National Commission For Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has served a notice to Zomato for its ad that was criticised by the public and press for being in poor taste, “tone deaf” and “castesist”. The SC has also asked the Delhi Commissioner of Police to submit a report on the action taken. The Commission has taken the decision to investigate the matter under article 338 of the Constitution of India and also issued a notice to Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal.
Zomato is facing backlash after releasing a promotional advertisement “Kachra can change the game” on occasion of the World Environment Day. Kachra translates into waste and/or trash in Hindi. Zomato was attempting to show what the brand has been doing to challenge climate change. But it ended up facing tremendous backlash across social media for its ‘casteist’ tone. It also put the spotlight on brands’ attempts to appropriate societal and environmental causes, bringing up, yet again, the question of what is authentic and what is greenwashing and/or wokewashing.
The Zomato ad’s “main” character is Kachra, which has references to the critically acclaimed Bollywood film Lagaan. Aditya Lakhia who is depicted as a member of an oppressed and marginalized ‘untouchable’ community personifies Kachra. Lakhia is shown to be recycled kachra in the ad — playing the role of a towel (where one can blow their nose into), a table, a flower pot, among others. This triggered many people as a result of which Zomato deleted the ad and posted the following message.
“On World Environment Day, our intent was to spread awareness about the potential of plastic waste and benefits of recycling in a humorous way. Unintentionally, we may have hurt the sentiments of certain communities and individuals. We have taken down the video,” the company said on Twitter.
The ad campaign was criticised for being tone deaf towards marginalised castes. It also attracted flak from National film award winner film director Neeraj Ghaywan who called the Zomato ad “repulsive and casteist”.
Naresh Gupta, co-founder and managing partner, Bang in the Middle, thinks that Zomato needs a bit of thinking to do on its own advertising.
“It’s a deliberate in-your-face provocative advertising strategy that is often insensitive. They earlier did MC-BC outdoors calling it Mutton Curry – Butter Chicken, but everyone knew what they meant. In their content on social media, they often break the boundaries of being proper. They were bound to land up in trouble as their defined goal is to live on the edge,” he says.
Ads are often hauled up for being insensitive. Globally, multiple brands have landed in trouble for multiple reasons. For instance, Volkswagen was in trouble for misleading emission claims, Nestle for selling formula milk, Kellogg’s for misleading claims on Rice Krispies and J&J for using unsafe ingredients in its baby talcum powder.
Read More:Zomato withdraws “Kachra” campaign after being called out by netizens