Macmillan uses emoji treasure hunt to encourage people to explore its website
Howard Lake | 18 July 2016 | News
Yesterday Macmillan Cancer Support marked World Emoji Day with an emoji treasure hunt on its website. The charity aimed to drive more people to its website and encourage them to explore it.
Using Twitter to offer a string of clues about where to find them, Macmillan had hidden a selection of emojis around its website. The first person to find and tweet three emojis won a small prize from the charity.
WANTED: pesky emojis who have broken into our website. REWARD: lifetime of gratitude & maybe a prize. Detectives go🕵 pic.twitter.com/x2NHoakFeG
— Macmillan Cancer Support (@macmillancancer) July 17, 2016
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The emoji treasure hunt was designed as some weekend fun for its supporters and followers – although maybe not quite on the scale that Pokemon GO is currently attracting – but it also helped reinforce its message of what the charity does. The hidden emojis all linked to Macmillan’s key milestones in emoji form which replaced its ‘Who we are’ webpage for the day. The emoji history started from when the charity was founded in 1911 by Douglas Macmillan to present day.
Emojis used in the treasure hunt ranged from ‘the purse’ to ‘the pizza’, highlighting the financial support the charity offers for people affected by cancer as well as its partnership with PizzaExpress.
A brief history: 👨🏻👴🏼😷💀💰💡💚😷😷🚫💷👷🏾➡🏡👨🏻🏆🏥💰📺➡🏥🏇👷🏻🏥🌷🔟💷📚☕🍰🏥📞👦🏽👧🏿👨🏼👩🏻💚🖥🆓🚗1⃣0⃣0⃣🎂🏃🏽🏊🏻🚴🏿💰📈👏🏥🎥🎩💃🏽⛳🌈🚣🌍📱💋💪2⃣5⃣☕🍰🎅👛🍕👨👩👧👦💚 #WorldEmojiDay
— Macmillan Cancer Support (@macmillancancer) July 17, 2016
The charity also encouraged followers to share a green heart emoji to promote its work:
We are Macmillan 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚 #TeamMacmillan #WorldEmojiDay pic.twitter.com/0xoiliotnz
— Macmillan Cancer Support (@macmillancancer) July 17, 2016
Macmillan reports that tweets from the day received over 130,000 impressions and almost 1,700 engagements. A number of the tweets receiving some of the highest levels of impressions for the charity over the past month.
Lynda Bewley, Digital Engagement Manager at Macmillan Cancer Support said:
“World Emoji Day is a great reason to create some fun content and engage our supporters. Our emoji treasure hunt enabled us to direct people to our website, which is a resource that we are very proud of. Our emoji history reinforces all of the fantastic things that Macmillan does for people affected by cancer including financial, emotional, practical and medical support.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.