Finland emojis win big at Digital Communications Awards in Berlin
Press release 180/2016
30 September 2016
The Finland emoji collection won the Viral Communications category at the Digital Communications Awards in Berlin on September 29, 2016. The emojis are published by ThisisFINLANDLinkki toiselle sivustolle, Finland’s country brand website, which is produced by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The Digital Communications Awards are sponsored by Quadriga University of Applied Sciences and have been held annually since 2011. For an indication of how highly regarded the awards are, you need look no further than the exceptional campaigns and participants shortlisted in the various categories: The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland was competing against a Game of Thrones campaign by British TV channel Sky, as well as entries from several prominent marketing communications agencies.
“Finland has many strengths, and also some weaknesses, just like any country,” says Petra Theman, Director for Public Diplomacy at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. “Approaching country brand communications in this honest, authentic way has attracted unprecedented interest and numerous new contacts and collaborations, as well as prizes. This international award was the icing on the cake.”
Finland became the first country in the world to publish its own national emojis, in December 2015. The Finland emoji collection was published as a Christmas calendar by ThisisFINLAND, the country brand website produced by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The emojis reached around 200 million people globally. A set of summer emojis was released in May 2016.
In all, 49 emojis are included in the Finland emojis app, available for free download in Google Play and the App Store. They can also be downloaded for all devices as images from ThisisFINLAND at finland.fi/emojiLinkki toiselle sivustolle.
Finland emojis are created as stickers so that their appearance is the same on every device. The Unicode Consortium is currently considering Finland’s application for four of its emojis to be included in the Unicode Standard. If accepted, the emojis will appear in the emoji keypads of all devices and will be available for use within the text of text messages and on all social media channels.
Bruno Leo Ribeiro, art director at Hasan & Partners, designed the Finland emojis together with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
For more info, please contact: Petra Theman, Director for Public Diplomacy, tel. +358 295 351 558.
The Foreign Ministry's email addresses are in the format firstname.lastname@formin.fi.