The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2021
WhatsApp sponsors the hand-over-mouth gesture footballers use to speak privately
AlmapBBDO turned the on-pitch whisper gesture into WhatsApp media: whenever a player covered his mouth, a privacy message filled the screen.
What it had to solve
WhatsApp's brief was almost too simple: its messages are private. In Brazil almost everyone uses WhatsApp and watches football, so the message had to be shown inside a ritual people already shared, not in another ad they would skip.
How it works
WhatsApp's core promise is privacy: messages that no one but the sender and receiver can read. In Brazil nearly everyone uses WhatsApp and watches football, so the challenge was to make that promise visible inside a ritual the whole country already shares.
AlmapBBDO noticed that footballers constantly cover their mouths with a hand when they say something they do not want cameras to catch. The agency sponsored that gesture: it agreed with TV networks, the championship and the clubs that whenever a player made it during a match, a WhatsApp message would appear on screen tying the gesture to private conversation, and commentators would add a line.
Because nobody could schedule when a player would cup his mouth, the brand appeared only in unscripted moments. The campaign looked like an observation of football rather than an ad break, ran across sports programmes and social media, and is filed in D&AD Annual 2022 under Media.
Why it lands
- The gesture was performed by football's biggest stars, so the medium was inherently famous.
- Unscripted timing made the message feel true; the brand could not buy or fake the moment.
- Viewers already understood the gesture, so no explanation was needed before the payoff.
- One idea scaled from live matches to sports shows to social media without new production.
What it did
The ad could not be scheduled: it appeared only at genuinely unscripted moments on the pitch, so it read as an observation of football rather than an interruption. The campaign featured on sports programmes and social media, is filed in D&AD Annual 2022 under Media, and the team's own record claims it reached 89 million people and delivered 85% of the year's goal on half the budget.
What you can take
Find a behaviour your audience already performs that dramatises your message, then sponsor the behaviour itself — the medium arrives pre-loaded with meaning.
Since then
WhatsApp's sponsored gesture became a reference case for owning a behaviour rather than buying a slot. The team's record adds a D&AD Wood Pencil and an Effie Brazil Bronze, and the case kept paying out in effectiveness awards long after the matches ended: AlmapBBDO collected a Global Grand Effie in the Consumer Goods & Telecom category in 2025.
Sources
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