Anyone who opens the Temple website is greeted with a disclaimer: “Every person who wears Temple chooses to. We do not pay anyone to wear or promote Temple.” Launched by Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal, Temple is a wearable health-tracking device which measures entropy and brain blood flow.
The buzz around the product has been impressive — the Temple website crashed shortly after opening for pre-orders on November 1, thanks to a massive surge in traffic. However, as the disclaimer makes it clear, the buzz was totally organic. Temple did not rely on influencers or ambassadors to market the wearable, which is priced at ₹85,000.
(Also read: Deepinder Goyal says his 'Zomato guy' reputation works against his new health-tech venture Temple)
Deepinder Goyal has since elaborated on this marketing strategy, rubbishing rumours that some influencers received the Temple wearable free of charge.
No influencer marketing for Temple
Tech journalist Abhishek Baxi highlighted Temple’s strong assertion on not paying for influencer marketing in an X post, wondering whether this marketing decision was the result of some spat or disagreement.
{{/usCountry}}Tech journalist Abhishek Baxi highlighted Temple’s strong assertion on not paying for influencer marketing in an X post, wondering whether this marketing decision was the result of some spat or disagreement.
{{/usCountry}}“This is a very solid, and unusual, assertion from Temple,” he wrote, referring to the “We do not pay anyone to wear or promote Temple” declaration.
“Surely one could go for brand ambassadors or professional partnerships with athletes, if not influenza,” Baxi added.
Deepinder Goyal responded directly to him, explaining that he did not sign influencers because he wanted honest reviews on how the wearable is performing.
“No kerfuffle. Straight up. In the long term, I really want to know whether it is the product that's working, not the marketing,” Goyal clarified.
“Some of the current flagship wearables with $1b revenue spend over $750m in marketing. That's not where we want to be,” he added.
“Everybody paid”
When another X user, Amit Kilhor, asked Goyal whether some influencers got the product before its official launch, Goyal clarified further. The founder of Temple explained that some people did get the beta version of the Temple wearable, but they all paid for it. No one got the device free of charge, Goyal said.
“But didn't few influencers got it before release? They were seen wearing it during their podcasts? Wasn't that a paid promotion?” Kilhor asked the founder of Zomato and Eternal.
“Everybody paid to get a beta,” Deepinder Goyal replied.
A beta version of an app or a device is an experimental, pre-release build shared with real users before the final public launch. Indian athletes like PV Sindhu and Shubman Gill had been spotted wearing the beta version of the Temple device.
What is Temple?
Temple is a wearable health-tracking device developed by Deepinder Goyal, founder of Zomato and Eternal. Its primary purpose is to monitor changes in blood flow to the brain and help users understand how their bodies respond to physical and mental stress.
The wearable device, designed to be worn near the temple, measures two key metrics: brain blood flow and entropy. Its website describes entropy as “how hard your body is working to shed heat”.
Pre-orders for the device opened yesterday, with delivery expected in three months.