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🎲 Strategism: How (& Why) NY Times Is A Gaming Company. A roll of the dice by legacy media that hit the jackpot.
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AI is rewriting SaaS pricing—what does that mean for your pricing strategy?

AI isn’t just transforming products: It’s changing how you monetize them. From smarter tiering to real-time usage insights, the most innovative SaaS companies are evolving their pricing strategies to stay ahead.

Find out how you can harness this moment from Metronome CEO Scott Woody and Sam Lee, VP of Pricing and Product Operations at Hubspot, who break down the seismic shifts AI is bringing to SaaS pricing and explain how you can use it as a competitive advantage.

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HOUSEKEEPING 📨

Found something fun the other day. I’m not sure about you, but for me it seems that everything in my orbit at the moment is political. And for me, on the verge of my 40th birthday, I am thinking more politically than ever before. Trump is a daily news cycle, Australia just had an election, as did Canada. But although I find myself always leaning pretty liberally, I don’t agree with a lot of the left as well.

And if you do give it a shot, send me the results, I’d be interested to see. And enjoy today’s piece, it was something I was super interested in going in. Hope you dig it too!

THE CURRICULUM 📚

How To Own Your Own Emoji

Creating a brand isn't just about having a killer product or compelling storytelling. It's about claiming territory in your audience's mind—valuable cerebral real estate in the middle of prefrontal cortex. And one of the most effective ways to do this is by owning an emoji. Think of this as creating a powerful mental shortcut.

Just as seeing golden arches triggers immediate associations with McDonald's (and maybe makes your mouth water a little), a strategic emoji can create instant brand recognition. This cognitive connection is exactly what we're aiming for: Association. Habit. Brand.

In today's digital landscape, smart companies like Morning Brew and beehiiv have mastered this approach, creating powerful brand recognition through consistent emoji usage. And with the right strategy, you can too.

The TL;DR

• The history of the emoji: From Japan to Silicon Valley, the emoji is now a new way to communicate in today’s digital age.

• Brands leveraging the movement: Owning an emoji is a powerful branding tool for Morning Brew ☕ and beehiiv 🐝.

• Secure your mindshare: Using a specific emoji consistently across all channels helps create strong brand association and recognition.

• The trend is spreading: Other successful examples include Chili Piper's chili pepper, Deadpool's skull-poop-L campaign and more.

• And how you can win too: Choosing the right emoji that aligns with your brand identity is crucial for this strategy. We will show you how.

The short history of the emoji 🫠

In 1999, Japanese engineer Shigetaka Kurita created the first set of 176 emojis for NTT DoCoMo's mobile internet platform. This was the genie being released from the bottle, a butterfly effect moment, that would shift digital communication forever. Before emojis, we relied on emoticons like :) and kaomoji like ¯_(ツ)_/¯ to express emotions in text.

The global emoji revolution began in 2010 when they were integrated into Unicode, the international standard for encoding and representing text across devices. The unification of emojis was beginning and would set the stage for their worldwide adoption.

The real explosion happened in 2011 when Apple launched its emoji keyboard globally on iOS. Android followed suit in 2013, making emojis available to millions of smartphone users. From that moment on, emojis infiltrated digital language and cultures everywhere, becoming an unstoppable force. Eggplants and peaches would never be viewed the same again.

Today, emojis continue to evolve, shaping how we communicate in the digital age and transcending language barriers with their universal visual language.

The psychology of owning mindshare

Picture this: every time someone sees a certain emoji, they think of your brand. It's a subtle, yet powerful move. Imagine scrolling through your social media feed and spotting a coffee emoji. Instantly, you think of Morning Brew—a media brand that recently sold for $75 million dollars—that's not by accident.

Morning Brew, the business newsletter powerhouse, nailed this by owning the coffee emoji ☕️. beehiiv, an innovative, fast-moving, email service provider, followed suit with the bee emoji 🐝. Both have turned these simple symbols into powerful branding tools.

The magic lies in the repetition and association. Every time a follower sees that little coffee cup or the buzzing bee, it triggers a mental link to these brands. This repeated exposure doesn't just keep the brand top of mind; it clubs you over the head with the brand in everyday digital interactions.

And using emojis isn't just a gimmick—it's a power move backed by solid data. When it comes to email subject lines for example, brands that include emojis see a thrice as likely (never said that before) to choose attention grabbing emoji packed copy.

The bottom line here: use emojis in a fun, smart way, and they'll make your brand unforgettable.

The founding fathers of emoji marketing

Morning Brew, a daily business and tech newsletter with millions of readers—co-founded by Austin Rief and Alex Lieberman—adopted the coffee emoji to keep their brand top of mind. This little cup of joe is everywhere: their social media handles, their email subject lines, you name it. And for good reason.

• Visual differentiatin: Emojis stand out, making posts instantly identifiable.

• Employees act as brand ambassadors: Employees using the emoji multiply brand touchpoints.

