Non-face (NF) emojis are increasingly used to complement or substitute words in digital marketing messages, yet the effects, mechanisms, and contingencies of this communication strategy remain underexplored. In a large-scale longitudinal study of Airbnb listings, we show that NF emojis (vs. simple text) lead to an increase in eWOM volume, an effect we replicate experimentally. This effect is qualified by important boundary conditions whose underlying mechanisms are investigated in two additional experimental studies. At the message level, using multiple substitutive (vs. complementary) NF emojis reduces message evaluations and eWOM volume due to reduced processing fluency. At the source level, seller quality further moderates the interaction between emoji function and emoji number: for premium sellers, using multiple NF emojis reduces message evaluations and eWOM volume irrespective of their function due to reduced perceptions of competence. We distill these findings into detailed managerial guidelines for using NF emojis in digital marketing.

非面部 (NF) 表情符号越来越多地用于补充或替代数字营销信息中的文字，但这种沟通策略的效果、机制和突发事件仍未得到充分探索。在一项对 Airbnb 房源的大规模纵向研究中，我们发现 NF 表情符号（与简单文本相比）导致网上口碑量增加，这是我们通过实验复制的效果。这种效应由重要的边界条件限定，其潜在机制在另外两项实验研究中进行了研究。在消息级别，由于处理流畅性降低，使用多个替代（相对于互补）NF 表情符号会减少消息评估和电子口碑量。在源头层面，卖家质量进一步调节表情符号功能和表情符号数量之间的相互作用：对于优质卖家，使用多个 NF 表情符号会减少消息评估和 eWOM 量，而不管它们的功能如何，因为人们对能力的认知降低了。我们将这些发现提炼成详细的管理指南，以便在数字营销中使用 NF 表情符号。