Parkdean Resorts, the UK’s largest holiday park operator, is launching a campaign to create a caravan emoji, which will see the company submit an official application to Unicode Consortium.
The emoji language is the fastest growing language in the world, with over 5 billion emojis sent on Messenger every single day. There are currently 3,633 emojis currently available, however, despite significant diversification in emojis, there is currently no caravan of any kind, meaning that the millions of Brits who staycation every year on a holiday park have no way of sharing their holiday in emoji form.
Parkdean’s campaign will run across print, digital and social channels, lobbying Unicode to approve the request for a caravan emoji, with existing emojis communicating the call to action in a fun and relatable way.
Steve Richards, CEO of Parkdean Resorts, said: “It’s crazy that in 2022 there’s no emoji for a caravan. More than 3.5 million people visit our parks each year, and a huge proportion will message friends about their holiday, so it’s only right that they should have an emoji that shows their love for their staycation. 37 new emojis were introduced last year, and we believe it’s high time that caravans got the recognition they deserve as a vital part of the fabric of British holidays.”
The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organisation “devoted to developing, maintaining, and promoting software internationalisation standards,” making sure that symbols work across all computers and other devices. The organisation also has control over creating emojis for smartphones, and selects new emojis based on submissions, which present the case for the inclusion of new emojis with evidence for why each one is essential.
Parkdean has created a shortlist of emoji designs which will be voted on at its Annual Management Conference next week. The winning design will be revealed in March, and then submitted to Unicode, along with a submission stating the case for why a caravan emoji needs to be introduced.Should this campaign be successful, Parkdean also plans to lobby Unicode for the introduction of further staycation-focused emojis, such as a bucket and spade, or a sandcastle.