• Default association: Repeated exposure means even casual mentions trigger brand recall.

When you see the Morning Brew mug ☕️ a few times, it starts to pop up everywhere in your mind. Whether it's a friend mentioning a coffee run or a tweet about a coffee shop, the association is instant. That's the power of owning an emoji. Morning Brew even catalise their tribe by referring to them as the #BrewCrew. Powerful stuff.

Buzz-worthy branding by beehiiv

beehiiv, the tool I am writing this email on—of which I am also an investor—was founded by a former early Morning Brew employee, Tyler Denk. It’s no surprise then that they follow the same playbook, choosing the bee emoji 🐝 to act as the visual mascot behind the brand. beehiiv in a very short time have capitalised on their momentum and created a real community. And the emoji has definitely played a part in that.

• Founder-led content: CEO Tyler is a social media dynamo, and acts as the face of the brand on Twitter.

• Employee-led content: And employees are encouraged to use the bee emoji, making the brand omnipresent. Bella Rose Mortel, who works in social media agreed; “Employee advocacy is the one that really sets us apart.”

_{*Notice all the happy little bees attached to every one of the teams profiles.}

• Company-led content: Their brand account uses humour, memes, and educational posts really well and has great engagement.

But it’s not just great for growth, it works for employer branding as well. “Our team has deep personal relationships with hundreds of our users online. We receive tons of qualified candidates for each new role we promote. None of those things would be possible if I chose to build beehiiv in stealth,” says Tyler.

For beehiiv, just like Morning Brew before then, owning an emoji has paid off very well.

💡 Want to learn more about Tyler, check our recent interview we did together, and a recent guest piece from him as well.

More brands nailing the emoji game

Chili Piper cooking with emoji heat

Another player, this time in more traditional B2B SaaS, who has upped their emoji game is Chili Piper, whose team proudly brandish the 🌶️ emoji on their social profiles. Take a look at some of these little chilis.

Deadpool: emoji marketing on steroids

They mad scientists behind Deadpool’s marketing leaned into the idea of emoji branding. In the lead up to the release date billboards and social feeds were plastered with 💀💩L.

That's Deadpool in emoji-speak. It nailed the movie's irreverent vibe, got people talking, and was simple enough for anyone to get the joke. This stunt could've crashed and burned, but not for Deadpool, it proves that with the right brand and audience, even the simplest emojis can make a massive splash.

Detailed and their little purple alien

Take a look at Glen Allsopp's Twitter profile. He's the founder of Detailed, and he chose the alien emoji 👾 to represent his brand. It's distinctive, memorable, and true to his brand's identity.

The other incredible thing Glen and the team did was he turned the emoji into a 3D character, that he uses across multiple brand touchpoints.

They also use the colour purple across their brand, giving even more chances to associate the emoji to the brand. A masterclass in emojifying your company.

And one day soon, Athyna

I guess I can use the 135,000 of you as our own sort of focus group. You know far too little to make a reasonable response. But with the little information you do have—which do you prefer?

How you can apply this

• Choose your emoji: Find some that clicks with your brand's identity, product, or service. Make sure it's unique and memorable.

• Ensure consistency: Use your emoji across all digital platforms; social profiles, email signatures, marketing collateral, and even in your product if you can.

• Encourage team adoption: Have your employees add the emoji to their professional social media profiles to amplify your brand's reach.

• Create a brand story: Develop a narrative around why you chose that particular emoji to make the connection more meaningful to your audience.

• Consider custom designs: Build something custom, 3D for example, based on your chosen emoji for even more brand distinctiveness.

• Use in campaigns: Incorporate your emoji into marketing campaigns, hashtags, or challenges to boost engagement and brand recall.

• Measure impact: Track metrics like brand mentions, engagement rates, and recall to see the effectiveness of your emoji strategy.

Summary

Owning an emoji might seem like a subtle brand move, but the results speak volumes. By strategically choosing and consistently implementing a signature emoji across all digital touchpoints, your brand can achieve remarkable recognition with minimal effort. Companies like Morning Brew and beehiiv have demonstrated how this approach creates powerful mental associations that keep brands top-of-mind.

The beauty of emoji branding lies in its simplicity. When your audience repeatedly encounters your chosen symbol—whether it's a coffee cup, a bee, or something uniquely yours—they develop an automatic connection between that visual shortcut and your entire brand experience. This consistent visual presence works continuously across social media, email campaigns, and digital communications.

In today's competitive landscape, these small but meaningful brand signals make the difference between forgettable and unforgettable. Choose your emoji strategically, implement it consistently, and watch as your brand carves out its permanent place in your audience's digital consciousness.

Further study

• The WIRED Guide to Emoji, Wired - February, 2018

• Owning an emoji, Workweek - April, 2023

• Inside Beehiiv’s $50M social content playbook, Social Files - April, 2024

BRAIN FOOD 🧠 

TWEETS OF THE WEEK 🐣 

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

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