WhatsApp aims to show nothing’s up in privacy push

whatsappWhatsApp is attempting to quell a mini-rebellion among its user base over changes to its T&Cs with the launch of the service’s first international marketing campaign to highlight the benefits of end-to-end encryption and promote how WhatsApp protects the privacy of people’s messages.

Back in January, thousands of users threatened to leave WhatsApp, wrongly thinking it was going to start sharing messaging data with Facebook, following an announcement about changes to its terms.

Those who did not accept the update would begin to lose functionality, it said, leading many to switch to rival services such as Signal and Telegram.

In fact the changes are mainly related to enabling companies to accept payments via WhatsApp.

The multi-phased campaign, ‘Message Privately’, was created in partnership with BBDO. It is launching in the UK and Germany this week and highlights how users enjoy privacy for their personal messages sent on WhatsApp, during life moments big and small. The activity will roll out in France, Mexico, Indonesia, India and Brazil over the coming months.

The campaign’s goal is to highlight to over 2 billion WhatsApp users that their most intimate and private connections are always private on WhatsApp, and to help them understand how end-to-end encryption works to protect their privacy.

The content and creative has been designed to show users the central role WhatsApp plays in their everyday lives, showcasing moments of intimacy and closeness enabled through private personal messaging that is always end-to-end encrypted by default.

The campaign launches with two films designed to reinforce the importance of being able to privately chat, safe in the knowledge no one else can see their messages.

The film ‘Double Date’ captures the intimacy that is created when people can message privately and speak freely. It features a couple on a date who are being dominated by their oblivious matchmakers, but they manage to make a private connection.

‘Dream Job’ displays the progress created through end-to-end encryption and sees an office worker get a private message which holds the key to her new future and a route out of her current job.

Supporting creative sees more of a focus on explaining end-to-end encryption, with content such as ‘flip’ showing how conversations on WhatsApp can only be read by you and the person you’re messaging, and are literally scrambled by encryption, so they can’t be read by anyone else – not even WhatsApp.

WhatsApp’s director of brand and consumer marketing Eshan Ponnadurai said: “For over two billion people around the world, we’ve learned that they see WhatsApp almost as a guardian and a protector of their own cherished and private space, connecting them to the people who are most important to them. They trust WhatsApp with their most private and powerful conversations.

“This campaign aims to encourage and empower our users to speak freely and confidently with their connections by giving them confidence that all they communicate on WhatsApp is private, safe in the knowledge that we provide the most secure form of encryption possible to protect their privacy every day.”

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