Zomato and Fabindia face flak on social media

Food delivery app Zomato and ethnic apparel brand Fabindia came in for some heavy-duty social media backlash since late on Monday over back-to-back incidents purportedly involving questions around tolerance and inclusivity.

Zomato faced the ire of Twitterati after a service representative allegedly told a customer from Tamil Nadu to “learn Hindi” when reached over phone to complain about an item that was missing from his order. Soon, the Reject Zomato hashtag (#Reject Zomato) started trending on the US-based microblogging platform after the customer put out a tweet detailing his experience.


The incident took on political overtones when DMK leader Kanimozhi joined in.

“Tamilians need no lesson on who is Indian. It’s not a must for customers to know Hindi/English. It should be mandatory for support centres to speak in the state’s language," Kanimozhi tweeted.

Following the uproar, Zomato apologised to the customer, calling the incident unacceptable. It also issued a statement - both in Tamil and English - stressing that the company stood for diversity. The food delivery platform also said it would build a Tamil version of its app and that it had already localised its marketing communication in the state. It was in the process of building a Tamil language support centre in Coimbatore, it said.

The company also said it had terminated the agent, saying it was done “in line with our protocols and (the) agent's behaviour was clearly against the principles of sensitivity that we train our agents for on a regular basis.”


However, a little over two hours later, Zomato cofounder Deepinder Goyal tweeted that the company was reinstating the sacked employee, referring to a lack of tolerance in the country.

“An ignorant mistake by someone in a support centre of a food delivery company became a national issue. The level of tolerance and chill in our country needs to be way higher than it is nowadays. Who's to be blamed here?” Goyal said in the tweet, which soon garnered support from some within the industry.



In a reply to Goyal’s tweet, Riyaaz Amlani, the chief executive of Impresario Handmade Restaurants, which runs Social and Salt Water Café, said: “The lack of courage from the business leaders is one reason why there is less chill. Mistakes happen, sure they will learn for life from this. Kudos.”

Independent industry watchers also called out the tweetstorm over Zomato.

“It appears that most of this trolling is pre-orchestrated; all it takes is a few thousand guys to whip up a trend; it is not as voluntary as it is made to look,” said Sandeep Goyal, managing director at advertising agency Rediffusion.

Separately, Fabindia was subjected to sustained trolling - also by political leaders - and had to withdraw an ad for a clothing collection called ‘Jashn-e-Riwaaz’ (meaning celebration of a custom or tradition in Urdu), which carried a message of cultural diversity.

This came after senior BJP leaders accused the brand of ‘defacing’ the Hindu festival of lights - Diwali - by linking it to an Urdu term.

BJP Youth leader Tejasvi Surya tweeted that “Deepavali (Diwali) is not Jashn-e-Riwaaz. And brands like @FabindiaNews must face economic costs for such deliberate misadventures.”


In support, former Infosys senior executive TV Mohandas Pai added in a tweet that Fabindia was “doing this deliberately and consumers must protest this misuse like they did for others.”

A spokesperson for Fabindia told ET that its current capsule of products under the name Jashn-e-Riwaaz was a celebration of Indian traditions.

“The phrase means that, literally. The capsule is not our Diwali collection of products. Our Diwali collection is called “Jhilmil si Diwali” which is yet to be launched,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Around the same time last year, jewellery brand Tanishq was also trolled for releasing a campaign that depicted an inter-faith marriage.

Industry executives said brands were increasingly getting caught in the middle of a crossfire orchestrated and magnified on social media.

“Trolling of brands and the boycott culture is becoming commonplace, and unfortunately many brands are being caught in this crossfire,” said Lloyd Mathias, business strategist and former senior marketer at Motorola and PepsiCo. “It’s always some sections that react violently, accusing brands of taking sides. Brands should respect public sentiment, but this should not stop them from doing what is right.”

Rediffusion’s Goyal added that “Jashn” was a word everyone used regularly.

“A nuisance has been created, but for brands, it is better to withdraw from the controversy and get on with business,” he said.