‘Irresponsible behaviour’: Zomato’s post on banana chips tagging Gurugram police receives backlash

Sumedha Sharma

Gurugram, September 21

Food aggregator Zomato’s otherwise successful social media engagement strategy backfired as it went ahead tagging Gurugram police in one of its fun posts on X.

After being called out by many users it went on to apologise and delete the post though Gurugram police are yet to share any response to same.

In an effort to increase engagement with one of its posts, Zomato posted an image depicting a packet of banana chips placed on an office desk, accompanied by a computer screen displaying a dramatic “HELPPP!!!” in large font.

It went on to play sarcastic, saying, “Hello @gurgaonpolice, someone brought drugs to the office,” playfully referring to the addictive nature of banana chips. However, it backfired as post was highly criticised.

Following the backlash, Zomato promptly deleted the viral post and personally extended apologies to users who had criticised them by sharing screenshots of the ill-fated post.

One user questioned, “Isn’t it irresponsible behavior from a listed company? They should not be tagging police handles just to score some likes / RTs on social media. Now someone from Gurgaon Police will have to respond to this and waste resources which could be better used elsewhere.”

Zomato acknowledged this criticism, responding, “Hi you’re right. Reading it from another lens, we realized it’s an irresponsible and unnecessary tweet. We’ve taken it down and sincerely apologise.”