Seen, sent, but never read – WhatsApp's new privacy story
With Aamir Khan lending his voice in India, the film plays like a love letter to everyday messaging: from voice notes to moms, to gossip sessions and late-night confessions. It's all end-to-end encrypted, the ad reminds us, and that's the selling point, wrapped in local sights, sounds, and sentiment.
Also Read | Annapurna's Mother's Day Miss: Where's the brand in the beauty?
The timing is strategic. As India revisits data protection laws and rivals like Signal continue their quiet rise, Meta is reasserting trust. A star like Khan adds credibility without triggering political baggage.
The campaign also highlights the new 'Advanced Chat Privacy" toggle, though subtly, alongside WhatsApp's other privacy tools like Privacy Checkup.
It's smooth, emotional, and miles ahead of the usual tech gobbledygook. If Meta follows it up with an intuitive product experience, this could help fix a trust gap it has long been trying to bridge.
Also Read | Are advertising agencies dying? Long may the art of persuasion live
WhatsApp's latest ad campaign doesn't just sell a feature, it sells a feeling. In its biggest global marketing push yet, the messaging giant has unveiled 'Not Even WhatsApp", a bold declaration that your chats are yours alone. No snooping. No leaks. Not even from the app itself.
The 60-second film, directed by Achowe of Chalk & Cheese Films and voiced in India by Aamir Khan, takes viewers into the inner world of WhatsApp—seen from the other side of your phone screen. Familiar, everyday messages float by in stylised motion, but no one is reading. It's a neat visual metaphor for end-to-end encryption, dramatised without ever feeling technical.
Also Read | WhatsApp vs Pegasus: A well deserved win for Zuckerberg
Shot across Delhi, including along the Yamuna and through the chaos of Chandni Chowk, the film grounds a global campaign in hyper-local familiarity. Khan's presence adds quiet gravitas. There's no hard-sell, no tech babble, just the idea that your most mundane exchanges, from mom's voice notes to midnight confessions, deserve absolute privacy.
The campaign couldn't have come at a more strategic time. WhatsApp may be India's most used messaging platform, but its trust reserves have taken hits—from misinformation forwards to regulatory tussles and rising competition from privacy-first players like Signal and Telegram. With the Indian government re-examining the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, Meta is clearly looking to pre-empt the trust question with storytelling, not statements.
And the stakes are higher than ever. As messaging apps increasingly double up as transaction hubs, health info archives, and workplace tools, privacy has gone from a niche concern to a mainstream demand. WhatsApp is responding with product updates like 'Advanced Chat Privacy"—a new setting to keep content from being taken outside the app—and tools like Privacy Checkup. The ad gently nods to these, but wisely avoids turning into a product demo.
Still, the campaign's real win is tone. It doesn't panic you into caring about privacy. It normalises it. That restraint stands out in an advertising landscape obsessed with drama and data dumps.
Will it be enough to shift sentiment? That depends on how easily users find and trust the new privacy tools. But in terms of narrative clarity, 'Not Even WhatsApp" sticks the landing. It's intimate without being intrusive, cinematic without losing cultural context, and local without looking like a retrofit.
