Zomato has often grabbed eyeballs for one controversy or another. Be it how they treat their employees or the recent mishaps that took place with deliveries and customers, the food-delivery app is always under scrutiny. Recently, they unveiled new advertisements starring Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif, that were not well received by the people.
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The commercial hailed the delivery partners, who always prioritise the customer over anything. In the advertisement starring Roshan, people got to see how he doesn’t wait for a selfie with the star because he has another order to deliver. Something on a similar line happens in the commercial starring Kaif as well. While Zomato thought of it as a good PR strategy to release this advertisement, netizens were upset with it.
Check Out The Comercials Below:
Starring Hrithik Roshan
Starring Katrina Kaif
Many people on the internet claimed Zomato was being “tone-deaf” in a day and age where the discriminatory treatment of gig workers has come under increased examination. People pointed out that the commercials did nothing more than propose that Zomato delivery partners do not even have a minute to rest in between delivering orders, Many even said that the company would rather spend money on celebrity ads than pay their delivery partners fair wages.
Addressing the backlash, Zomato issued a statement that read, “On our latest TV ads featuring Hrithik and Katrina… We released new TV ads (featuring Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Katrina) a week ago and have been receiving mixed feedback about them. Since there are always two sides to a story, we would love to present our point of view. These ads were conceptualised 6 months ago (long before any social media chatter around gig worker payouts/working conditions), and were shot 2 months ago.”
The statement further read, ” We believe that our ads are well-intentioned, but were unfortunately misinterpreted by some people. Having said that, we have been intently listening to all the chatter about gig workers and all the problems associated with this part of the economy. As a company, we have always acknowledged whenever we’ve come short, and we understand that you expect more and better from us.
As we shared in our quarterly shareholder letter before, we’ve been actively working on this already, and our delivery partner Net Promoter Score (NPS) has increased from -10% to 28% (and continues to rise). We will also, very soon, publish a blog post explaining why we think our delivery partners are fairly compensated for the work/time that they put in. We thank everyone for pushing us to do better and we urge you to continue keeping us on our toes. We won’t shirk away from our responsibility.”
