Zomato Gig Workers Ad Hrithik Roshan , Katrina Advert has created a huge debate on Social Media on how gig workers are treated today. Zomator quickly responded to the negativity that the company’s latest advertisements, featuring Hrithik and Katrina, received on social media. The food delivery aggregator released a statement addressing some of the concerns that viewers expressed about the adverts.
The two ads released by Zomato work on a similar message. In one of them, a Zomato delivery partner is super surprised when he rings the doorbell to deliver an order and comes face to face with Hrithik Roshan.
The Bollywood Super Star asks him to wait for a selfie, which the delivery partner is more than happy to do – and olla his phone rings, notifying him of another order to be delivered.
The Zomato delivery partner happily forgoes his opportunity for a selfie with Hrithik Roshan to deliver the order because “Hrithik Roshan ho ya aap, apne liye har customer hai star (Because whether it’s you or Hrithik Roshan, every customer is a star for Zomato).”
The Katrina ad plays out along similar lines – except this time, the actress asks the Zomato delivery partner to wait for a piece of birthday cake, which he has to forgo because, once again, his phone pings with a notification for another food order to be delivered.
The ads were slammed on social media for vetting out unfair treatment of delivery workers that has come under immense scrutiny. On Twitter, several people pointed out that the adverts did nothing more than suggest that Zomato delivery partners don’t get to rest in between delivering orders, while others said the company would rather spend money on celebrity ads than pay their delivery partners fair wages.
Responding to the criticism, Zomato said the ads were conceptualised six months ago, which was “long before any social media chatter around gig worker payouts/ working conditions.”
The company further said the goal of these advertisements was to make delivery partners the hero of the ads, highlight that we should talk respectfully to delivery partners, raise the level of dignity associated with a delivery partner’s job and reiterate that every customer is a star for the company.
“We believe that our ads are well-intentioned, but were unfortunately misinterpreted by some people,” wrote Zomato.