Before Apps, There Was Appa: When Zomato Honored The Original All-in-One Service

June 2025, Father's Day. In a world where every convenience is literally at our fingertips—food delivery, ride booking, home repairs, music streaming—Zomato released a campaign that asked a simple but profound question: Who was providing all these services before the apps existed? The answer, delivered with warmth and nostalgia, was "appa"—the Tamil word for father that resonates across Indian languages and cultures.

The Campaign That Collaborated Across Brands

What made "For Appa" particularly remarkable was its unprecedented brand collaboration. In a rare move, Zomato teamed up with Blinkit, inshorts app, Spotify, Uber, Truecaller India, Urban Company, and District by Zomato to create a Father's Day film that would celebrate fathers as the original multitasking platform, long before smartphones made convenience a swipe away.

The collaboration wasn't just corporate back-patting—it was strategic storytelling that acknowledged every brand's role in modern life while repositioning fathers as the inspiration behind this entire convenience culture.

A Father's Journey Through Apps

The film follows a heartwarming yet familiar narrative: a father's journey through his son's childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. What makes this particular piece stand out is its playful appropriation of other brands to illustrate just how comprehensive a father's services truly are.

The ad is narrated from the viewpoint of a child, highlighting commonplace tasks where a father goes out of his way to help the family. The film opens with a father returning home with Chinese takeaway for his young son. As the child's face lights up, the Zomato logo appears on screen, drawing a parallel between the father's gesture and the brand's core service—a clever bit of self-referential marketing.

From there, the campaign creatively blends real-life fatherly acts with visual cues from familiar apps. When the father drops his son to school on a scooter, an Uber logo pops up, connecting the dad's daily school run to ride-hailing services. When he fixes a broken toy or repairs household appliances, the Urban Company logo appears, positioning the father as the original handyman service.

Throughout the film, these moments accumulate: delivering groceries (Blinkit), playing music to comfort (Spotify), identifying unknown callers (Truecaller), reading news aloud (inshorts). Each act of service, each moment of care, is framed as the earliest form of today's app-based conveniences.

The Emotional Climax

The ad builds to a touching conclusion. The son, now grown, suddenly realizes it's Father's Day—but realizes it too late. He hasn't ordered anything, hasn't planned anything special. In a moment of panic and regret, he worries about disappointing his father.

But the father, embodying the unconditional love the campaign celebrates, responds with gentle understanding. He lovingly says he'll eat whatever his son makes. No reservations needed. No ratings required. No delivery charges. Just acceptance and love—the ultimate service that no app can replicate.

His unwavering presence and support make everything from toy repairs to serving midnight snacks and offering words of comfort after a long day easy. These acts of kindness throughout the film establish the central truth: fathers have been providing all-in-one services since long before technology packaged convenience into neat digital solutions.

The Wordplay That Worked

Zomato's YouTube description for the advertisement captured the campaign's essence perfectly: "We all rely on apps today – to book a ride, order food or fix something at home. But long before these apps, there was appa — playing all these roles since we were kids. This Father's Day, we celebrate the man who works harder than 100 apps."

The play on words—"apps" and "appa"—being a colloquial term for father in several Indian languages, created linguistic magic. It wasn't just clever copywriting; it was a cultural insight that worked across India's linguistic diversity. Whether you call him "appa," "papa," "pitaji," or "baba," the sentiment remained universal.

What's particularly noteworthy about this approach is how it manages to acknowledge other brands whilst positioning them as mere digital echoes of paternal care. Rather than disparaging other services, Zomato elevates the father figure as the original inspiration for modern convenience culture.

Cultural Resonance and Nostalgia

What is unique about this campaign is the nostalgia and appreciation it brings to the audience. "Before apps, there was Appa" isn't just an attention-grabbing slogan; it encapsulates the sentiment surrounding the unwavering love and support fathers provide.

Social media users described the ad as "a warm hug of nostalgia," highlighting the otherwise underappreciated tenderness associated with fatherhood, along with the gentle yet effective marketing. Its release on the eve of Father's Day made it even more impactful, as it motivated viewers to contemplate their personal father-related memories.

The campaign also honors Indian fatherhood specifically by using 'appa' alongside relatable family scenes. It serves as a unifying term, cutting across regional and linguistic lines for people from all over India. Furthermore, the ad taps into the emerging phenomenon of brands using cultural insights along with emotional narratives to connect with their audience on a more profound level.

