WeChat passes to Messi as it moves past 70 million int'l users

To celebrate crossing an international user base of 70 million, mobile social communication application WeChat has roped in Argentinean football star Lionel Messi as global brand ambassador. Leveraging the association, WeChat has rolled out a campaign featuring Messi.

The global film titled 'Father’s day' introduces Messi as ‘World Player of the Year’ and ‘Great Dad’. Created by Stardust USA, it shows him helping an old lady entertain a crying infant using the app's video calling feature. Messi’s football skills don’t seem to impress the infant initially, but the ball hitting a basket of fruits and displacing an orange elicits laughter from the baby. The film ends with a voice over explaining WeChat’s features.

Dexton Deboree, managing director-owner, Stardust, USA, said, “WeChat has always been very innovative in their brand marketing campaigns and it was a very exciting experience for Stardust to work with a global sports icon - Lionel Messi and the entire team at WeChat. Creating a campaign that incorporated the unique features of the application and working them around Messi was both challenging and fun at the same time. Our goal was to show Messi in relatable, down to earth scenarios so our audience could easily identify with him and his use of the product vs building the more common, larger than life concept around him that only puts distance between him, the product and the consumer base.”

The spokesperson explained that through the campaign, the attempt was to bring alive the WeChat experience, which is billed as the ‘easiest and most natural way to communicate with friends and family’.

On the response in India, Deboree added, “It is very encouraging to see that the first film commercial has already received over 1.2mn views on YouTube in India. This is a testament to the love Indians have for Messi and Football as a sport, and also testifies that users across the globe love a great communication offering like WeChat.”On the move to bring in Messi, Poshu Yeung, vice president of international business group, Tencent (which owns the app), said, “As a football superstar and a WeChat user, Lionel is an ideal personality to help us continue to raise awareness and communicate the benefits of WeChat. We are excited to be working with Lionel to bring WeChat to people who value the intimate connections with those closest to their hearts.”