Zomato, an Indian restaurant search and discovery service is recently going through a crisis. As a video went viral which showed a delivery man wearing a red Zomato t-shirt pulling out a food box from his bag, taking a couple of bites and resealing it before leaving for his delivery location. The internet went crazy after watching the video. There are alot of tweets raising questions on its branding and trust.
Hey @ZomatoIN I believe your brand is finished as well as Goodwill! You seem to have lost it!
— Arindam (@arindam830) December 10, 2018
It is not a question on Zomato only it is a huge question on all food gaints.
@ZomatoIN This incident must create a big awareness for the big food giant as to where its heading to. The brand image of Zomato is gone and surely going to loose people. Termination of the rider is not enough needs a strong action that the nation must watch
— Arindam (@Arindam66990366) December 12, 2018
Zomato fired the person and came up with a temper proof tapes packaging for food item.
Zomato to introduce tamper proof tapes after viral video https://t.co/277yDJ4opC
— Brand Equity (@ETBrandEquity) December 12, 2018
My Analysis in 5 points
- Zomato recently acquired a logistics startup Runnr to strengthen its food delivery. All the delivery are made through it. Surely the delivery partner was from a partner of Runnr. No doubt while outsourcing a company for delivery the packaging should be taken care really well. For that, the move of Zomato to introduce tamper-proof tapes for packaging is a really nice move.
- Since food is a sector where people take hygiene so seriously. They will take food tempering a serious issue for a long time. Customers will be switching other options whereas there is a big trust issue on whole food delivery industry.
- Zomato recently received a $210 million from Alibaba’s Ant Financials for payment solution now they will/should invest it in correcting the brand image to regain customer faith.
- Zomato needs to make things transparent and clear why it happened and what they have done so that it will not occur in future. It will surely contribute to regaining the brand trust in it.
- No doubt the marketing team of Zomato is one of the best marketing team in the Indian market. They will have to come up with new marketing and branding strategy which will wipe out the memory of people.
Lesson for Nepali Market
Nepali market is new hub for e-commerce companies and food delivery startups. Companies like Foodmario and Foodmandu is winning the heart of customers with their amazing service. This is great e-commerce companies and food delivery company to start working so that these kinds of problem do not happen in their company. There was a big pricing issue with one of the biggest e-commerce which I saw no addressing from the company which will eventually reduce trust and directly hampers brand image. If there is any mistake which can disturb brand image best way to tackle it can be accepting it and working to correct the brand image like zomato is doing.
