'Swiggy Uncle' makes a comeback in two new IPL ads

The two ads feature the actor in comic situations tied in with food.

Some people come to be defined by the work that they do. Naresh Gosain, a mechanical engineer turned actor is one such example. His claim to fame was as the ‘Swiggy Uncle’ – one who enjoyed eating gulab jamuns on the sly, unbeknownst to his strict wife.

One of the ads is for Swiggy’s ‘try something new’ campaign and sees Gosain make a comeback, struggling to eat sushi with chopsticks. The ad begins at take 1 and we see various failed attempts to pick up the food and eat it with the chopsticks. At take 73, Uncle appears to have finally gotten it right… or has he? The ad certainly left us with a smile on our faces.

The other ad sees Gosain struggle with his identity as the ‘gulab jamun’ uncle, referencing to the first ad he did with Swiggy in 2018. In the 2021 ad, we see gulab jamuns following Uncle everywhere - to the extent of him getting sick of it.

In May 2018, Swiggy uncle made his first debut for a campaign called ‘What a delivery’. In the ad, the delivery boy stares awkwardly as Gossain pulls a single gulab jamun out of a box and relishes it. This was also to highlight the ‘no minimum order’ proposition on Swiggy.

The 2018 ad is what catapulted Gosain to fame – as the husband who orders a single gulab jamun and eats it at the door, away from the eyes of his wife (who appeared to be closely monitoring his diet).

In July that year, Uncle and his ‘strict wife’ starred in three ads for a campaign called ‘Big Offers for a Big Appetite’. In the first ad, we see a feast laid out on the table with multiple dish, yet his wife serves him with a small bowl of salad, much to his chagrin. The ad meant to highlight Swiggy’s discount code that could be availed on the first three orders of food on the app.

The second ad shows Gosain waving goodbye to his wife, and as her car pulls away – Swiggy’s delivery boy shows up immediately after. The ad ends with a tagline ‘for super-fast deliveries’.

The longest ad in this series is one where we see Gosain grumpily look on as his wife, smilingly fusses over their son – offering him different foods to eat. He looks down at his own dissatisfying salad and offers it to his son as yet another dish to try and his wife glares at him. The ad showcased how many different restaurants were available on Swiggy.

Gosain has also been seen devouring gulab jamuns in this ad, released as a part of that same campaign.

Since 2018, he has been starring in Swiggy ads every year. In 2019, we saw Uncle and his strict wife make a comeback in an ad where he pulls a single ladoo out of a box and places it near incense sticks and flowers, smiling innocently at his wife. She can’t get mad at a pooja offering can she?

The ad was to showcase that on Swiggy, there was no minimum order amount required to order from restaurants. This ad was a part of Swiggy’s Match Day Mania ad campaign that year.

In a 2020 ad during the pandemic, he is again seen snacking on a gulab jamun in an ad that attempted to assure viewers that it is indeed safe to order from food delivery apps. His normally strict wife has a calm demeanour to highlight how benign and safe it is to order food on Swiggy despite the coronavirus pandemic.