For a brand often caught between global ambition and local anxiety, this is WhatsApp speaking softly, but saying something loud.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hans India
12 minutes ago
- Hans India
DefMin signs Rs 2K-cr deal with BEL
New Delhi: The Ministry of Defence on Friday signed a contract with public-sector defence company Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) for the procurement of Air Defence Fire Control Radars for the Indian Army, worth approximately Rs2,000 crore, under the Buy (Indian-Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured) category. With a minimum 70 per cent indigenous content, these Fire Control Radars will be able to detect all forms of airborne threats, including fighter aircraft, attack helicopters and enemy drones. This would mark a significant milestone in the modernisation of the Air Defence Regiments and enhance the Indian Army's operational readiness, while contributing to the economic growth of the nation, according to a Defence Ministry statement. The contract was signed and exchanged by senior officials of the Ministry of Defence and BEL in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh. The procurement marks a pivotal step towards empowering indigenous defence industries by encouraging Indian MSMEs through components manufacturing and raw material supply, the statement said. The government is keen to promote the country's defence industry, and earlier this month Defence Acquisition Council, under the chairmanship of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, gave the go-ahead for 10 proposals to purchase military hardware, including missiles and electronic warfare systems, worth approximately Rs 1.05 lakh crore through indigenous sourcing. India's indigenous defence production has surged to an all-time high of Rs1.46 lakh crore, with exports increasing to a record Rs24,000 crore in 2024-25, according to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.'Our defence production, which was only Rs43,000 crore 10 to 11 years ago, has now crossed a record figure of Rs1,46,000 crore, with the private sector's contribution of over Rs32,000 crore. Our defence exports, which were around Rs600-700 crore 10 years ago, have surpassed a record figure of Rs24,000 crore today,' the minister stated in his address at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) annual summit recently. He described Make-in-India as crucial for security and prosperity, stating that the use of indigenous systems during Operation Sindoor has proved that India has the power to penetrate any armour of the enemy.
Mint
12 minutes ago
- Mint
The Bitcoin is full of contradictions. It could still climb some more.
Bitcoin is in the midst of another historic rally. Can it continue? Your guess is as good as anyone's. The bearish arguments, so far proved wrong by the market, haven't changed. The bullish arguments remain as mercurial—and contradictory—as ever. The original cryptocurrency is having another great year, with its price up more than 27%. On Friday, Bitcoin traded at $119,023, up 0.5% for the day, and only about 3% below its July 14 all-time high of $123,166. The price peg's Bitcoin's total market cap at $2.3 trillion. If Bitcoin were a stock, that would rank it sixth in the S&P 500, behind Google parent Alphabet and in front of Meta, according to FactSet data. Given all the excitement, Wall Street analysts are scrambling to put a target price on the surging asset. On Thursday, Citigroup Global Markets offered investors a framework for understanding Bitcoin's price, based on criteria like demand and macro-economic factors. But the result wasn't going to change many minds: Citi offered a bull case of $199,000, representing a gain of about 70% from today's price and a bear case of $64,000, suggesting a 50% decline. It's hard to blame Citibank's analysts for trying to cover their bases. So many of the arguments in favor of Bitcoin tend to fall back on themselves—and yet the price marches ever upwards. Take Bitcoin's latest price driver: Action in Washington. Last week President Trump signed the Genius Act, a bill designed to regulate stable coins, a form of cryptocurrency backed by real assets. Lawmakers may soon advance the Clarity Act, which is designed to resolve the question of whether regulators should treat cryptocurrencies as commodities or securities. There is even talk of crypto in 401(k)s. It's true those developments could all further mainstream adoption. Yet for anyone who has followed the crypto industry's rhetoric over the past decade, it's a little hard not to blanch at all the cheering over victories in Washington. The original aim of Bitcoin—and its cri de coeur—was to be a store of value whose price was immune to government meddling. Bitcoin's scarcity, amid the growing demand for digital assets, is another key explanation for the rally. But this argument is thorny too. Bitcoin boosters are fond of repeating that there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins, while regular 'halvings" make Bitcoin less and less lucrative to mine. Meanwhile, demand for Bitcoin has skyrocketed in the past year thanks to the advent