Swiggy's Valentine's Day campaign doubles as app tutorial for older generation

In an era dominated by right swipes, traditional love is frequently romanticised and regarded as an ideal. Amidst the contemporary landscape, enduring love has become a rarity, prompting the current generation to look up to and admire elderly couples who embody the timeless essence of love.

Swiggy has chosen to portray this kind of love for its Valentine's Day campaign this year. In a UI-based film titled Table for 2, the food aggregator platform narrates how an elderly couple rediscovers love as they face an empty nest. 

In the film, a son instals the Swiggy app on his father’s phone before moving abroad. Though the father shows initial hesitation, he goes on to embrace it and gradually it helps the parents rekindle the spark in their decades-old relationship.

Conceptualised by Talented, the film narrates the story of Shailja and Pradeep, as they navigate through love, life, food, and the badminton court. Actors Gajraj Rao and Sheeba Chaddha have lent their voices for the voice-overs of the parents. 

The agency prefers to call the film the ‘second season,' drawing a parallel with its previous UI-based campaign titled Wrong Address during Valentine's Day in 2023. The film narrated how the app brought together Aashna and Raghav, a modern-day couple. 

“Last year, it was on a modern-day couple, this year we aimed to dig a little deeper and showcase a story of a tier-2 couple. That’s why we picked an elderly couple, who don’t know how to use the app,” explains Malvika Thirani, creative, Talented. 

While last year's story was about a couple evolving from strangers to lovers, this year's storyline depicts a couple who are in love, learning to express it in a new way. 

While the film tugs at the heartstrings, it also fulfils another function by elucidating the practical use cases of all of the platform’s core offerings: Swiggy Dineout, Swiggy Instamart, Swiggy Genie and Swiggy Food Delivery.

P.G. Aditiya, CCO, Talented, says one of the objectives of the ad spot was to demonstrate the app’s seamless experience and ease of use. To this end, it has also launched a Whatsapp version that can be easily shared on family groups.

“A good creative can fulfil many objectives at the same time. This film showcases the brand’s love, and customer experience at the same time. We have a long-term relationship with Swiggy, and the aim is to address different audience cohorts with different films,” he highlights.  

Aparna Giridhar, VP–marketing, Swiggy, shares that millennials and Gen-Z teach their parents and grandparents how to use Swiggy. “We've also seen the older generation embrace Swiggy. It's been our endeavour to continue to bring unparalleled convenience to them,” she says.

Giridhar explains that the brand's directive to the agency was to narrate another Swiggy story suitable for Valentine's Day, emphasising how Swiggy contributes to the happiness in various love stories. “We wanted to highlight the brand as an integral part of their lives across all the business units of Instamart, food delivery and Dineout,” she says. 

Meanwhile, the agency’s sincere effort was to surpass the success of last year's Valentine's Day campaign. 

“As it is UI-based with only voiceovers, it allows the audience scope for imagination. All viewers will have a different image of Shailja and Pradeep. Being UI-based makes it more relatable and imagination-friendly,” Thirani states. 

The film has several heart-tugging moments, such as when Pradeep expresses his intention to chop onions and searches for a vegetable chopper on the app. During this scene, he charmingly tells Shailja,, “I hate tears” (a popular Rajesh Khanna dialogue from the film Amar Prem). They are chopping onions to prepare ‘Lasagne’, but while searching for the recipe online they type ‘lasanya’. 

Thirani says these little things could be portrayed only because of the UI format of the film. 

Making of the campaign 

After presenting the first draft to the brand in January, the agency worked on the film for over a month. However, recording the voiceovers took the accomplished artists only half an hour.

“We had booked them for three hours. But they are so good at what they do, that they managed to finish the recording in one take,” shares Thirani.

Balaji Padmanabhan, brand strategy, Talented, mentions, “This time, we restructured the way of working with Swiggy. In this case, they’re equal collaborators. A lot of creative decisions were made during the making of the film, the way ad film looks on paper and edited, the difference is a lot. The whole story is built on two people talking on the app, the effort was to not make it look like a product demo, but a beautiful story.”

To keep it culturally authentic, the team paid close attention by bringing in the Gujarati accent in Hindi. “This ad has a Google equivalent use case for Swiggy,” Balaji mentions. 

(With additional inputs: Benita Chacko)