Pogba Emoji

Can an emoji affect player performance?

Posted on January 16, 2017 by James Campbell

Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme. The #Pogba emoji didn’t cause him to have a stinker, give away a penalty and nearly get sent off. But perhaps it had an effect.

When you’re the first footballer ever to have an emoji and it appears on your shorts, on the pitch perimeter advertising throughout an important game, you better hope things go well otherwise it could look a bit silly.

When you create pre-game content that references your new look in preparation for a game against your bitter rivals, the world starts to notice.

A campaign clearly backed by Adidas and Manchester United, a contingency of ‘what happens if… he gets sent off / scores an own goal / has a stinker must have been thought about. Maybe not discussed with the player, but it seems short-sighted to only think about how good this could be if the game turns out well or if Pogba is the star of the game, in that case, this campaign would look the best it could possibly be.

But with all of this comes pressure. Imagine the pressure of being the world’s most expensive player, having a haircut that says ‘look at me’ and encouraging people to talk about you through social media by creating the world’s first emoji for a footballer when using #Pogba.

This means you’re going to attract attention and be talked about online for whatever you do. Hopefully in a good way, but if not, the negativity can spiral. Fans will ridicule if performing badly and media will use it as an excuse to print words that claim he was distracted, under pressure and lacking focus.

So, is this the future? Big brands are certainly backing influencers and athletes more and more, creating campaigns and content to promote their brand and products. None bigger than Paul Pogba right now; at the biggest club in the world, the most expensive footballer ever and backed by one of the biggest brands in the world. But if things like this put too much pressure on an athlete and has an adverse effect, it needs to be looked at carefully.

For me, pre-prepared reactive content for post-event would work a lot better and save face in scenarios like this. If he scores and has a stormer, the content will look brilliant. If he has a stinker, revert to plan B i.e. not posting anything or something generic, but having that plan B in place can help by not damaging the player’s, club’s and brand’s image.