Isn’t it super exhilarating when your gang of friends can finally coordinate on a time and place to meet so you can catch up after ages? It takes way too much effort to get a group to agree on the same thing, especially when it comes to FOOD! Ordering food for a huge group requires next-level managerial skills. Now what would make this task hassle-free? Swiggy found a fix with its ‘Group Ordering’ feature!
With this feature, people in large groups (up to 40) can place an order together by adding food to the cart on Swiggy from their respective phones. Just scan the QR code on the app or simply share a link with your gang and everyone can add dishes to the same cart. It’s no more a one-person job who has to run around asking everyone what they want to eat!
And to announce this feature, Swiggy did what Swiggy does best. They launched a hilarious ad that left us in splits while conveying how this feature is truly going to come to your aid!
Watch Your Internet Feed Come To Life
What happens when some of the country’s most popular meme creators, like Chandrika Gera – the ‘Vada Pav Girl’, Level Sabke Niklenge’ memer – Laxmi Sharma, Satvik Subramaniam, Darshan Magdum, Prakash Kumar (Puneet Superstar), Qureshi Boy, Dolly Ki Tapri and Ganji Chudail come together under one roof? Chaos. Now imagine them hungry! The ad begins with a man asking, “Toh kya khayenge aap?” (What will you eat?)
First comes Puneet Superstar who shouts for ‘Yakhni Pulao’, while Dolly Chaiwala, who recently served tea to Bill Gates, is okay with anything foreign. Then comes the infamous Vada Pav Girl and Bigg Boss 3 contestant being emo while saying her viral line. Next, we see Darshan singing ‘I Love You‘ while Satvik gives commentary in his style. That’s when Ganji Chudail flies in!
Qureshi, who became an internet trend with his dance moves to ‘Dil vich tere liye time kadke‘ is seen dancing to the same moves but with different lyrics here. Last but not least, we see Laxmi say her viral “Level sabke niklenge“ dialogue and in comes the whole lot. This chaos wraps up with “Kya aapke dost bhi aise hai?” Check out the ad here:
Does this ad remind you of some people in your life? Your crazy gang of friends? How did ordering for that group go the last time y’all partied? Swiggy’s ‘Group Ordering’ feature is now at your service!
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A Tête-à-tête With Swiggy
I obviously got the itch to know what went behind creating this crazy ad, so I spoke to Anisha Wilkinson, Social Media Head at Swiggy. We dissected this campaign and discussed the future of Internet trends influencing brand marketing. Read on to dive right in:
How did this crazy idea of bringing everyone’s Instagram FYP to life come up?!
We wanted to bring alive the drama & emotions that a social group goes through when deciding on what and where to order from. United by familiarity, but divided by cravings – we’ve all been there when the dreaded question ‘kya order karna hai?’ shatters the peace of any group hang. If there’s a list of controversial questions that could start a fight, this would top it.
In the film, we’ve tried to represent ‘that one friend’ in every group you would encounter – whether it’s Dolly’s ‘mujhe foreign ka kuchh bhi chalega’ who would remind you of that friend who helps narrow down the choice but isn’t being specific, or Puneet’s “xiaaaaaah-yakhni pulao-aaaah” who is specific but it’s probably something only they’d enjoy.
Why did y’all choose this particular bunch of crazy memers and creators?
Recognising that selecting the right talent was key to two goals:
i) Capture 30 seconds of pure, unfiltered, unhinged chaos
ii) Create a social media-first film
We went through multiple iterations of shortlisting talent before arriving at the perfect script. In a way, you could say the final script was tailored to the creators. Many of us have followed the rise of each of these creators to viral fame with every scroll through our ‘reels’ feed and we wanted this film to be one grand easter egg of internet references packed in every second. As a viewer, it’s truly amusing to witness India’s most viral internet stars come together on screen to talk about one thing we all love – food.
Can you take me through the roller-coaster ride of making this ad film, from ideation to execution?
