Athens-based Zaxby’s chain petitions to ‘elevate sauce to emoji status’

Athens-based fast food chain Zaxby’s announced on Monday that is launching a change.org petition for World Emoji Day in hopes of creating the world’s first sauce-based emoji. The fast food giant reported that it wants to bring the “Saucemoji” to the Unicode keyboard, bringing sauce into the modern zeitgeist of communication.

“In honor of World Emoji Day, Zaxby’s is starting a movement to elevate sauce to emoji status,” Patrick Schwing, Zaxby’s chief marketing and strategy officer, said in a news release. “We’re asking all brand fans and sauce aficionados to join us in calling for the creation of the first-ever sauce emoji.”

To encourage people to sign up for the petition, Zaxby’s various social media channels have been championing the “Saucemoji” as something for those in “desperate need of an emoji to properly express their sauciness.”

“If you search for a ‘sauce’ emoji, you’ll find four to choose from,” according to Zaxby’s change.org petition. “A can of tomatoes. A flying saucer. An empty jar. And spaghetti. This. Is. Unacceptable. 3,644 emojis but not a single good one for sauce? Call it an oversight. Call it a conspiracy. But here at Zaxby’s, we’ll call it what it is – a wrong that needs righting.

“So as a saucy chicken chain, we’re stepping up to the dinner plate and petitioning Unicode to add a Saucemoji. And we’re asking all you saucy people to join us. Do it for hot sauce. Do it for BBQ sauce. Do it for that saucy drip. But above all, do it for you. Because you deserve Saucemoji. Together, we can make history, and by history, we mean making a new emoji.”