End to end encryption, encrypted backups, two factor verification. Those are complicated words.
So when we got the challenge to explain all these privacy features in the iconic Piccadilly 3D billboard, we had a unique opportunity for our brand.
With a focus of impacting our audience and creating awareness, we landed on the idea of transforming Piccadilly itself by morphing the actual architecture of the building in order to tell our privacy story.
Role: Creator and Art Direction
Awards
NY Festivals
1 Bronze and 1 Finalist
Messi Celebrates Copa America Victory in the Most Private Place in the World.
BACKGROUND:
On July 10th, Argentina won the Copa America and Lionel Messi celebrated this victory with his teammates, his nation and fans publicly. But when it came to celebrating this grand moment intimately with his family, he chose to use the platform that over 2.5 billion people use every single day to connect with their close ones and message privately—WhatsApp
The always alert Creative X team had to jump in and act on this monumental moment in culture. In a fast turn around, we prepared the creative and simultaneously pitched the idea to our Marketers and Messi’s team, finally getting Leo Messi on board to spread his love for WhatsApp to his 235MM followers.
CREATIVE:
We started by having Messi post a video organically to his social channels, giving millions of his fans the opportunity to relive the moment with him and his family. Naturally, we replied back congratulating Messi on his victory. Together, these quick communications showcase the importance of a safe, secure place to communicate with your inner circle – even while the whole world is watching.
Role: Creative and Creative Direction
Awards
The One Show
1 Shortlist
To mark the roll out of the highly anticipated Dark Mode, we launched a special short film, ‘Hello Darkness’, that’s soundtracked by an unreleased version of The Sound of Silence by Paul Simon. The video shows how absence of dark mode on WhatsApp was spoiling different moments of users’ life. This was created in partnership with GUT.
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
LIA
Finalist
CANNES
Shortlist - Film Craft
New York Festivals
1 Silver
One Show
2 Merits
In House Creativity Awards (IHAF)
Honorable Mention
ADC 100TH ANNUAL AWARDS
Shortlist - Craft in Video - Cinematography
Shortlist - Direction - Single
Shortlist - Branded Content / Entertainment
Shortlist - Craft in Motion / Film - Use of Music
The film tells the story of a couple. The girl returns home with a pregnancy test and warns her boyfriend, who runs towards her. She takes the test, and when she sees the result (which we don't know what it's), she sends a WhatsApp message telling him. When he looks at the message with the result, we see something between joy or relief in their expressions. A sign appears saying, "Positive or negative? With end-to-end encryption, only they know". "WhatsApp. Message Privately".
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
Cannes
1 Shortlist
WHATSAPP NOW WITH DISAPPEARING MESSAGES. BECAUSE NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE AROUND FOREVER.
To reinforce privacy and the purpose of the new ephemeral feature— we created Fly Baby Fly. An emotional yet comedic farewell film that humanizes messages that don’t need to be on your phone forever.
Fly Baby Fly has also a powerful original soundtrack with custom lyrics that speaks specifically about the new feature on WhatsApp.
Role: Creative Direction, Creative and Co-Composer/Songwriter
Awards
The Webby Awards
2 HONOURABLE MENTION
In House Creativity Awards (IHAF)
Gold
One Show
Original Music / Shortlist
Craft copywriter / Shortlist
ADC 100TH ANNUAL AWARDS
Shortlist - Craft in Writing - Online Video
Shortlist - Craft in Video - Cinematography
Shortlist - Craft in Video - Direction - Single
Shortlist - Branded Content - Online Video
Shortlist - Motion / Film Craft - Sound Design
Shortlist - Motion / Film Craft - Direction
Shortlist - Advertising - Craft in Writing
Shortlist - Advertising - Art Direction
The International ANDY Awards
Shortlist Online Video
Forward. Together.
WhatsApp is not a social media tool. It’s a secure, intimate product designed to give anyone—anywhere in the world—the ability to connect and enact change.
We created an universal design system that further deepens the connection between product experience and marketing. Driven by the notion Forward. Together, we stayed true to the promise made to WhatsApp’s 2 billion+ users in providing an accessible, safe and robust communication tool—building on this foundation, giving space to explore the brand’s emotional landscape.
Role: Art Direction/ Designer
Transforming the forward icon into a search icon to stop the spread of misinformation by empowering the WhatsApp community from within our UX.
