Ola's '8 missed calls from mom' push notification backfired as terrible clickbait

In March 2022 the ride-hailing company Ola sent customers a mobile notification that began '8 missed calls from mom' — then revealed the punchline: 'she wanted to tell you that there's 40 per cent off on fruits and veggies at Ola Dash. She also wants you to stop eating bahar ka khana so much.' The stunt was meant to boost reach for Ola Dash, the company's quick grocery delivery arm. It instead detonated on the company's own users.

Twitter and LinkedIn filled with criticism within a day. Users said the alert induced panic — 'are you trying to give me a heart attack???!!' read one quoted tweet — and hit hardest for people who had recently lost their mothers or lived far from ailing ones. 'Imagine the impact of such an advert on people like me who recently lost their mothers,' wrote Kartik Bhatt, COO of retail firm Sharaf Retail, on LinkedIn, calling the campaign poorly built and in poor taste. Others called it 'a terrible clickbait' and 'insensitive.'

The timing made it worse: the Ola backlash landed one day after Flipkart apologized for a Women's Day message urging customers to buy kitchen appliances — 'We messed up and we are sorry' — so Indian social media was already primed to slam tone-deaf retail marketing. The Economic Times' report records no withdrawal, apology, or comment from Ola.

The promo weaponized a universal anxiety — a stack of missed calls from a parent — as the hook for a grocery discount.

It landed hardest on people who had lost mothers or were caring for ailing ones far away, turning a coupon into a gut punch.

Fear-based hooks read as cheap when the reveal is a 40% off offer, and audiences were already primed by Flipkart's tone-deaf message a day earlier.

A push notification borrows the emotional weight of whatever it imitates. If the reveal is a discount coupon, users you scared — or hurt — will not read it as a joke.

The Economic Times reported no withdrawal, apology, or comment from Ola; the criticism played out across Twitter and LinkedIn, with marketing and retail executives joining the pile-on. Flipkart, whose Women's Day kitchen-appliance message had drawn sexism accusations the day before, publicly apologized — setting the tone Ola's article coverage does not record it matching.