Your engineers can’t save you

Because brands aren’t worthless on your homescreen 

Facebook bought WhatsApp for some serious cash.

Now VCs, pundits, and entrepreneurs — hell, even my mom — are all looking for a little more clarity into answering the $19 billion question:

Why is WhatsApp so valuable to Facebook?

Much has been blogged. Much has been tweeted.

Some argue it’s the telephone numbers, the international users, the ridiculous engagement, the growth, the low-end feature-phone user base. These are all important and the deal most likely wouldn’t have happened without them.

But nowhere to be found is a appreciation for the WhatsApp brand.

WhatsApp has the strongest brand in the word for text messaging.

Text messaging. I’d argue it’s the most critical, desirable, and used functionality of mobile phones. If your phone was a body, it would be the heart. It may even be the heart and the lungs.

WhatsApp literally is text messaging for 500 million people every day.

You can’t build that brand — as much as Facebook would love to. We know this from experience. They can’t build a brand of 140 characters and they can’t build a brand of deleting photo messages.

Some have contended that Facebook could build a messenger in-house (for some reason ignoring the fact that they already have). “Just spend a few billion dollars on it!” they say.

A simple argument by analogy: Could CocaCola feasibly become the world’s most recognizable brand for energy drinks by creating the beverage in-house? You can bet your Red Bull drinking ass they can’t.

And WhatsApp will continue to build its brand.

Just like Instagram, Facebook will let WhatsApp continue to operate independently under its own brand. It’s smart. It further underscores the power of the WhatsApp brand and why it’s valuable to Facebook.

Engineering or marketing have never been a challenge for Facebook. The challenge for Facebook is brand dilution and over extension. People don’t think they want or need more Facebook. Facebook already is everything — and accordingly it’s in danger of becoming nothing.

Mobile is changing everything.

Facebook started on the web. A time long ago where URLs, bookmarks, and page load times ruled the land.

Appropriate for the time, Facebook evolved like a swiss army knife with a bunch of tools that do a decent job. If you were only going to pick one tool for your social networking needs, you’d choose Facebook.

We’re now entering a new era with mobile. Social swiss army knives no longer rule the landscape. When you want to do a specific type of socializing, you’ll choose a specific tool built for that purpose. That tool will be an app built from the ground up for that purpose, with a brand that echoes its utility.

Your homescreen is a big deal. <- pun!

Modern mobile phones are little more than a collection of brands that provide services and live in your pocket.

When you want to communicate with a friend — what brand do you think of?

Most people on the planet think of the green speech bubble in their dock called WhatsApp.

To me that’s actually worth more than $19 billion.

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If you’d like to see our version of a mobile brand you should check out Hollerback. I think you’ll like it.

And follow me on twitter if you’re into that sort of thing.