Problem/Background:
Misinformation is a huge problem around the world. But during the COVID 19 pandemic, this problem becomes even more serious and detrimental. And with over 2 billion users on our platform, WhatsApp was responsible for keeping them safe from the spread of misinformation and while keeping them updated about the credibility of news, articles, links, frequently forwarded messages etc. shared on WhatsApp. While WhatsApp is encrypted and no one, including WhatsApp can see what our users message inside the app, we can gather the data when a message is forwarded too many times to contribute to spread of misinformation—another pandemic within the COVID 19 pandemic.
Idea/How it worked:
That’s why to improve people’s lives we took the feature in our UI that was being used to spread misinformation and turned it into a feature that prevented it. And created a new functionality, Check it before you share it— a way to double check facts before forwarding messages further using and transforming our UI.
If a message was forwarded more than 5 times, the forward icon in our UI changed into a search icon, which let our users search and verify misinformation directly from within the app, integrated with Google’s search engine. We launched this feature globally to help the community to curb the spread of misinformation by turning the problem into the solution. While we launched this feature during the pandemic, this will contribute to curb misinformation for all our users in perpetuity.
Results:
• 3 millions pieces of misinformation debunked per month
• 20% retention rate.
• 315 MM impressions from the media in the first week alone.
Role: Creator
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/07/whatsapp-to-impose-new-limit-on-forwarding-to-fight-fake-news
https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/04/whatsapp-pilot-search-the-web-fight-spread-of-misinformation/
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/4/21353807/whatsapp-magnifying-glass-search-coronavirus-misinformation-fact-check
Awards
Clio
1 Gold
Cannes
1 Shortlist - Sustainable Development Goals category
The One Show
2 Bronzes
The Creative Floor Awards
Grand Prix
LIA
2 Silvers
2 Bronzes
2 Finalists
ADC
1 Bronze
PHNX Tribute Awards
1 Silver
Webby Awards
1 Honoree
2 Nominations
Anthem Awards
4 Golds
New York Festivals
3 Finalists
AdStars
4 Finalists
"With Payments on WhatsApp, you'll run out of excuses to not pay for your sports bets"
An old time real bet that, thanks to WhatsApp payments, was finally honored during a live sports TV show hosted by Galvão - who owed the money. Diego Alves, a soccer player that was promised a box of wine by Galvão, reminded him about the bet on a Tweet a few days before the show and the bet was paid on air using WA Payments, and highlighting the feature use cases to millions of Brazilians.
Role: Creative and Creative Direction
Awards
Clio Sports
Shortlist
Webby Awards
1 Nomination
1 Honoree
WhatsApp launched its first brand campaign, with an epic branded content short film, online video and TV spot based on a real story of disaster ahead of Brazil’s national celebration: Carnaval.
It centers on the preparations for Carnival, and tells the story of a samba school whose warehouse full of giant, elaborate floats – the results of months of creative work – was destroyed in a fire. Early in the film, the main protagonist is shown to have a rivalry with a man from another school, yet when everything is lost, his rival calls on the community (via WhatsApp) to band together and help the school recover from the disaster. The cinematic film finishes with the tagline: “Rivals in public. Friends in private.” It aims to drive home the platform’s USP: private communication and group collaboration. This was created in partnership with Almap BBDO.
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
D&AD
Graphite pencil - art direction for film
Wood pencil - sound design and use of music
LIA
1 Silver
2 Bronzes
3 Finalists
Cannes
Shortlist - Film
One Show
Merit - moving craft/ direction
Shortlist - branded entertainment
Shortlist - branded entertainment/craft - art direction
El Ojo
Gold - sound design
Gold - actors direction
Gold - cinematography and art direction
Gold - editing and visual effects
Silver - film
Silver - direction
Silver - integral production
Silver - original soundtrack
Ciclope Latino
Winner - best cinematography
Shortlist – cinematography
Shortlist – direction
Shortlist – editing
Shortlist - direction, editing, production, casting (Ciclope Latino)
Vimeo staff pick
NY Festivals
Silver - film craft/art direction
Bronze - film craft/direction
5 finalists - film craft and film
The Caples
Bronze – branded content
Shortlist – digital b2c
Shortlist – traditional media
The immortal awards
Shortlist - brand/project
CCSP
Silver - original soundtrack
Silver - direction
Silver - art direction
Silver - casting
Silver - sound design
In book - cinematography
Profissionais do ano Award
Finalist - national category
Best campaign of the year, according to Brazilian advertisers (m&m)
Background
WhatsApp constantly breaks records every New Year’s Day. Over 100 billion messages are sent worldwide exclusively on this day. That’s why the brand wanted to celebrate its essential role during New Year’s with an emotional, global campaign. It was crucial that the campaign and its message resonated with people all over the world.
