WhatsApp Ads?
WhatsApp, as a part of their brand campaign in India, launched 2 ads recently. WhatsApp already has more than 400 million active users in India then why would it need a campaign for advertisement?
“WhatsApp has the highest customer base in India compared to all other countries of the world”
The usage of Facebook-owned instant messenger is growing by leaps and bounds in the country, especially its growth rate in rural areas of India is progressing in an aggressive manner.
Interestingly, WhatsApp launched few television and social ads in India (in 2018) under the campaign title of “Share Joy, Not Rumours” just to curb the circulation of misinformation on the platform as the criticism for their inefficiency to combat the spread of fake news grew heavily but, that was just for time-being and was not at all about branding their product in anyways.
Very recently, WhatsApp launched two 60-second ads (one, being a true story) under the brand campaign titled, “It’s between you” which narrates human emotions in a story-telling way that conveys “social-distancing doesn’t mean emotional distancing” but the title gives the feel that they’re assuring users about their commitment to privacy (highlighting their feature, “end-to-end encryption”)
It essentially advertises few features of the messenger such as video calls, texts & voice-messages in a very subtle way. The ads are “connecting-to-people” as the social media giant has partnered the Bollywood director, Gauri Shinde for this campaign who has directed few “touching” movies, one of them being “Dear Zindagi”.
Enough of the descriptive study! When I saw the ads for the first time on television, my first reaction was a question!
“Why in the first place, WhatsApp would need advertisement campaign?”
The campaign head told, “Branding WhatsApp is like branding oxygen. It’s everywhere, we just have to give it a greater meaning”
Here’s my take, Advertisements were a part of the entertainment industry for many years, we never watch Television or Youtube videos for advertisements (Many of us mute our TVs in ads! I do!), we are there for the content but few ads have millions of views on Youtube!
That means people are putting efforts to watch something that is intended to catch their attention and grow a seed of the product in their subconscious mind which would be a tree someday.
Remember these jingles, “___ ki goli lo, khich khich dur karo!” I’m pretty sure every one of us can fill in the blank but just think, they’re were able to sell a medicine by their ad campaigns! Medicine!
Advertisement companies are smart, they use something known as “Emotional Advertising (Branding)”, instead of just promoting their products, they manipulate consumer’s feelings and triggers an emotional attachment. We rely on emotions (happy, sad, afraid, angry, fear) rather than information for making brand/product choices. Psychology is back!
No person would be so emotional after seeing WhatsApp ads that they download WhatsApp if they don’t have. “Selling” is not the goal of WhatsApp! They’re already leaders in the social space but winning the trust of their users and getting emotionally attached to them, is their end-game!
So, does WhatsApp needs ad-campaigns even they’re at the top? Yes! Every damn company needs it in one or the other way!
References:
Scroll, Techcrunch, NDTV, Economic Times, Best Media Info, Business World, Contently, Socialsamosa