of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which make it far easier for mainstream investors to bet on the cryptocurrency. The largest of these, the iShares Bitcoin Trust, has grabbed nearly $38 billion in investor dollars in the past 12 months and nearly $6 billion in the last month alone. But can this potent mix of scarcity and demand continue? While the number of Bitcoins is fixed, there is no limit on the number of copy-cat coins. CoinMarketCap tracks more than 18 million coins, according to its website, with a total market value of $1.5 trillion. So far the SEC has cleared spot ETFs for only the two most valuable cryptos: Bitcoin and Ethereum. But boosters of offerings such as XRP, Litecoin and Solana are clamoring for their own spot ETFs. Washington's new crypto-friendly attitude suggests they will soon get them. Of course, a flood of new crypto ETFs won't necessarily dampen investors' appetite for Bitcoin. Bitcoin's status and mystique as the original crypto has so far ensured it remains more valuable than its many imitators. But the potential flood does suggest that hype, more than limited supply, is what supports Bitcoin's price. Arguments for why investors should own Bitcoin (other than price speculation) are also shaky. Unlike stocks and bonds, Bitcoin doesn't throw off any cash flows. No matter, supporters have long argued. Bitcoin still has a role in your portfolio as a store of value, a form of 'digital gold." It's a view that has led some large investing firms (including Bitcoin ETF sponsors BlackRock and Fidelity) to advocate investors should consider devoting at least a small share of their overall portfolio, say 1% to 2%, to Bitcoin, to boost diversification. The Bitcoin-as-diversifier notion mirrors the longstanding arguments made in favor of owning actual gold—but there are problems with this thesis too. It's true that returns for Bitcoin and gold have resembled one another over the past year. They are both in the midst of big rallies. But, then so are plenty of risk-on assets, notably U.S. growth stocks, led by big U.S. technology names. While gold isn't a perfect hedge against stock-market declines, its reputation as a haven during times of macroeconomic turmoil has been established by academic studies looking at decades of returns. Bitcoin, invented in 2008, boasts no such extensive record. In fact, one recent study (again by BlackRock) found that, although Bitcoin's volatility had recently lessened, the coin remained about four times more volatile than gold. When the next bear market comes it seems likely investors will flee speculative assets like Bitcoin and tech stocks, not run to them for shelter. Where will Bitcoin go next? Prices may continue to march higher, just because they always have. But the arguments in favor of still-bigger gains still don't give much confidence—making sense only if you close one eye and wish away all the contradictions. Write to Ian Salisbury at
Mint
12 minutes ago
- Mint
Saiyaara Box Office Collection Day 8: Ahaan Panday-Aneet Padda's movie is now inches away from ₹200 crore milestone
Saiyaara Box Office Collection Day 8: After an exceptional first week, Saiyaara, starring debutants Ahaan Pandey and Aneet Padda, has continued its dream run with a rock-steady hold at the Indian box office for week 2 on Friday. With an opening week collection of ₹ 172.75 crore, the Mohit Suri directorial is the second-highest Week 1 grosser of the year, only behind Vicky Kaushal's Chhaava. 'No one – not even in their wildest dreams – could have imagined Saiyaara shaking the industry with its phenomenal numbers, day after day,' said film trade analyst Taran Adarsh for the 'epic blockbuster'. In mere eight days at the theatres, Saiyaara is now just inches away from achieving the ₹ 200 crore milestone, which several Bollywood biggies like Sitaare Zameen Par couldn't achieve in over a month on the big screen. According to industry tracker Sacnilk, Saiyaara witnessed a minimal (5.26%) drop from its Thursday earnings on Friday. However, showing a 'remarkable consistency,' the movie was able to mint ₹ 18 crore on Day 8 as it is headed towards its second weekend. The movie is expected to drop just 15–20%, which is still a remarkable hold. With this, Saiyaara has earned a total of ₹ 190.75 crore in 8 days. The movie is set to cross the ₹ 200 crore milestone on Saturday, Day 9. With little to no competition at the Hindi box office, Sacnilk estimated that Saiyaara's second weekend collection will be in the range of ₹ 70 crore net, which would be a record for a romantic drama and one of the biggest second weekends ever. If the momentum holds, there is a chance of Saiyaara touching the ₹ 250 crore mark by the end of its second weekend, a monumental benchmark for a movie led by fresh faces. This dream run is expected to continue for Saiyaara till at least August 1, before the release of Dhadak 2. On Day 7, Saiyaara collected ₹ 250.5 crore globally, of which it earned ₹ 43.5 overseas. Its gross collection in India stands at ₹ 207 crore. Saiyaara is a romance-drama about Krish Kapoor (Ahaan Panday), a budding musician, and Vaani Batra (Aneet Padda), a shy writer. Through their relationship, the film explores love, loss, and drama.
