Social media brands often look to gain brownie points by appearing virtuous and noble, but such efforts can also sometimes backfire.
Zomato is being trolled after it asked users to not order food in peak afternoon hours owing to the current heatwave. “pls avoid ordering during peak afternoon unless absolutely necessary,” the company posted on X, and added a folded hands emoji for effect. Zomato appeared to be saying that it would be hard its delivery partners to make deliveries in the heat, and asked people to avoid ordering food instead.
But many netizens weren’t impressed with the incongruity of a food delivery platform asking users to not use its services. “Bro, you are in food services and people order food when it is absolutely necessary. If you actually care about your employees, you would be posting “Our services are unavailable during peak afternoon hours,” wrote a user.
Another user also said that instead of virtue signaling, Zomato could be better served by simply suspending its services during the peak afternoon hours.
Yet another user accused Zomato of looking to make money by continuing to serve during the afternoons. “Close down the services between 12 to 4. Its okay to be human sometimes before profits. Yeah we won’t order, but still closure from you will do more good,” said a user.
Many users dubbed the post a marketing stunt.
And Zomato was forced to hide dozens of replies from X making fun of its post.
It appears that Zomato’s effort to appear virtuous didn’t quite resonate with most of the internet, who found the post to be contrived and lacking sincerity. This isn’t the first time Zomato has asked its users to not use its services — in 2019, the company had tweeted “Guys kabhi kabhi ghar ka khana kha lena chaiye (Guys you can eat home cooked food once in while)”. That post had been better received, giving how it appeared to be the sort of admonition that most of Zomato’s users regularly receive from their families, and had even spawned many memes. But this latest post hasn’t quite had the same effect, with users saying that the post felt like empty virtue signalling for social media validation. Zomato is perhaps one of India’s deftest users of social media, but every once in a while, it can also end up shooting itself in the foot with its social media shenanigans.