Idea
A modern love story. We meet our two protagonists on their way to separate New Year’s Eve parties. They’re in different parts of the world. 10,9,8, 7… the New Year countdown starts at a nightclub and just as our female protagonist is about to send a WhatsApp message, the world literally stops.
We then take a deep dive into a dream-like journey full of memories and feelings – from the moment our protagonists met in the subway till the end of their relationship. Cut back to the present. The male protagonist receives a WhatsApp message, and the world finally spins again. Even if the clock strikes midnight, the year doesn’t start until you get the message you’ve been waiting for.
Strategy
WhatsApp breaks records every New Year’s Day. Over 100 billion messages are sent worldwide exclusively on this day. Therefore, the brand wanted to celebrate its essential role during New Year’s with an emotional, global campaign. After nearly two years of the pandemic, some of the magic of the year’s biggest moments started to fade and New Year’s Eve?—?the yearly moment of starting fresh all over the world and using WhatsApp to connect with loved ones?—?had lost its luster. But no matter when the clock strikes midnight, the only thing that really matters is sharing that New Year’s exchange. A message can be just as meaningful earlier in the day or 5 A.M. the next day. That’s why, WhatsApp wanted users to celebrate the moment that really starts the new year because: it’s not the New Year until you get the message you’ve been waiting for.
Execution
The film ran on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in the UK, India and Brazil.
Outcome
The film gained media attention and was worthy of several articles on many culture and style online magazines. It was also selected as staff pick in many video sharing platforms. Moreover, the different edits of the film have over 10 million views on YouTube till date.
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
Cannes
2 Silvers, 2 Bronzes and 1 Shortlist
D&AD
1 Graphite Pencil
1 Wood Pencil
LIA
3 Golds
1 Silver
New Year celebrations often follow a pattern of cliches, the parties, the noise, being up at midnight and fireworks over countdowns. But for most people, the emotional reset of the New Year isn't about midnight or raising another glass. Instead, it's the moment they exchange messages with the people that matter most. This was created in partnership with AMV BBDO
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative
Background
Whatsapp was the essential private messaging platform for over 2.5 billion users around the world. But when they rolled out a new Terms of Service without properly explaining the changes, mass paranoia ensued and skepticism around WhatsApp’s ability to read messages led to a global fallout among users. After a year of reclaiming privacy credibility in key markets that depended on WhatsApp’s privacy every day, we set our sights on the one market that posed the most unique challenge; Apple’s dominance in the US privacy conversation. Although WhatsApp was a global powerhouse, it was far lesser known in the United States, so we needed to find a way that not only entered this new market as a credible player in privacy, but dethroned the king too.
Idea
We set out to cast a seed of doubt on America’s complacency with the privacy of their SMS messages by bringing the state of their privacy to life using a powerful metaphor: that their SMS messages are as private as sending open letters in the mail and hoping no one would read them.
Our goal was to remind them that even though only 5.5 million SMS messages are sent every day (roughly 6% of all iMessages) like open mail, if they don’t always have privacy, they don’t have privacy.
Strategy
We set out to cast a seed of doubt on America’s complacency with the privacy of their SMS messages by bringing the state of their privacy to life using a powerful metaphor: that their SMS messages are as private as sending open letters in the mail and hoping no one would read them.
Our goal was to remind them that even though only 5.5 million SMS messages are sent every day (roughly 6% of all iMessages) like open mail, if they don’t always have privacy, they don’t have privacy.
Execution
In an activation film, we hired a delivery person to deliver opened letters across America to real people and captured their reactions as they came face to face with a clear violation of their privacy before unveiling the parallel back to their SMS messages.
Knowing that 5.5 billion sms messages are sent every day for iMessage users, we then showed them that even if messages are only sent as sms messages once in a while, there’s always a chance it could be the one message they would never have wanted to get exposed to hackers and put those messages out in the world to make the threat hit close to home.
Outcome
We launched the campaign during the 2022 AFC championship game and saw a 7X spike in downloads on the same day. Across the duration of the campaign, however, the brand saw a gain of 2M monthly active users from Jan 28 - April 4. But ultimately, the perception of WhatsApp as a private messaging platform, which was the primary goal of the campaign, saw a 7% lift overall.
