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Messaging Apps Communications Brand Strategy

WhatsApp touts privacy with self-destructing message functionality

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By John Glenday, Reporter

September 2, 2021 | 3 min read

WhatsApp is focusing its marketing efforts on positioning the messaging app as a place to speak privately courtesy of its ‘View Once’ functionality.

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‘Private Moments You Only View Once’ is the latest instalment of WhatsApp’s ‘Message Privately’ campaign

As the name suggests, the functionality empowers users to determine how often their photos and videos can be viewed by ensuring sensitive content can only be viewed once.

‘Private Moments You Only View Once’ is the latest instalment of WhatsApp’s ‘Message Privately’ campaign, designed to convince the app’s 2 billion users that their data is safe in Facebook’s hands.

Crafted by BBDO, the campaign illustrates the role WhatsApp plays in our lives by illustrating how the communications tool can be used to share personal moments that disappear forever when viewed.

Situations include an emotional break-up, a secret engagement proposal and a child moments after birth to show how our most vulnerable moments need not reside forever on someone else’s phone. More lighthearted everyday examples include a wifi password, a sweaty gym workout and a bad hair day.

Eshan Ponnadurai, WhatsApp’s director of brand and consumer marketing, said: “Visual communication has become a huge part of how people connect on WhatsApp, as they share billions of photos and videos every day. But we know that some photos and videos simply don’t need to stick around forever. The second chapter of our ‘Message Privately’ campaign focuses on new privacy innovation and shows how we can all feel confident sending things to people we know and trust, now with an additional layer of privacy built-in to WhatsApp.”

Tres Colacion, global creative lead at BBDO, added: “We’re all a work in progress. And that means we need a space that allows us to grow, to try new things and connect with the people that mean the most to us in a way that’s more akin to IRL than the foreverness that is the internet. This campaign celebrates the potential that’s unlocked when we know that our photo and video messages will no longer stick around forever.”

To maximize views, WhatsApp teamed up with Sky Sports News to utilize its View Once functionality on transfer deadline day to impart the latest deals to fans.

Messaging Apps Communications Brand Strategy

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