The rival file-sharing service harnesses humour brilliantly to capitalise on the WeTransfer AI training controversy and lure in creative professionals.
When your biggest competitor drops the ball, what do you do? Well, if you’re Smash, the French file transfer service, you take the mickey, with a campaign that’s half joke, half serious business move.
Following a massive backlash against WeTransfer for its change in terms and conditions, Smash is rolling out some cheeky visuals that directly mock its Dutch rival. It’s bold, it’s direct, and it’s working.
Perfect timing for a punchline
The whole thing kicked off last month when WeTransfer quietly changed its terms of service. The new wording appeared to suggest that any file you uploaded to their service could be used to train AI models. For creatives who rely on WeTransfer daily—photographers, designers, video editors and others—this felt like a massive betrayal.
Anyone who makes money from their creative work will understand why. The idea that WeTransfer might use your files to build AI tools? Not exactly what anyone signed up for.
Smash saw their chance and took it. Instead of a boring corporate response, they went straight for WeTransfer’s throat with cutting humour; first in France, and now here in the UK. It was like watching Burger King roast McDonald’s, except with file transfers.
The visuals in the campaign appear simple enough, but there’s a serious message behind them. While WeTransfer upset everyone with AI controversies, Smash is positioning itself as the ethical alternative that gives a damn about user privacy and intellectual property.
The company itself isn’t new; Smash has been around since 2017 and has steadily built up its user base over the last eight years. But timing is everything, and WeTransfer’s AI controversy came at exactly the right moment. Smash had six million users and a capable infrastructure, enough to handle a sudden influx of angry WeTransfer refugees.
And that’s basically what’s happened. Since the controversy broke, Smash has seen its usage and subscriptions explode with triple-digit growth. But what’s perhaps surprising is where the growth is coming from. It’s not just their home country: they’re seeing massive upticks in the US, UK, and even the Netherlands, where WeTransfer was born.
More than just clever copy
Of course, you can’t just base a business on clever copywriting. So it’s important to note that behind the jokes, Smash actually delivers on privacy in ways that WeTransfer apparently doesn’t.
Their approach is pretty simple, really: they don’t open your files, they don’t analyse them, and they definitely don’t feed them to AI models. Your stuff stays your stuff.
They also do something pretty rare in the file transfer world; they show you the environmental cost of each transfer. Working with a sustainability firm, they calculate the carbon footprint so you know exactly what impact you’re having. It’s the kind of transparency most companies avoid, but Smash is tackling its responsibilities head-on, and that’s something we find laudable.
Why it works
Overall, what Smash has pulled off with this campaign is a masterclass for any smaller company taking on a tech giant. They haven’t gone high-minded or preachy about AI ethics. They haven’t penned long blog posts about data sovereignty. They’ve simply put a smile on people’s faces, while making their point crystal clear.
The beauty of their approach is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously while addressing genuine concerns. Creatives worried about their intellectual property don’t need lectures: they need alternatives that work and respect their rights. And sometimes the best response to a competitor’s stumble is a well-timed joke that cuts to the chase.
Which means that creatives who felt burned by WeTransfer’s AI ambitions now have a clear alternative that speaks their language, both literally and figuratively. In a world where trust in tech keeps eroding, sometimes a bit of honesty wrapped in humour is exactly what people need to hear.