First Ever 'Latin' Emojis Unveiled in a Free App: Will it Catch On with Latinos?
Apple has gone to great lengths to update its emojis to be more inclusive of a wide variety of skin tones, but most of the standard graphics available still lack Latin flair -- until now.
A Latino marketing company took notice of the lack of Latin-flavored emojis in the standard Unicode set, and decided it would be a good way to catch the eyes -- and it hopes, the dollars -- of tech savvy Latinos.
Zubi Advertising, a Miami-based and Latina-founded marketing firm, just released a set of more than 250 emojis inspired by Latino culture, as Ad Age first reported. The little Latin graphical characters are available in the "Latino Emoji App," which is available free on iOS and Android.
The Latino Emoji App contains 267 different emojis inspired by Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. They include faces, foods, catch phrases and cultural icons inspired by Latin America, which is far more Latin variety than is available in the burrito, taco, and few Latin American flags available in the standard Unicode emoji set.
The app installs a custom keyboard that lets you select and past the icon into text messages, so it's not like Zubi Advertising managed to actually add these to the universal Unicode set -- which is a process that takes a lot of time and consensus building, since there's a Unicode Consortium that has to approve changes to the universal graphical text language.
Still, it's better than nothing, and as the company's CEO Michelle Zubizarretta told Ad Age, "We knew the Latino emojis would be a hit because Latinos are arguably the most expressive individuals in the world."
Despite being a set of silly graphics (which is what all emojis are at their core), Zubizaretta emphasized the authenticity the company tried to build into the Latin-themed set: Each Latino Emoji that traces to a specific Latin American country was designed by someone working at Zubi from that country. For example, Cuba has mojitos and Celia Cruz, Mexico has Frida Kahlo, while Colombia includes a cup of coffee.
The company is thinking of expanding the app soon, by adding emojis insprired by El Salvador, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic
Subscribe to Latin Post!
Sign up for our free newsletter for the Latest coverage!