In March 2024, Apple released iOS17.4, and amongst its new emojis there was one that Corona took special interest in – the Lime.

As a beer that has become synonymous with limes, thanks to our serve ritual, we knew that we had to do something to tap into this once in a lifetime cultural moment.

As a brand all about disconnecting in the real world, our brief needed to focus on using the lime’s arrival in the digital sphere as an opportunity to remind people to live by Corona’s brand purpose: ‘Outside We Live Again’.

We also needed to identify partners who could scale our message to the right audiences quickly and cost-effectively.

Corona EmojiLess – A pledge that Corona will never be used as an emoji.

When Apple launched the lime emoji, everything we love had finally become an emoji. From the beach, to the palm tree, and now the lime. But what about Corona? Well, we did what any other brand would do in our place; created our own emoji too. But not for the same reasons. We did it just so we could own the copyright, and then lock it away. Forever.

As a brand that believes life, and our beer, is best enjoyed outside, we had to take drastic action to make sure that people continued to enjoy Corona in the natural way –in the great outdoors and not through their phones. Then we turned lime emojis into real ones too, by rewarding anyone who sent us the new lime emoji with a real Corona. More living, less emoji-ing.

Everyone knows that Corona is best enjoyed with a lime, so when we discovered that the lime was to become an emoji, we had to act – and fast

We realised that everything we stand for had become an emoji. But as a brand with such a strong connection to the outside world we didn’t think that was quite right for us.

So how could we use emojis to bring our brand purpose to life and remind people to enjoy Corona in the real world?

We decided to focus on delivering a campaign that would drive social conversation amongst our 25-34 audience from our owned social channels and relevant partners. This allowed us to drive cut-through and engagement in a fast and impactful way.

Less than 48 hours after the update dropped, our hero film went live on our global Corona Instagram and YouTube channels. The film explained just how far we were going to ensure we would never become an emoji, but also how we wanted to help turn the new lime emoji into a real one.

To turn this awareness into action, LadBible and Secret London offered people the chance to claim a free pack of Corona if they DM’d us the new lime emoji.

The reaction was so incredible that our Community Managers had to recruit extra support just to keep up with the DMs, as the campaign was picked up by various publications.

The results for the campaign surpassed everything we expected:

-25M earned media reach

-Biggest and fastest sampling uptake at ABI in the UK, with 100% redemption in under a week

-Largest increase in social followers in a 24 hour period

-8.9% Engagement Rate on our hero organic post – the best performing asset in Corona UK history

-1.5% CTR on our paid social – over 2x benchmark

-57k engagements on LadBible posts - 5x the benchmark Engagement Rate on their posts

-Nearly 30k customer data capture records