Abstract

The case is about the role of digital marketing in the success of Zomato, a pioneer among the Indian online food service aggregators. Over the years, Zomato had established itself as a leading restaurant review, restaurant discovery, food delivery, and dining out transactions platform providing comprehensive information on over 1.5 million restaurants across 24 countries and serving more than 70 million users every month. The case gives a brief history of Zomato and a description of its consolidation phase. It also provides an insight into the competitive market Zomato operates in. The case analyzes how Zomato used different social media platforms to promote the company’s products. It also describes the different digital campaigns by Zomato at different times, including the Covid-19 pandemic. The case ends with a discussion on the challenges faced by the company on the digital marketing front.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the importance of digital marketing in connecting with the customers and engaging with them;
• Analyze how companies can make effective use of social media for digital marketing;
• Acquire insights into social media strategies of organizations, especially platform businesses such as Zomato.
• Understand how digital marketing can be a source of competitive advantage.

Keywords

Digital marketing; Social media Marketing; Search Engine Optimization; Content marketing; Customer loyalty; Push vs pull strategy; Covid-19 pandemic; Billboard ads; Online banner ads; Twitter marketing; Anti marketing; Food Service aggregator; Platform businesses; Competitive advantage; Differentiation