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
Cannes
1 Bronze and 1 Shortlist
D&AD
1 Shortlist
Family stands by us at all times—through thick and thin. And even in a really tough year like this, where we had to stay apart from the people we love the most, it’s the bond we shared that got us through. WhatsApp New Year’s hero film, A Family Diary, reflects the ups and downs of 2020 through the lens of WhatsApp messages and highlights the important connecting role we played in our users' lives - a role that was further amplified this year beyond what we could have ever imagined, as we have all been separated from our loved ones.
New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are the busiest days on WhatsApp where we send the most messages around the world. So, it was especially important for our Brand to have a voice in this moment. We wanted to tell the story of 2020 in a way that was real, honest and moving and that reinforced the message that what kept us close got us through what has been a monumental year. The campaign was created in partnership with BBDO Berlin and Almap BBDO and it’s on Social globally and On Platform in Brazil, UK, and US (Spanish speaking).
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
LIA
1 Bronze
6 Finalists
CANNES
1 Shortlist - Film Craft category
D&AD
Sound Design & Use of Music / Shortlist
CLIO
Film craft - Cinematography / 1 Bronze
Film craft - direction / Shortlist
Film craft - music licensed / Shortlist
New York Festivals
1 Bronze
One Show
Moving Craft / 2 Merits
ADCE
1 Silver
1 Bronze
ADC 100TH ANNUAL AWARDS
Film craft online video- editing / 1 Merit
Film craft online video- direction / 1 Merit
shortlist, film
Shortlist, film craft online video - writing
Shortlist, film craft online video - cinematography
Shortlist, film craft - use of music
Shortlist, film craft - direction
Shortlist, film craft - cinematography
We launches the second phase the brand campaign,”It’s between you,” with a special film for Mother's Day.
A global campaign produced during the lockdown, with films made following all World Health Organization rules.
The campaign celebrates the universal moments of intimate connection during this uncertain and difficult time, and shows how people are managing to stay close to those they love - even in isolation - in a private and meaningful way through the use of WhatsApp. This was created in partnership with Almap BBDO
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
The best spot in brazil during the lockdown, according to Brazilian journalists.
D&AD
1 Wood Pencil / Cinematography / Film
CICLOPE LATINO
Winner - Best Cinematography
LIA
1 Bronze
1 Finalist
CCSP
In book - film
In book - direction
In book - cinematography
In book - soundtrack
El Ojo
Shortlist - direction
Shortlist - best use of soundtrack
Background
The brief was quite simple: say that WhatsApp messages are private. And since everyone -at least here in Brazil- uses WhatsApp, we had to show it in a way that everyone would understand, that would be part of their lives. As every Brazilian use WhatsApp and watches football matches on TV, we decide to use football matches to talk about WhatsApp's main differential, privacy.
Idea
To show the WhatsApp’s privacy, we took advantage of the fact that Brazilians love football, and we sponsored a gesture that every player makes when they don't want everyone to know what they are saying during a match, putting their hands over their mouths. When they did it, a live communication linked the gesture with WhatsApp privacy. The idea was on sports programs and social network.
Strategy
We use all the touchpoints of people who like football, from the games on TV to social networks. We sealed agreements with the TV networks, the championship, and the teams. And after each match, we did the same with the players who made the gestures to use their images.
Execution
To talk about the app's privacy, we decided to do an unusual activation during the games. We use media that already exists in a way that has never been used before. The brand communication only entered the screen when the player made a specific gesture (uncombined action). In other words, we never knew strictly at what time this would happen and not and not even if it would happen. The same was used in sports programs on TV and digital media. We combined with TV channels that had a team on standby the entire game to release communication at just the right moment for the activation to work. In addition, the narrator of the match spoke a text when this happened.
Outcome
The idea was a success: Impact on 1.2 billion people; Reach of 89 million people; Remembrance of 61%; 9.1/10 of average score among viewers; 85% of the year's goal with half of the budget.
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
D&AD
1 Wood Pencil
1 Shortlist
Effie Brazil
1 Bronze
Privacy campaigns
From intimately connecting people who are apart, physically or not, to finding a way of saying “I love you” to your son, to liberating people to do and say what they want to, to bringing the fun on a sticker that means nothing to everybody, but everything to you and a close one, to having private groups helping and/or entertaining each other, to that meme that tells your girlfriend how you feel better than words, to being the private place and soul of refugees, to being the voice for people who can’t read or write, to helping dialects to not disappear in countries like India, to making rivals, privately, help each other in the biggest social inclusion celebration of a country like Brazil, to informing people about what’s true or false in a worldwide pandemic, to being the protected line for minorities against all sorts of races, nationalities, gender or accessibility prejudices
WhatsApp is the brand where people can be their true selves. Because when privacy is deeply felt people can communicate freely and experience real relationships. It trumpets the power of intimate human connection.
