Free ‘dhaniya’ on Blinkit: Marketing on ‘relatability’ everywhere but how long will it

Whether a cheap trick or innovation, the recent trend of new-age companies and startups, marketing themselves based on their ‘reliability’ factor, seems to be never-ending. While this has worked wonders for many, making brands popular overnight, is the public finally starting to look behind this manufactured ‘connect’

Mumbai man’s mom asks for free dhaniya on Blinkit. (Image credit: Pexels/X)

New Delhi: Use of social media in advertising and marketing have been many in recent times. They have revolutionised how products and brands are marketed today. This trend saw a new interesting addition on Wednesday. 

Ankit Sawant, a travel industry professional, put up a post on social media platform X and tagged Albinder Dhindsa, CEO of Blinkit. He complained how his mother was unhappy that the e-commerce giant does not comply with the Indian practice of street vendors giving free ‘dhaniya’ (corriander) with vegetable purchases. He wrote in his X post, “”Mom got a mini heart attack because she had to pay for ‘dhaniya’ on Blinkit. @albinder – mom is suggesting that you should bundle it for free with certain amount of veggies.”

This led Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa to comply with the request as he replied to Ankit’s post on X with, “It’s live! Everyone, please thank Ankit’s mom. We will polish the feature in the next couple of weeks.” Blinkit, the online fast-delivery app owned by Zomato, will now give free ‘dhaniya’ (coriander) with a certain amount of vegetables purchased.

This though is not new, vying on ‘relatability’ to publicise a product or brand. This begs the question, is this another win for the common man or for sly marketing tactics. 

Limits to ‘relatability’ in marketing

The country today is replete with marketing graduates. Many young professionals enter the field. They are born in an internet age of information overload, normalised to all sorts of classical forms of advertising. 

Like entrants into any other field, the idealist young marketeers have dreams of innovation. Much has been done by them as new brands keep on emerging and so does the need to spread the word in newer ways. 

Despite this barrage of young, talented marketing graduates with high salary packages even at the entry level, the biggest marketing tool has been the ‘free’ platform of internet and social media.

The internet has democratised all forms of communication and media. It has enabled a clear demarcation in an ‘old’ and a ‘new’ way of public communication. No entity that today wants to communicate with a mass audience, can do so without using the tools provided by the internet. 

This has led brands, both old and new, to market and advertise themselves on the internet, particularly social media. The reach that this affords is way more than any other traditional form of advertisement. It is instantaneous and impactful, while also being word of mouth, with an ‘apparent’ genuineness. It has given unimaginable power to new age brands in making a name for themselves in today’s extremely competitive market. 

It also matches the aspirational value and messaging that many brands have today. Brands today tend to portray a self-image of struggle and commonality that they think would resonate with the average person. The internet gives the perfect avenue to these brands to exemplify this.

This though is not as easy as it may sound. Virality cannot be manufactured, it is extremely organic. It is here that the barrage of marketing graduates also fail. Despite training in social media mores, trends and market statistics, to go viral on social media is unproducible. 

Audiences today are so normalised to the effects of content manipulation, that non-authentic products find it hard to fly under the radar. Thus even the CEOs of major companies have to come on platforms like Instagram and X and comment on the post of an ordinary customer to showcase relatability.

Hierarchies are broken down in a bid to relate and this is done by all brands, whatever the legacy or stature. The marketplace of relatability has been much exhausted today. It has been used much too often and the audience seems to be slowly getting the smarts about it. 

It is perhaps time for the marketing graduates to find new ways to rewire or manipulate the internet and audiences minds to show authenticity. Trends change so quickly today and it is needful for newer ones to emerge if new-age brands wish to be continued to be viewed as ‘new’.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone. The opinions and facts in this article do not represent the stand of News9.)