Quick commerce brand Zepto’s new out-of-home (OOH) campaign for India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) uses the tropes of puns and wordplay with songs to make sure people read them and not glance at them whilst driving across the busy streets of Bareilly, Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, and Saharanpur.
Shared by Raj Pandya, an associate manager of client servicing at Dentsu India’s Posterscope, on LinkedIn, the billboards announce Zepto’s arrival in the cities. Interestingly, for a state where Hindi is the predominant language, the copy is written in English script.
The song lyrics that many readers will recognise are incorporated into the copy: There’s Jhumka Gira Re Bareli Ke Bazaar Mein, from the 1966 Bollywood film Mera Saaya, as also Jagjit Singh’s famous ghazal Tumko Dekha Toh Yeh Khayal Aaya.
Such a copy is not new, nor is it too old. Food delivery app Zomato popularised the use of puns and wordplay, and now this style has become a template for several brands in India. Remember bol baby bol, malai tikka roll? Funnily enough, Zomato’s playful copy was for OOH ads too.
Coming to Zepto, it is not the brand’s first rodeo with outdoor campaigns. Last year, its playful banter with the matrimonial website shaadi.com was one of the year’s most viral creative spots and compelled several brands to insert themselves into the banter. Posterscope was behind that one.
Anupam Mittal celebrates Zepto and Shaadi.com’s OOH match
Comprising mainly of Zepto, Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, and Flipkart Minutes, a report from Bernstein Research, as per ANI, projects India’s quick commerce sector to expand into new categories and cities in 2025; smaller cities embrace the model. The report also noted that the industry is estimated to witness a 75% or more year-on-year (YoY) growth, outpacing traditional retail.
Zepto’s foray into multiple U.P. cities, therefore, is not surprising.
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