We had a unique product feature and we needed a unique social media-first approach that suited the fun, playful, internet humour-led tonality that the Swiggy handle embodies. When we approached One Hand Clap a.k.a. OHC with the brief, we asked for the most unhinged piece of content the team could create – something that captured the chaotic-evil energy of a group trying to decide on what to order.
OHC’s creative team effortlessly rose to the challenge, conceptualizing the script and patiently navigating its many iterations. It’s truly commendable that Aakash Shah and his team not only identified the right talent but also brought them all together and convinced them to be part of such a unique project. An idea is only as good as its execution and keep in mind, we weren’t working with trained actors. Special thanks to the director, production team and the talent for pulling this off so brilliantly.
Internet Trends 🤝 Brand Marketing
Viral Internet trends, while entertaining to consume for a while, tend to have a short shelf life. But brands have now begun leveraging these for their marketing campaigns. How relevant are these trends for brands today?
Anisha says, “I think it’s important for any brand to capitalize on trends as long as it fits with their tonality and it makes sense for them to engage with. When a brand taps into internet trends, they instantly unlock a new audience since social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter organically prioritize content related to ‘trending’ topics.“
Creating content that’s in line with pop culture and internet trends is actually a great way to reach a wider audience. People may not follow you or the niche you cater to, but they actively follow trending content. “However, it’s important to keep in mind its sphere of influence – Internet trends may not have the same impact outside their platform. For example, using a trend on an outdoor billboard might not work as well because you’re speaking to a different audience who might not understand the reference,” said Anisha.
Source: ET Brand Equity
How does a creative convince the brand for an idea like this which is more engagement-driven than sales-driven?
When you’re on the brand side, it’s easy to assume that consumers prefer straightforward tactical communication on a brand’s offerings and ‘engagement’ on content is a vanity metric that doesn’t translate to sales. You can’t influence a mindset change amidst the brand overnight so you need to break down your approach into two actionable steps when you’re pitching to the brand –
- First, start out small and build a case with your brand’s social media handle by adopting an engagement-driven content approach. Not only does this provide a baseline understanding of what your brand’s TG is interested in engaging with, but also gives the brand’s stakeholders a view on the power of engaging content and the wonders it works to stay top of mind.
- Now that you’ve built a successful case study to back you, you need to take that leap of faith and pitch that idea you strongly believe in.
In our case, OHC getting us on board with the film idea was the easy part because a brand like Swiggy strongly encourages creativity and innovation. We don’t say ‘can you make the logo bigger?’, we say ‘how can we make the idea bigger?’ And if it wasn’t for Mayur Hola (VP Brand at Swiggy) who believed in this idea right from the start and shared the same passion for it as us, we would’ve lost a great idea to the ‘skipped slides’ graveyard.
And boy, aren’t we glad this masterpiece made it to our feeds? Let’s go a little back in time and understand:
How Did The Idea For This ‘Group Ordering’ Feature Come Up?
Taking annoyance as an inspiration, Balvinder Singh Gambhir, a Swiggy Software Development Engineer (SDE) II came up with this idea during the Swiggy Hackathon. A Swiggy Diaries’ blog said that he was watching a comedy sketch video where a character’s friend kept interrupting him with constant orders. That was enough for him to build a working proof of concept (POC) in two days. While Balvinder lost the hackathon, his idea impressed Aditya Narayanan, Senior Product Manager, Swiggy and their team picked it up.
Through brilliant execution by several teams, they turned his idea into the immensely useful ‘Group Ordering’ feature. “We’ve all experienced the frustration of having our order mixed up at a party, leaving us to make do with whatever is available. It’s a significant responsibility for the host to ensure everyone is well-fed, which can be quite stressful and we want parties to be fun for everyone including the host! So it strengthened our need to build this product ASAP,” shared Aditya.
Whether you want to order food for a group of friends at a party you’re hosting, or for your family members on a fam-jam night, or just for yourself but from different restaurants, Swiggy’s ‘Group Order’ feature is a perfect solution for all! Have you tried this super cool feature with your people yet? Go make a plan now!
