WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging programs in the world, with over 2 billion users. However, its largest markets are outside of the United States. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp (which was just renamed as Meta), is attempting to alter that.
According to The Verge, Meta will launch the latest promotional campaign for WhatsApp in the US market starting this weekend. This campaign is centered on app encryption to safeguard user privacy. The first television commercial will appear during the AFC Championship Game on Sunday. Unencrypted mails will be compared to a stranger being able to open your inbox. Similar commercials emphasizing WhatsApp’s privacy will run across the country and on the internet.
WhatsApp’s objective, according to Will Cathcart, is to convince more consumers in the United States to switch to WhatsApp by emphasizing the app’s security over alternative communications methods like SMS.
“People are spending more time online in the United States, especially as the Covid-19 outbreak spreads,” he added. However, in comparison to other regions of the globe, there is still a gap in the adoption of end-to-end cryptographic applications in the United States.
Every day, more than 5 billion unencrypted SMS messages are delivered in the United States, according to a CTIA research from 2019. The majority of these mails are spam or promotional in nature. However, SMS is the default texting method for many Android phones, and it is also utilized when an Android device sends an iMessage. RCS, a long-awaited improvement to SMS that adds capabilities like read receipts and, in certain situations, encryption, is starting to gain traction. Apple, on the other hand, has made no indication that it plans to add RCS support to iMessage.
WhatsApp’s availability on both iOS and Android, according to Cathcart, is an appealing feature for individuals who have been dissatisfied by the cross-platform messaging experience. He said that the business is working on making it simple to transfer your conversation history from an iOS device to an Android phone, and vice versa. Last year, WhatsApp introduced completely encrypted backups, something Apple has yet to implement in iMessage.
Because the Facebook brand isn’t very well-known in the United States and certain other countries, promoting WhatsApp under the moniker Meta may provide better results. The TV commercial that ran this weekend claims WhatsApp is “from Meta” and not Facebook, much like the screen you get when you first launch the app. Although Cathcart claims that the Meta brand is not the center of the advertising campaign, many people disagree.
In the United States, Snapchat and iMessage, as well as Facebook’s Messenger, are more popular than WhatsApp. It’s uncertain whether Meta’s new marketing campaign will make a difference.
