‘Nahi Milega came from the Indian consumers who face this disappointment every day’

If you’ve been on the Instagram in the past few days, the chances are the words “Nahi Milega” have been ringing in your head. Users of the platform were left intrigued when films about a botched-up Goa trip or not getting a seat in a crowded bus popped up numerous times in their feed. Adding to the curiosity was the fact that the handle showing the films was that of Zepto’s but the display picture was that of an Uncle Ji shouting ‘Nahi Milega’. The scrolling ended up on Zepto’s page and it turned out that the Uncle Ji was the brand ambassador of the recently launched three films by the 10-minute grocery delivery platform. 

While the first film spoke about not getting seats on a crowded bus, the second one spoke about a funeral and the third one was on two girls trying hard to make it to Goa. Each of the films had ‘Nahi Milega’ as the theme, giving a sense of every day’s disappointment of wishes not getting fulfilled. Capitalising on this emotion, Zepto made its point clear, saying “Zepto par unlimited free delivery pakka milega”. 

We caught up with Amritansu Nanda, the Chief Marketing Officer at Zepto, to understand the concept behind the campaign, the popularity of Uncle Ji after the campaign and how the company plans to capitalise on it.

Speaking on the objective of the campaign, Nanda said that while highlighting everyday’s disappointment an individual has to go through, we wanted to show people that everything is available on Zepto and there is an unlimited free delivery on orders above Rs 199.

“A lot of thought and preparation went into the making of the campaigns, starting from the creative brief. We wanted the consumer to know the major differentiation in terms of the service and convenience we provide. One of the key differences is the fact that we provide free delivery above orders worth Rs 199 and it has been publicly stated in the creative. It's for everyone. We wanted to take this to the market and drive a lot of growth and brand preference. It was not as much of an awareness campaign; the primary objective was to build consideration and preference,” he shared.

“The idea is to create a scenario where the viewer is engrossed. This is us as a brand trying to understand what the consumer is going through. We want to position ourselves as an authentic consumer-first brand. Even in the last year IPL films, we attacked the Indian stretchable time as a concept. Now again we are coming out with the same philosophy that we are picking up a deep line of consumer truth,” added Nanda.

Last year, the company came out with three films featuring three music maestros Shankar Mahadevan, Usha Uthup and Kailash Kher, again taking a witty take on the problems consumers face. This year, the company took one character who is going around telling people “Nahi Milega”.

Sharing the idea behind the concept and the process of making Uncle Ji, Nanda said, “As an individual, you'll go through a lot of disappointments. Somewhere along the process, we spoke to people and we thought that it can be a very fun campaign when Uncle Ji comes into the picture. We finalised Uncle Ji way before the production house or the director. The whole idea was to create curiosity and we will have a character build-up.”

“Nahi Milega came from the Indian consumers who face this disappointment every day. We wanted to highlight the truth so that consumers relate to it and believes us when we position ourselves as an exception. The idea was to say that ‘we know you are dealing with a lot of uncertainty but Zepto pe unlimited free delivery milega’. And that is how we grabbed attention and that was the overall thought behind the campaign.”

The campaign had been conceptualized by the in-house team and Youngun. While a lot of brands and start-ups prefer to have a celebrity in their campaigns, the company made Uncle Ji the ambassador and an Instagram personality. Uncle Ji is the brand’s display picture on all the platforms and the company had also made a separate page where he is saying funny things ending with ‘Nahi Milega’. 

https://www.instagram.com/sharmaji.237/

Speaking on why they didn’t take the celebrity route rather and instead created a personality altogether, he said, “We sized the risk, what is the downside. The worst case scenario was the character build-up of Uncle Ji not happening. People may not know Uncle Ji but we still will have three good films. An additional room for experimentation is a very important thing for brand marketers to practice because marketing is not a science. We can put methods & measurements and success matrics as much as we want, but at the end of the day, it's a creative space. The risk cannot be too expensive but at the same time we should try it out and we were fully engaged.”

Apart from the digital-social platforms, the company has also invested in OOH. Talking on the media mix, Nanda said, “There is a broadly 50-50 mix between digital and offline. And when I say offline, it's predominantly outdoor because we are a hyper-local business.” 

“Because we are a hyper-local business, the media mix is inherently limited. For example, TV does not have any control; ads can show up in some regions/states where we don't deliver and it makes no sense. Those are some limitations of being a hyper-local business. There is this fun challenge to make the most out of the media mix that is available, and outdoor is one of the interesting channels in these aspects.

Talking about the coming month’s marketing plan, Nanda shared that it is not going to be only digital. “We are emphasizing on consideration and preferences and we need to go deeper into the consumer connection. Our brand value should stem from there. There are going to be more digital video creatives. There will be a 360-degree approach and that's where the campaign work. Digital only is not going to be the scenario,” he mentioned.