No one knows how to say 'bolognese' Zomato assures in clever outdoor ad

Lots more where that one came from. A look at the creatives.

If you thought creative folks saved their wittiest lines for digital, think again. This outdoor campaign will make you reconsider the potential of the medium. It's latest outdoor-led ad campaign might just have the wittiest copy we've seen from the stable of online food ordering and delivery platform, Zomato.

Zomato's outdoor ad - MC. BC.

Zomato's outdoor ad - Oonchi hai building

In tune with the brand's theme, a series of bright red billboards with bold white text, have indubitably begun to grab the attention of daily commuters in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, among other cities. One copy reads - 'tu cheese badi hai mast mast - love things extraaa cheesy? get food exactly the way you like it'. The play on words coupled with the quirky twist of old-school Bollywood songs and one-liners hit a nostalgic spot as well as the funny bone but drive the message home. Some ads, like the -'acche din are finally here...' and others, take a political stance with a pinch of salt, pardon the pun. Naturally the CTA is encouragement to download the app and order food.

Zomato's outdoor ad - Mera pizza ghar aaya

Zomato's outdoor ad - Bol baby bol

The ads for this pan-India campaign have been conceptualised and designed by Akshar Pathak, art director, Zomato. Madison and OAP are the outdoor agencies on the account.

Zomato's outdoor ad - Acche din are finally here

Zomato's outdoor ad - Rajni can't. We can.

When discussing the objective of the campaign, Pramod Rao, marketing head, Zomato, says, "While Zomato has been a much-loved brand over the last decade when it comes to food, this ad campaign is largely focused on building further awareness about our online food delivery business. We wanted to leverage a traditional medium, such as outdoor media and combine it with a series of minimalistic, fun, to-the-point messaging."

Zomato's outdoor ad - Bolognese

Zomato's outdoor ad - Ladka nikal gaya kya

Pramod RaoHe adds, "The creatives for this campaign, much like the other campaigns we have done, are fun, contextual and quirky. The thought process behind it was to leverage outdoor media to get attention, deliver the key message around online ordering and create a recall. We've just gone live with several of these creatives and we are excited to see how well they have been received."

This is part of a broader ATL campaign which was kickstarted by Zomato earlier in November. The brand has been live across TV, radio and digital channels over the past few weeks, while the outdoor campaigns went live this week.

These days there seems to be lack of truly inspired catchy/clever outdoor advertisements that brands adopt for a campaign or otherwise. So, we asked our OOH expert to rate these ads by Zomato.

Fabian CowanFabian Cowan, president, Posterscope, an out-of-home agency from the stable of Dentsu Aegis Network, says, "The MC. BC. ad is very catchy. Colloquialism, as a format of marketing communications, has not been done too often. But when it has been explored, it has been able to start conversations. This campaign has the power to become a conversation starter. Outdoor, in general, is used for impact and a lot of brands resort to visuals, which is good, but I still believe in the power of the word/ the script, which is a long-lost art. We should see more brands coming out with good, strong powerful scripts."

He adds, "Today, it's an age where anything that is not normal gets attention. One would imagine that Zomato would advertise with pictures of food, but over here, they have worked on the script, which is good. If you look at the golden days of advertising, you had powerful lines like in the 'Hamara Bajaj' ads which still rings a bell. Someone said, a picture is worth a thousand words, but no one knew which picture they were talking about. But the words used to describe the picture are still in circulation. So yes, words have the power to remain in circulation for longer than just the picture and maybe intentionally or unintentionally, Zomato used the route of good scripting."

Currently, Zomato is present across 10,000 plus cities across 24 countries.