Have you ever wanted to send a client a bottle of champagne to congratulate them on the purchase of their new home, but just can’t? Now you can — sort of — with CARmojis.
Thanks to the California Association of Realtors (CAR) and Red Tettemer O’Connell and Partners (RTO+P), you might be congratulating your next client with an emoji, or CARmojis — the association’s real estate-centric keyboard for Apple iOS mobile devices. (The keyboard will be made available in the Google Play store in the near future.)
See, you can send champagne!
The app was released on the heels of CAR’s recent advertising campaign, which, coincidentally, avoids any suggestion of a mobile device.
“Everyone is speaking with emojis now, and we thought Realtors should, too,” said Steve Red, president and chief creative officer at RTO+P. “Looking at the lives of Realtors and the businesses of Realtors — and those moments you want to get across a certain sentiment — and then crafting a little CARmoji around it.”
In choosing the 39 currently available CARmojis (more will be released in the near future), RTO+P Vice President of Digital Strategy Uri Weingarten said the goal was to meet the touchpoint where Realtors communicate with clients and peers. The staff at CAR and select Realtors juried the selection for the launch.
Super Realtors!
The app also comes with “stickers,” or simple graphics that Realtors can paste onto pictures. Also included are the CAR commercials and GIFs to attach into text messages and emails.
If you’ve never used a third-party keyboard app on your phone before, then you’ll want to follow the instructions on how to install the keyboard. The app will request “Full Access,” which sounds a bit alarming and comes with a warning.
“‘Full Access’ is required by all third party keyboards in order to work within the iOS environment. This is not a requirement specific to the CARmojis keyboard,” Weingarten said.
“We keep track, for reporting purposes, of which CARmojis are searched for and shared within the keyboard on aggregate, not against individuals. We do not track or store the text of the message sent with the CARmojis.”
