Zomato's Hrithik-Katrina ads drew a gig-worker revolt — and a public defense

In August 2021, a week after Zomato put new TV ads on air featuring Bollywood stars Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif — the 'Har Customer Hai Star' campaign — the company was facing a wave of criticism. Social media users called the ads tone-deaf and accused Zomato of hiring big-ticket celebrities to divert attention from gig-worker payouts and working conditions: 'Our delivery partners don't even get a minute to themselves between orders', 'We would rather spend $$ on celebrity ads than pay our delivery partners well.'

Zomato responded with an unusual point-by-point public statement. The ads, it said, had been conceptualised six months earlier, long before any chatter about gig-worker pay, and shot two months ago. Its goals had been to 'make delivery partners the hero of the ad', highlight respectful treatment, and raise the dignity of the job — 'we believe that our ads are well-intentioned, but were unfortunately misinterpreted by some people'.

To back the defense, the company leaned on data: its delivery-partner Net Promoter Score had risen from -10% to 28% and 'continues to rise', it said, promising a blog post on why it believed riders were fairly compensated. The episode landed on a company already fending off questions about rider conditions — its third food-delivery PR flashpoint in three years.

No ad pull, but a national pile-on and a defensive public statement; the criticism landed while Zomato's rider pay was already under scrutiny.

The backlash and the company's rebuttal are both on the record, in Zomato's own published statement.

The timing collision — celebrity glamour for a brand whose riders' pay was the standing controversy — is the textbook setup for a tone-deaf call.

The statement concedes the frame it was fighting: it answers payouts and working conditions point for point.

It is part of a repeating pattern at Zomato (Zomato Gold logout in 2019, the pure-veg fleet in 2024).

If your labor practices are the live question, a celebrity campaign about how kindly you treat workers reads as a receipt, not a message.

Zomato did not pull the ads; it promised a blog post explaining its position on rider compensation and cited the rising delivery-partner NPS as evidence it was 'actively working' on gig-worker issues.