Swiggy on Wednesday issued a clarification after a sarcastic post under the food delivery company's name went viral on social media. Swiggy said the ‘fake ad’ was neither created by the company nor by anyone affiliated with it, urging people to refrain from circulating it.
The ad in question was a poster taking an apparent dig at Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal's announcement of a dedicated fleet to serve orders from ‘pure veg’ restaurants exclusively.
The poster consisting of the logo and name of Swiggy depicted people rioting in the background while a landlord evicts a tenant.
“Eviction-safe food delivery. In Indian neighbourhoods, your dietary preferences are best kept private. Our delivery fleet doesn’t leak your private habits to the world. You also save some money as we don’t have to pay for the life insurance of our delivery staff against possible mob lynchings,” the poster read.
Read: Facing backlash over ‘pure veg’ fleet, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal promises to roll it back if…
Snow Mountain AI co-founder and CTO Nilesh Trivedi posted it on X saying “New Swiggy ad hits hard. /s”
{{/usCountry}}Snow Mountain AI co-founder and CTO Nilesh Trivedi posted it on X saying “New Swiggy ad hits hard. /s”
{{/usCountry}}He later added, “FYI, the "/s" stands for sarcasm.”
However, many shared the same poster on social media as a genuine Swiggy ad to which Trivedi said, “Looks like many people circulated the image while cropping out my "/s" sarcasm tag.”
Reacting to the viral ad, Swiggy said, “We came across a fake ad this morning regarding a recent controversy. If it isn't already obvious, this is NOT an ad by Swiggy.”
“It was neither created by us nor anybody affiliated with Swiggy. Kindly refrain from circulating or attributing it to Swiggy.”
Zomato announced plans Tuesday to cater to those customers who avoid eating at restaurants that serve meat, even if vegetarian alternatives are offered.
The food delivery company rolled out a separate and strictly meat-free service which was to be easily identifiable with its motorbike riders wearing green uniforms instead of Zomato's usual red corporate livery.
But the company revised the plans a day later after an online backlash, with Goyal admitting the company had failed to think through the safety implications.
"Our riders' physical safety is of paramount importance to us," he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
"We now realise that even some of our customers could get into trouble with their landlords, and that would not be a nice thing if that happened because of us," he added.
“While we are going to continue to have a fleet for vegetarians, we have decided to remove the on-ground segregation of this fleet on the ground using the colour green.”