• Ford, with more than 100 years of truck heritage, is entering a white space segment of extremely small pickups by petitioning the Unicode Consortium to add a pickup truck emoji to the approved list of icons

• Representing global truck customers with its petition to the arbiter that determines worldwide text standards, the first-ever pickup truck emoji also celebrates World Emoji Day

• Following months of top-secret development and testing, the all-new pickup truck emoji is short-listed as a candidate for inclusion in the next emoji update planned for early 2020

Pretoria, South Africa, 17 July 2019- With billions of emoji sent daily and nearly every mode of transportation including cars, scooters, boats, spaceships and ski lifts among the 3,000 approved icons available to emoji users, truck fans noticed a glaring omission: There is no pickup truck. Ford decided it was time to do something about this and is celebrating World Emoji Day with the debut of the pickup truck emoji.

"When customers started demanding a truck emoji, our drive for continuous innovation meant we knew we had to help make it happen," said Todd Eckert, Ford truck group marketing manager. "Given F-Series' status as America's best-selling truck for 42 consecutive years, there's no one better than Ford to help bring an all-new pickup truck emoji to hard-working texters around the globe."

The Ford Ranger is one of the top three best-selling vehicles in South Africa having sold 12 784 units in the country in the first half of 2019.

In 2018, Ford submitted a proposal to the Unicode Consortium - the organization that reviews and approves proposals for new emoji - to add a truck to emoji keyboards everywhere. Now, the pickup truck emoji has been short-listed as a candidate for inclusion in a future version of Unicode.

The concept emoji's capable styling has been tuned to meet current trends. "Our team spent a lot of time digging through message boards, texting influencers and watching social media feeds to really understand our customers' needs," said Eric Grenier, Ford social media manager. "People want a truck emoji that's fresh, stylish, carries their ideas, and 'tows' the line on what a truck means. The end result is a modern icon that should give all truck fans a smiley face emoji."

If the pickup truck emoji is approved in early 2020, the design will be customized for all mobile platforms to meet the needs of customers - from skilled tradespeople to active families and emoji lovers alike.