Background
The WhatsApp Channel launched in July 2023, and since then, it’s grown to be the largest Channel in the world with over 200 million followers.
We wanted to create a space of useful but entertaining content, helping the community get closer to the brand and engage with WhatsApp in a new way.
Insight
To connect with our audience in a new and interesting way, we hacked one of our most popular features—voice messaging—to create an **actual** podcast where each episode was dropped as a voice message right in the WhatsApp Channel.
Results
The podcast was a global success
M
Total views
M
reactions across
all episodes
K
listeners in the first
15 minutes of launch
Approach
From taking on border patrol with a binder of WhatsApp screenshots as proof-of-relationship, to auditioning for a mini-golf reality show just to get a free flight from Australia to the US, to literally meeting one’s future wife in a WhatsApp meditation group chat… Hasan dove head first into authentic, heartwarming and hilarious conversations with the couples themselves in this six-episode series.
Started on WhatsApp: Love Stories is the first-ever micro-podcast series to be released as a weekly voice message, on WhatsApp.
Episode 01: New Delhi to San Francisco
Episode 2: Sydney to Colorado
Episode 03: LA to London
Episode 04: Lagos to Sydney
Episode 05: Puerto Rico to Amsterdam
Episode 06: LA to Across the Globe
Hosted by the one and only Hasan Minhaj, the podcast explores the dynamics of real-life, long distance couples who’ve used WhatsApp to sustain their love stories and stay close across timezones, oceans and continents.