To prove their commitment to privacy, WhatApp ditched traditional Out Of Home and created a new kind of media by hijacking something else people use for privacy: Window shades.

After finding exposed windows around the country, WhatsApp created custom blinds that featured a WhatsApp billboard on the outside, and an added decor for the interior - serving a real purpose for the residents of the homes getting these shades.

Through this clever placement, WhatsApp became the first brand to advertise in this unconventional media space.

If you live in a big city, you’ve all seen or been the so-called “naked neighbor”. And chances are, if you’ve been on social media, you’ve seen videos and photos taken into someone else’s window. As the population grows and we become more and more of a self-surveyed society through TikTok and Instagram, true privacy is incredibly rare. To show WhatsApp cares about privacy, we had to walk-the-walk.

In addition to peeping toms on regular homes, we also found that famous TV locations are constantly bombarded by tourists taking photos, with little respect to the people inside.

With residential developments on the rise, privacy is a big issue in major U.S. cities. Leading to exposed windows and exposed lives. To WhatsApp, privacy is everything. With proprietary end-to-end encryption, interlocking layers of protection, and countless other privacy measures, no other messaging application is doing it quite like WhatsApp. But people in the U.S don't know much about What’sApp.

Our challenge was to spread awareness for WhatsApp’s privacy measures in its most challenging market: the United States. To tackle this problem, we decided to hijack something else people already use for privacy: window shades, proving that privacy matters online and off.

The goal of this campaign was to position WhatsApp as the most secure messaging app in the US. After installing shades across the country, WhatsApp reached an all time high in terms of privacy sentiment in the US. Within our few-week initiative, WhatsApp also received 192K app downloads in the US, 917K new monthly active users and saw 23M new private messages shared on their platform.

The WhatsApp Privacy Swap reimagined “Out of Home” in a way that became functional for the consumer while doubling down on our brand message.

When creating the first ever branded shades to push WhatsApp’s privacy initiative, we wanted to make sure that residents did not need to stare at logos on the inside. It’s why we chose to create unique art for each installation that added to the interior design of the location we were installing our shades.

Making sure the exterior of our shades had a clear branded message, while the inside beautified the inside.