Zomato launches 'Humans of Zomato' series featuring delivery partners

Leading food ordering and delivery platform Zomato has faced criticism for its recent ads that showed delivery executives being pressed for time between orders. It makes or forces them to refuse a selfie with, or a birthday cake from, their favourite actor.

The tagline Zomato used for these ads was 'Har Customer Hai Star'. While the ads attempted to thank the delivery personnel, who sometimes have to work in unfavourable weather conditions, Twitter users said that it was an 'inhuman' way to treat employees. Others believed that it was immoral to not pay fair wages to the delivery executives, while paying hefty amounts to the celebrities.

The fact that the delivery executives were not allowed to relax even for a minute, despite the rainy weather, was pointed out by Twitter users. Others also pointed out that the ads call delivery partners 'aliens' for working in conditions unacceptable to humans.

Responding to this criticism on social media, Zomato first posted a detailed note on its handle, elaborating on the brand’s side of the story. It said that the ads were shot with an intention to make delivery partners the 'hero of the ad', and to showcase that 'all customers are stars' and no less than a Hrithik Roshan or Katrina Kaif.

So, to highlight the dignity that is associated with a delivery partner’s job, Zomato has now launched a series on its YouTube channel, called 'Humans of Zomato'. It showcases first-hand experiences of its delivery partners.

It must be noted that 'Humans of Zomato' may sound similar to the famous initiative called 'Humans of Bombay' - a team of storytellers that concentrates on the journey of individuals, showing the readers that each and every person is unique, inspirational and relatable.

The first episode of the Zomato series features Delhi’s Bhanu Pratap, who started his career as a professional gym bodybuilder and powerlifter, but realised later on that powerlifting is an expensive job to have.

In the video, Pratap mentions that he has had a number of odd jobs in the past, like working at a petrol pump and a loan department, but most of them were low-paying jobs.

After struggling for quite some time, he was advised to take up a job at Zomato as a delivery executive. Pratap started his journey with the delivery app in 2018 and, since then, has been able to earn well and save a lot of money (Rs 2 to 2.5 lakh) in over two years. This amount has helped him to fulfill his dreams.

He shares that he is proud of wearing the ‘Red Zomato T-shirt’, and that working with the food delivery app has given him a dignified life.