On WhatsApp, People feel safe and encouraged to share things that usually stay with them or between them and their friends, on a WA people always message privately. All happens in an encrypted place because privacy is a human right, always remember that.
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative
There was a lot of apathy among Latinos when we talked about voting. They were not interested in voting anymore because they didn’t think that they could make a difference. How could we change that? To empower the LatinX/Hispanic community with the right information to vote, recognizing their power and importance on our platform and to vote, we partnered with the family of a well loved icon of the LatinX/Hispanic community: Walter Mercado. There was one caveat: Walter Mercado passed away in 2019. His family graciously supported the use of his voice in the campaign “The Power is in Your Hands” and we used various of his existing footage to find the message he would’ve loved to share with his community with Mucho Mucho Amor. One last horoscope to the Latino community telling them that their future and power is in their hands, if they vote.
The creative drew on the past-time of astrology (highly relevant to the LatinX/Hispanic community), with a message applicable to all audiences— ‘This year the power is in your hands, get the facts with IFCN and exercise your right to vote with Vote.org’
We ran a campaign promoting two bots created on WhatsApp to help people fact check and get voting information by partnering with two nonpartisan NGOS: The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and Vote.org
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
Awards
LIA
3 Finalists
AdColor
Nominee
AME Awards
1 Silver
New York Festivals
3 Finalists
The Webby Awards
1 HONOURABLE MENTION
The Drum
2 Shortlists
One Show
Creative use of data / Merit
Direct Marketing / Merit
Influencer Marketing / Shortlist
To launch WhatsApp’s Desktop Calling feature, we created an online film showing the challenges faced by our users such as hands being full, inconvenience during longer conversations, not being able to see the details in a smaller screen and find it especially hard to multitask while talking.
All this directed us to the convenience of making a call through Desktop — “the calling you know and love, now hands free”.
It directed us to fun and hands-free creative situations such as —
The Crop—No more cropped faces by going from vertical to bigger horizontal screen where one size fits all.
The Drop—No more dropping your phone inside that delicious “Daal Tadka” (Lentil Soup) as you get the recipe from Mom on a video call.
The Ceiling—Feeding your baby while chatting with your friends without your phone pointing at the ceiling.
And by taking those creative insights we made a simple and empowering online film that shows real user situations in an endearing and lighthearted way while portraying Desktop Calling as an ideal solution for such moments.
We also made an original composition, and wrote lyrics that made sense to the situations shown in the film:
Hangin in there, can’t you see?
Things are going perfectly
Waited for the time to pass,
I’m happy, and I’m glad you asked.
Tell me all the things you’ve done
And please say hi to everyone
Crazy, all this time has passed
I’m so happy, and I’m glad you asked.
I’ve been wishing on a star
Crossing fingers, cross my heart
The weeks are long, the weekends fast
But I’m happy, and I’m glad you asked.
Yeah, I’m happy and I’m glad you asked
Ohhh, happy, and I’m glad you asked.
Role: Creative Direction, Creative and Composer/Songwriter
Awards
In House Creativity Awards (IHAF)
Silver
ADC 100TH ANNUAL AWARDS
Shortlist - Motion / Film Craft - Sound Design
This is the very first pure Creative X, on platform, work for WhatsApp. And we started it with a simple but beautiful and emotional way of humanizing something cold like E2E encryption.
We used UI, stickers, and cryptography symbols to create an artistic metaphor of privacy. The visual technique shows messages leaving the phone and transforming into cryptography as they fly from the original sender to the people receiving the message. With this approach, we graphically demonstrate how every WhatsApp video call or message is encrypted end-to-end for complete privacy between you and the people with whom you’re connecting. Today, the stories we tell are inspired by real things that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic – but this technique also has the potential to express WhatsApp's encryption in post-pandemic situations.
Role: Creative Direction and Creative
This is how easy we think messaging a business should be - browsing through a store’s catalog in a chat, adding an item to your cart, placing your order and getting fast responses to questions. We are looking forward to bringing these experiences to more people on WhatsApp!
Role: WhatsApp Global Creative Direction
