When an AdMan swipes right

Have you noticed the price wars between Swiggy & Zomato ? My food ordering history started with Swiggy. I choose Swiggy because at that time, lot of restaurants in Mumbai & Chennai were not on Zomato. Pretty soon Zomato started the price war with their Zomato Gold pass. But even with a Golden pass, Zomato could not have me. Whenever there was a good discount from a restaurant of liking, there was always that Zomato Gold cousin, friend or colleague who would do the needful. Only when more restaurants became available on the app & offers became more common that I decided to download Zomato. But even after downloading I didn't order frequently from Zomato. This is where Swiggy helped Zomato win. Or they pushed me out & into Zomato. When Swiggy was at its peak of fandom, it started levying higher fees. Charges increased in size while discount coupons became almost non existent on the app. Simultaneously Swiggy also started taking higher commissions from restaurant perhaps. Because many of my regular restaurants moved out of Swiggy & this is when Zomato had me. I started ordering more from Zomato when both price & variety were on a better side. Even when Zomato's notifications become too annoying, I switched it off rather than deleting the app.

But alas! Zomato has now become what Swiggy was once. No wonder the saying “Power corrupts”. The brand could creatively entertain crowds with Zomaland, notifications & social media content. But somehow, it seems it doesn’t care about its core offerings any more. Noticing the loss of customer base, Swiggy is now fighting it with the same old pricing war. Yes I am back on Swiggy, because with coupons & offers, the prices are lesser as I write compared to Zomato. But is price wars the only solution when consumer services get commoditized? Is this all left in the food delivery space? Price wars may seem logical & look promising on sheets. Horizontal expansions into different spaces like events, groceries, dining experiences may bring in more revenue. Yet, there is still an unexplored area - vertically - that holds great revenue potential.?

What both the platforms need to take seriously is the ‘Search’. Google is a search engine & so are Amazon, YouTube, Instagram, even Swiggy, Zomato.? People who move to a new city may perhaps be curious to explore its culinary sides. As meal time nears, even natives in a locality often face the dreaded phobia - Wtf should I eat today? To help people beat this phobia & explore more food options, either of the platforms could launch a ‘Meal Date’ feature, perhaps. Meal Date could be a feature where you can right or left swipe a plethora of cuisines & culinary options. Based on your swipes the platform’s search engine can learn about your meal preferences. Wait! There can be more! You could also add any ‘Meal Dating Goals’, for example ‘looking for a spicy memorable fling this afternoon…’, ‘swipe left if you are nuts…’, ‘free raitha is a non-negotiable…’. Surprisingly unlike some dating apps, this Meal Dating feature is not gender biased. You need not wait for the Meal to make the first move or accept your message. You could simply swipe up your beloved option/restaurant & order. What do you think? Is Meal Dating or swiping option to browse meals be a better, easy way to order & a little more engaging than the vanilla 'list of list' searches? Obviously, more thoughts need to go in terms of UI UX. But that’s what product & design superheroes are there to help right. Obviously, both the brands could have though of this from UX angle. But the direction & loud realization that food delivery is not just food delivery but food exploration - Culinary Search - is something that could be better crafted as an experience.

Talking about the dating apps, another thing that I love taking from the dating industry is the prompts! I hate it when a HR starts an interview asking ‘tell me about yourself”. I up straight ask them back “Should I narrate my CV or have you read it?”. On the other hand, I have had interviews which I loved the most. This was mainly because of the beautiful questions by the interviewer to prompt a flowing conversation. Now what if LinkedIn had prompts that we can display on your profiles? LinkedIn could have professional prompts to spice up the ‘About’ section. It could have prompts in place of ‘Skills’ that you add under your tenure in a particular company. What if 谷歌 Maps, to take your mind off the stupid traffic, threw you prompts to google on - like an anagram or treasure hunt? Instead of yelling at your driver or someone, you could live like an online Sherlock Homes for a while. What if Indian Railways threw thought-provoking prompts & puns in between their announcements or in their RailWire free wifi? What if 3M 公司 made ‘Prompt It’ notes that you could stick to the statues of politicians or to some puppets?

Prompts prompt content. Prompts reveal, tease & bend intent. Prompts ignite curiosity & creativity. Prompting can be fun, is a talent.

So here is one prompt for you - “For what & where do you think we need more prompts? Nudges?”

* cover image CC