The last year did not end on a good note for food delivery giant Zomato. Since the time a viral video exposed its delivery guy eating out from a food packet meant for its customer, the brand received a lot of flak on social media.
Although Zomato addressed the issue by issuing an apology and taking strict action against the delivery executive, the negativity hasn’t ended. There has been a sharp decline in the delivery orders and an overall perception has given the brand a very poor reputation.
The Score Chart
According to YouGov BrandIndex, Zomato’s Attention score (sum of positive and negative buzz) has increased from 59.8 points on December 10 to 64.3 points towards the end of December, indicating an increase in the number of conversations around the brand. However, the Buzz score has fallen from 45.0 to 27.9 points for the same time period, hinting at a strong negative public sentiment towards the brand. Although more people were talking about Zomato, the comments were mostly negative.
The Index score for Zomato, which measures perceptions of a brand’s overall health (average of Impression, Quality, Value, Reputation, Satisfaction and Recommend scores) also saw a significant decline from 38.8 points on the day of the episode (December 10th) to 27.5 points towards the end of December.
For the same time period, Satisfaction (whether one is a satisfied customer of the brand) and Purchase Intent (whether one would purchase from the brand) have also dropped for Zomato from 31.3 and 23.0 points to 24.4 and 21.6 points, respectively.
Swiggy’s Growth
In a way, Zomato’s negative publicity has served as a blessing in disguise for Swiggy, the brand’s major competition. Swiggy’s brand image has been on a healthy up-way chart and it is witnessing a steady growth.
The Index score for Swiggy improved from 38.3 points at the start of November to 44.8 points at the end of December. Even Satisfaction and Purchase Intent for Swiggy are seen way ahead of Zomato at 37.3 and 31.2 points, respectively, at the end of December. Although before November, Zomato and Swiggy were at par with each other, this incident has turned the tables for Zomato in a negative way while Swiggy has benefitted out of the situation.
