TVCs: Zomato app–Mother and Father
BY Malay Desai By: O&M Food delivery application Zomatohas launched two new films in its new campaign. In one, a lady is surprised by her son who arrives home without intimation, and proceeds to prefer the restaurant food that he’s ordered over his mom’s food, all to spend more time with her. In another, a girl goes to her divorcee father’s home, only to discover that he has burnt his pasta. They too order online and enjoy the meal. Both the spots end with the call-to-action of downloading the app. Do we Like? Had I been writing this at the beginning of this year, I would have had chunks of restaurant food in one hand and cashback in the other. Food tech startups were the buzz then, and ET reports as well as corporate PPTs were high on how this could be a big biteof India’s start-up thali. It’s only November, and I not only don’t have cheap fast food (it didn’t deliver thanks to logistical faults), I also smell a rot in the story. Zomato, DeepinderGoyal’sstart-up of last decade that made us proud by growing to half-a-dozen countries, attempted food deliveries in April. It was a late entrant, after FoodPanda, Tinyowl and others, but it enjoyed formidable recall and positioning. If we discount the launch TVCs, i.e. the low-budget snappy ‘hey we are here’ calls, this is the firstfull-length TV campaign. With its pre-Diwali timing, it was bang on to say ‘spend time with your parents’ and show tech-savvy youth being all sanskari. My problem is that it’s so overdone, you could replace the brand with Coca-Cola or Dominos and I won’t blink. Zomato’s voice on social media, one that it’s target audience is used to, is witty and snappy. AksharPathak, their creative designer par excellence, before he recently quit to join AIB, would make viral images, which worked like print ads. The voice is not only missing in the TVCs, it’s been replaced with that of a doting son fromDiya aur Baati Hum. Ogilvy gets to cast SaurabhShukla, whose presence and comic timing is incredible, but he is barely effective, playing a stereotypical messy single dad-who-cannot-cook. The other spot features the omnipresent Indian salwarkameez-ed mother, and says that restaurant food > ma ka khana. (One Fortune brand of oil and about 999 other brands would beg to differ). It evokes a little feel-good but the spot is overall forgettable. After hurriedly signing up tons of restaurants and landingcrores of funding, the challenge with food start-ups was to sustain, and they seem to be erring. I won’t be surprised if by next year, half of them have folded up. Meanwhile, I suggest you go home and ‘order’ either of your parents to cook for you. (To watch these films, go to Zomato’schannel on YouTube.com/Zomatodotcom) Social Newsfeed Your regular dose on the shifts in the social media universe When Reddit took on ‘BookmyBai’ In top news, this writer has taken a break from Twitter and is unhappy to report that life seems to go on with as much pace. I’ve replaced it (for now) with the more intelligent Reddit, and recently read about ‘BookmyBai’ a start-up that was trolled by Redditors for having used random stock images in their ‘testimonials’ section. The Redditpublic can be particularly scathing on such incidents, and the news soon went viral. So much that it invoked a response from the firm’s team, which credited the goof-up to lazy outsourcing and promised to take them down. Some more reading up has resulted in finding out that the Mumbai-based company has just raised INR 1 crore in funding. Hope part of it goes in a better site design agency. TaskBob likes this British Airways trolled after losing Sachin’s luggage Then, in more news that could be filed under ‘goof-up’ but are actually not, the British Airways Twitter account was in hot social fire at the time of going to press, for having asked THE Sachin Tendulkar his full name. It so happened that Sir SRT was inconvenienced by the BA folks, post which he tweeted to them, even using the hashtags #BAdserviceBA and #NeveronBA. Their response was prompt, and in their defence, nothing wrong! The old Brit airline’s social team seems to have a better service than the airline, and hence treated SRT like any other disgruntled tweeter! But the awkward moment resulted in hours of trolling and badmouthing for the already bashed up social image of BA. Kevin Pietersen likes this Kurkure’s #WhysoSweet does social right Finally, in a digital activation that would make wry-humoured folks happy, PepsiCo’s Kurkure took forward their ‘Why So Sweet’ campaign of mainstream media in a cool way on digital. Through Karwa Chauth and the following festive season, the brand initiated a series of not-so-nice messages and jokes on their platforms, often targeting celebrities. It was of course a sanskari, safe version of a roast but it worked, especially when it was a time when all we saw was sugary sweet customary greetings. It created characters such as the nosy aunty, laddu feeder and an annoying bhabhi to do this. And on the microsite, allowed users to make custom #WhySoSweet greetings. Well played! AIB likes this
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