wants to reach a glob­al audi­ence, some­times, emo­jis are the way to go. How­ev­er, the way it’s exe­cut­ed should make sense for your market.