Lessons from Chevrolet's emoji-experiment

"Safety: 10 air bags. Comes with OnStar standard for 6 months."

this is just a bad rebus. they've used a thought bubble for 'air' (instead of 'dash'?), plus ten 'bags' (purses, etc)

'airbag' is implied better by:
  collision symbol [too vivid?]
  balloon
i'd group these two symbols in parentheses and add "x10"

'warning sign' is confusing here, maybe:
  baby angel?
if that's not too grim.

'on' + 'star' is a lazy pictogram for the name (not the functionality) of a built-in safety smartphone/computer.

 📱/ 💻

"Seating: Seats 5"

they're trying here for the current advertising cliche of the dancing family, to avoid the obvious blandness of man-woman-girl-boy-old wo/man, but it doesn't work when they're trying to say they fit into the seats. they should have just repeated 'seat' five times. (the bunny-girls are a single girl in some visualisations, and they're sort of playboy bunnies.)

"Design: Athletic build, stylish and good looking"

'triangular ruler' as a pictogram for 'design' is quaint but not at all self-explanatory. one alternative is the paint palette, but that could also imply the styling is just 'painted on'.

'athletic build' sounds like a case where they picked the text because they had the icons. 'stylish' must be assuming the trophy is a style award or beauty pageant, but beside the sports icon it looks more like a sports trophy, which is just wrong.

the smileyface with heart-eyes is supposed to imply it's in love with something it sees-- yet another inconsistent 'part of speech'. they could improve readability a lot if they said "triangle = in-love-smiley, muscles, trophy" which at least tells a story.

Available: Soon! Coming in Spring 2016.
Available: Globally

weirdly, they've got the three globes in the wrong order (but no one else is really gonna read it that close).

'available' is so abstract they didn't even try. (maybe 'not not-available' could work?)

'flower' for 'spring' is lame-- an astrological sign would have been more precise, but maybe Commercially Incorrect.

'soon' is one of five special cheats (back, end, on, soon, top)

"In conclusion, get ready to go places in your Cruze."

this would work better if they alternated cars and places, and mixed up times of day and places. they didn't even try to capture 'in conclusion' (three dots = therefore?) or 'get ready' (starter pistol?!)

"It has the technology and fuel efficiency you need wrapped up in a fun ride. Prepare to fall in love."

'mobile phone' for 'technology' is absurd.

just 'gas pump' doesn't remotely imply efficiency (or 'need').

'roller coaster' for 'fun ride' is special pleading-- "a roller-coaster ride" is often scary.

'wrapped up in' could be

candy
or
bento box
or even
spiral shell

(no 'burrito' yet)

the checkmark and 100% are just redundant; and 'prepare to' is missing.

"DETROIT"

'Detroit' = car/music/city
 'stop', like a telegram?

"In two days at the Fillmore Theatre at 7 p.m., a new Cruze will be born and you are going to love it."

there's a 7:00 clockface too, so the time must have been changed and not corrected.

the cityscapes would be fine for time passing, but they should have put an houglass sign before them to signal their intent. (we wouldn't know, eg, if they were meant to be different cities.)

the masks are a feeble substitute for 'Fillmore Theater'.

'A' is especially unhip, since there's no corresponding 'the'.

the hatching chick is great. the heart is way too ambiguous-- the smiley with heart-eyes would be better.

"The all-new 2016 Cruze blends innovative technology, striking design and impressive efficiency into one sporty ride."

this is just a really bad series of rebuses. 'sporty ride' and 'striking design' are sad. the plus sign and commas are poorly implemented direct translations of the sentence grammar.

"It’s the best new thing since sliced bread for stylish and socially connected people."

good-new-bread-dress-shoe-lipstick-bunnygirls-cellphone-speechbubble-boy-girl

if you wanted to sort this out a little we could add parens around the boy and girl, and parens around the dress-shoe-lipstick, and maybe parens around cellphone-speechbubble, and outer parens around those three groups.

the 'bread' icon isn't necessarily sliced on all platforms, so a knife is needed too. 'best since' would take serious abstract grammar.

"A Chevrolet spokesperson said: “We had the idea that the new Cruze could change the world.”"

'up arrow' for 'change' is surprisingly timid.

the speechbubble-comma-quote combo seems redundant. i'd replace the quotation marks with parens

and lose the comma and period.

"Technology: 7 connected devices with available 4G LTE Wi-Fi. Cool! First in its class to offer compatibility with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Bluetooth compatible. Touch screen. Speakers/music."

they're trying to suggest you can connect seven devices to the wifi, and that's 'cool'.

'first in class' wastes four icons on the wrong meaning of 'class'

'Smiling Face with Open Mouth and Tightly-Closed Eyes' means 'laughing'. so with the 'small blue diamond' it must imply Bluetooth compatible!?!

car-heart-phone must belong with 1st-in-class so the period is a typo.

"Fuel efficiency: The 2015 Cruze offers an EPA-estimated 35 mpg hwy. The 2016 Cruze is expected to offer better fuel economy, which is awesome. Look at how much time will pass before you need to fill up your tank again!"

slash-bridge somehow must mean 'mpg hwy'

'look how much time' is bizarre-- i guess you use 2 gallons per hour, so if you can drive 15.5 hrs (01:00 to 16:30) does the tank hold 30 gallons?

the number on the 'calendar' emoji varies between platforms, so i guess they're trying to say you can drive all day?

up-graph for fill-up is weird.

"Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world's largest car brands, doing business in more than 115 countries and selling around 4.8 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at http://www.chevrolet.com."

for 'founded' they're using a pushpin

'Detroit' has a stop-hand again, for some reason.

the head with quotation marks is probably 'information desk person' but i don't find it in that form