Izea’s idea: #AD emoji to clearly mark promotions

An Orlando-based tech company wants its own emoji. Well, kind of.

The sponsored social content firm Izea (NASDAQ: IZEA) announced today that it petitioned The Unicode Consortium for an emoji to indicate that a Tweet or other social media content is an advertisement.

The consortium oversees acceptance of official emojis — yes, that’s a thing.

Identifying sponsored social media is a real concern, after recent Federal Trade Commission rulings that have been more critical of social media commercials posing as legitimate posts.

Recently, media giant Warner Brothers and Internet celebrity Felix Kjellberg, known by his YouTube handle PewDiePie, were lashed for not clearly marking a video of him playing a game as an advertisement.

In a settlement announced in July, the FTC required explicitly that Warner Brothers disclose these arrangements in all media, including gameplay videos. There was no fine or other action.

The new emoji would be one of four versions, all of which have a hashtag followed by the word “AD.”

Izea CEO Ted Murphy said the growing use of emojis in social media means the more-clear disclosures of advertising on platforms are needed.

“One of the biggest challenges facing influencer marketing today is the lack of uniform transparency and disclosure,” he said in a release announcing its effort. “Every social platform is different and there isn’t a common method for content creators to disclose that a piece of content is sponsored by a brand.”

In its bid, Izea pointed out that the use of the hashtag #ad far outpaces many terms – including #selfie, #facepalm and, yes, even #bacon – meaning an emoji is a logical next step.

Murphy said the emoji would create an environment that promoted “ethical disclosure” of advertisements.

Petitions to create new emojis are due Oct. 1. If Murphy gets the OK, he said, the new emoji would likely debut in 2017.