Zomato is delivering amusing and engaging Reels soaked in trends, and consumers are savouring various flavours of content with each delivery. Here we dissect the Zomato Reels Strategy, understand its preparation, and the perceived audience reaction.
We go through the recipe of the Zomato Reels Strategy, tasting the brand language, and how the content format fuses with it along with the potential of Reels, its relevance in the brand's marketing strategy, along with a tutorial for brands looking to cook engaging Reels.
The Brand Language
Zomato's brand language has always been youthful and humanized. The tonality, words, phrases, and visuals used in their brand communications have always been more like a friend who helps you order food and less like a food ordering app.
Their overall social media strategy has built an audience base that they engage with through humorous and relatable content, they're present when important announcements are made, and memes are going viral - affecting how the brand image is perceived and making them appear as a pal.
Zomato targets feelings like being hungry (almost) all the time, hilarious instances shared between friends and family related to food, eating habits, and pop culture references, and fuses them with eminent trends seen across the Reels tab.
Reels as a format blends into this strategy, as entertaining and light-hearted content also holds prime importance for both Reels as a platform and Zomato as a brand. Along with certain indicators such as user activity, that help Instagram decide to recommend a Reel or not, light-hearted and entertaining content is one of the highly-recommended genres.
The Reels Dialect
Reels have been an amplifier of content, music, and audio clips, and all of these elements.
A song can make content famous, a dance choreography can make a song famous (I'd like to see you wiggle wiggle), and a movie dialogue can make a Reels template famous. Can't recall which dialogue? Choti Bacchi Ho Kya? Reels can also make a brand popular, and if the brand is already popular, then it can help sustain the popularity with engagement.
Remarking on the impact of Reels consumption, in a conversation with Social Samosa, Saket Jha Saurabh, Head – Entertainment Partnerships, Facebook India, mentioned, "We have seen that timely, culturally relevant content, consistency and an understanding of each surface for its nuance, show rewarding results". And, Arun Srinivas, Director – Global Business Group, Facebook India, stated, "People adopting digital presently are inclined towards this kind of content".
Hopping on trends has become more efficient with Reels for Zomato, these trends get maximum exposure, and short-form content does not require high production value so we would see a lot of Reels by Zomato that are casually shot giving a look & feel that is not refined, similar to the Reels that majorly surface on the platform.
Extending its social media strategy to this format, Zomato continues to maintain its popularity, and also maintain the trendy tonality, as content consumption is heavily dictated by trends, and is widely disrupted by sudden and unforeseen changes. Reels help Zomato keep up with this generic nature of short-lived trends on social media and add their dash of eccentricity to each change, and each trend.
Zomato X Reels
Whether it's a full-fledged digital campaign, a static social media post, or a Reel, The brand does not fail to maintain food-centric themes and sustain brand or product integration. This is also balanced with maintaining the authenticity of the content by avoiding direct promotions or offering announcements in this format.
Almost none of the Reels are directly promotional, the only objective of tapping this format has been maintaining engagement levels, keeping up with the trends, and publishing relatable and amusing content.
The brand's take on the new format continues the inheritance of their communications presented online and offline, and as Lloyd Mathias, Business Strategist and Investor, described the brand's marketing strategy, "quirky, quick take on issues, clever use of moment marketing", all of these factors are ingrained in the Reels too.
Humour is the primary characteristic of the Reels, and while other emotions and genres are tapped too, the majority of the content bucket is filled with hilarious takes and trends. The brand also sustains uniqueness to a trend that is widely tapped, and while the Reels do not draw away from the ongoing format such as dressing up for a transition into a popular movie or series character on Tiggini, the heart beats, or phrases from songs doing rounds on feeds.
Key Takeaways For Brands From Zomato Reels
Brands tapping Reels, or looking to dive into the format can also gain a few takeaways and learnings from the Zomato Reels Strategy.
- Do not force-fit yourself into a trend
- Avoid being directly promotional
- Maintain the casual nature of the format
- Tap the widely floating trends, but add your own value and eccentricity to it
- Keep a tab on trending audios & try to use the ones that fit with your content
- Do not divert from the overall brand image and tonality of communications on other mediums, platforms, and formats
- Maintain agility in tapping current trends, keep the approval process crisp
Now that we have dissected the strategy, let's raise the curtains and watch the showreel of Zomato Reels.
That's Not My Name
I'm Shy
Space Cadet
Tigini
Beats
Che La Luna
Work (Remix)
Don't Be Ridiculous
Arabic Kuthu
If we have missed out on any of your favorite Zomato Reels, write to us at content@socialsmaossa.com or let us know in the comments below.
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