The Practical Call to Action

Apart from the emotional narrative, Zomato's campaign had a practical call to action: "Give Dad a treat this Father's Day!" The brand aimed to resonate with its users by suggesting that they order a special meal for their fathers through the Zomato app.

This perfect mix of storytelling and advertising made the campaign not only memorable but also drove action, thus engagement, while solidifying Zomato's position in daily life celebrations. The campaign became both clever and touching, celebrating fathers not as background characters but as the original source of convenience, support, and love.

The Market Impact

The campaign captured the sentiments of people all over India, generating significant engagement across social media platforms. It was recognized among standout Father's Day 2025 campaigns for its emotional resonance and creative execution.

By weaving in references to other apps and still focusing on the emotional foundation of paternal care, Zomato created something that transcended typical festive marketing. This wasn't just about driving Father's Day orders—it was about repositioning how we think about both technology and fatherhood.

Five Lessons From "For Appa"

1. Collaboration Can Amplify Rather Than Dilute

Zomato's unprecedented partnership with seven other brands could have felt cluttered or confusing. Instead, each brand's appearance reinforced the central message: fathers provided all these services before apps existed. The lesson: strategic collaboration, when aligned around a unified narrative, creates more impact than solo campaigns. Don't fear featuring other brands if it serves a bigger story that elevates everyone involved.

2. Wordplay Works When Rooted in Culture

The "apps vs. appa" wordplay succeeded because it was culturally authentic, not just linguistically clever. "Appa" resonates across Indian languages, making the message both specific and universal. The lesson: the best wordplay emerges from genuine cultural insights, not just creative stretching. When language games reflect real cultural truths, they feel earned rather than forced.

3. Nostalgia Drives Engagement When Paired With Gratitude

The campaign didn't just make people nostalgic—it made them grateful. By connecting past memories with present recognition, it motivated action (ordering meals for dad). The lesson: nostalgia is most powerful when it leads somewhere. Don't just make people remember; make them feel grateful enough to act on that remembrance. Emotional resonance should drive behavioral outcomes.

4. Acknowledge Competition to Elevate Your Position

By featuring Uber, Spotify, Urban Company, and others, Zomato acknowledged the competitive landscape while positioning themselves as the orchestrator of a larger cultural conversation. The lesson: sometimes acknowledging competitors' existence strengthens rather than weakens your position, especially when you frame the narrative in a way that elevates everyone while still centering your brand message.

5. Universal Truths Need Specific Details

The campaign worked across India despite using the Tamil word "appa" because the specific moments—bringing food, fixing toys, school drops—were universally recognizable. The lesson: specificity creates universality. Don't water down cultural details to appeal broadly. Instead, choose specific, authentic moments that transcend cultural boundaries through shared human experience.

The Deeper Message

In a time when every need seems to be just a tap away, Zomato's campaign takes a nostalgic turn and brings attention to something even more dependable than any app: our fathers. The film doesn't just sell food delivery—it reframes modern convenience culture entirely.

By celebrating dads as the ultimate all-in-one service providers, Zomato acknowledges that technology hasn't created new needs; it's simply digitized care that parents have always provided. Every app solves a problem, but fathers solved all those problems simultaneously, motivated not by venture capital or profit margins but by love.

This reframing is both generous and shrewd. Generous because it honors fathers without cynicism or sentimentality. Shrewd because it positions Zomato's services not as replacements for human care but as extensions of it—digital tools that help us care for those who've always cared for us.

Conclusion: The Original App That Never Crashes

Zomato's "Before we had apps, we had appa" campaign serves as an emotional acknowledgment toward fathers while weaving in nostalgia, cultural relevance, and brand purpose. It seeks to remind everyone to value the first superheroes of our lives—the ones who provided every service without terms and conditions, without ratings and reviews, without subscription fees.

The campaign highlights the incredible ways fathers have filled so many roles without asking for acknowledgment. Long before ride booking and food delivery apps, there was always "appa"—the all-in-one hero who quietly made life smoother and better.

In our rush to celebrate technological progress and digital convenience, we sometimes forget that every innovation is simply an attempt to replicate care that humans have always provided each other. Apps offer convenience; appa offered—and continues to offer—something technology can never replicate: unconditional love packaged as service.

This Father's Day, Zomato didn't just encourage people to order meals for their fathers. They encouraged something deeper: recognition that the original all-in-one platform wasn't built with code—it was built with love, sustained through sacrifice, and ran on the limitless operating system of parental devotion.

And unlike apps, which crash, require updates, and eventually become obsolete, that service never stops running. No maintenance required. No upgrades needed. Just appa, working harder than 100 apps, forever.