Zepto’s Amritansu Nanda speaks to Social Samosa about creating a viral character on the internet, their competitive marketing strategy and plans ahead.
The Quick Commerce segment is a rapidly growing industry. Zepto, a quick commerce app launched in 2021 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, entered the Q-commerce segment by offering 10-minute delivery and a convenient shopping experience.
The brand has grown at a rapid rate in a short span of time by adopting the dark store method and expanding their footprint in cities across the nation, including Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, and Mumbai.
This space is projected to reach US$1,408.00 million in 2023 and is largely divided between Zepto, Zomato’s Blinkit, Swiggy’s Instamart, Dunzo, BB Now, and more.
Zepto has 259k followers on Instagram, 60.6k subscribers on YouTube, and 26.8k followers on Twitter.
To understand what helped the brand take a leap in marketing in a short span of time, we spoke to Amritansu Nanda, CMO - Zepto.
The Humour Route
Since its inception, Zepto’s campaigns have taken a humorous route. The brand’s campaigns, which are mostly 30 seconds long, emphasise its quick delivery promise.
The campaigns also showcase everyday struggles, trying to relate with consumers on a personal level and providing a solution to their everyday problems. For example, in one of its early campaigns, Zepto showed a young guy going to work, getting ready for his busy day ahead and his morning routine interrupted by his furry friend as he chews off his toothbrush. This is where Zepto comes to his rescue.
Sharing what led to these campaigns and the overall idea behind Zepto’s marketing strategy, Amritansu Nanda told Social Samosa, “Our focus remains on differentiating the brand from not only competitors but preferably from everything else that's there on the user's mobile phone.”
The brand used, the “Need it quick” tagline in these early days, clearly stating the problem they were trying to solve. While Swiggy Instamart had the early mover advantage they also had the onus of explaining what Quick Commerce is why the consumers need it, Zepto on the other hand had the benefit of the QSR industry already being introduced.
Further amping up its marketing presence, Zepto collaborated with celebrities such as Shankar Mahadevan, Usha Uthup, and Kailash Kher.
Just like their other campaigns, these films focused on consumer struggles. This time, it highlighted the pain point of ‘waiting’ for deliveries. Through this, the brand tried to establish their punctuality quotient through the ‘Groceries Delivered On Time, Always!’ tagline.
The Making Of Sharma Ji
In its recent marketing efforts, Zepto has tried to further shape up its brand identity by making ‘Sharma Ji’ the face of its brand. Realising the internet love for quirky characters, Zepto created ‘Uncle Ji’ before its new campaign launch.
Zepto’s Sharma Ji kept showing up across our social media feeds and pretty much all over our everyday digital existence, mirroring our concerns. The brand created a separate Instagram channel, featuring memes, Reels, GIFs, and stickers ft Uncle Ji to be a part of everyday conversations. Uncle’s sassy personality, blatant realities, and the catchphrase ‘Nahi milega’ were at the core of all communication.
According to the brand, the character garnered organic traction with 10 Million impressions with 10% engagement across all social media platforms; trending at #6 on Twitter, and shared by popular Twitter celebs (CricCrazyJohns, dudeitsokay, shreemiverma) and Instagram Meme pages (Trolls Official, Emo Bois of India, and more). Sharmaji gained 30K+ followers in a very short span of time.
After building Sharmaji’s character and leveraging its virality, Zepto later announced its campaign ‘Nahi Milega.’ The brand unveiled three short films featuring the online sensation and the face of the brand’s new campaign. This campaign was executed by EarlyMan Film.
Nanda mentioned that with the new campaign, the brand intended to break the clutter and rather than directly conveying their point – Quick Delivery, they took the ‘setting the context approach’ and hoped to land on the correct audiences page.
Quick Memes to Connect
Zepto’s core TG are the urban dwellers who live a fast-paced lifestyle and these consumers spend a great amount of time on social media channels on a daily basis.
On connecting with this audience base, Nanda said, “When it comes to campaigns like the one featuring Uncle Ji, Zepto’s media mix is a 50-50 between digital penetration and other offline mediums like OOH and other traditional media.”
The brand’s social media handle engages with the audience with a healthy amount of memes and relatable everyday issues. The brand’s social media posts are a guide to all the things the quick commerce platform has to offer. With topical posts, memes, and jumping-on-moment marketing, the brand tries to connect with the TG.
Earlier this year, Zepto launched a new program for farmers called ‘Zepto Bloom,’ thereby increasing their penetration deeper into the country.
With the penetration of Q-commerce slowly inching towards Tier II and tier III markets, Nanda mentioned that although it's an interesting market to cover, Zepto’s marketing plan doesn’t have a concrete plan for the said market. He also mentioned that in the future, with Zepto being a hyperlocal platform, no market is going to be ignored at large.
In the coming years, Zepto is planning to push heavily towards MarTech and not just focus on its digital penetration. Nanda also mentioned that the brand is going to explore other tech areas like AI that might help in the brand’s communication.
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