How WhatsApp is creating intimacy for consumers and businesses during the pandemic

WhatsApp’s Eshan Ponnadurai shares how the messaging app has adapted its product strategy to meet changing user needs.

Apart, but wanting to connect. That was what the messaging app WhatsApp witnessed with its two billion or so users globally during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People were apart but looking to connect more than ever,” said its global head of brand and consumer marketing Eshan Ponnadurai, at The Drum’s Digital Summit.

Ponnadurai highlighted five trends and shifts in how people are using the messaging platform.

Trend 1: Messaging for intimacy

Intimacy and human connection, as he pointed out, is a universal sentiment, even as different markets go through varying stages of the pandemic at any one point....

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