Zepto's Speed-Focused Digital Campaigns: Building a Brand on a Promise

Industry & Competitive Context

India's quick commerce (q-commerce) sector — defined by the delivery of groceries and daily essentials typically within 10 to 30 minutes — emerged as one of the most intensely contested consumer internet categories of the early 2020s. The structural enablers were unambiguous: rising smartphone penetration, expanding urban populations, accelerating mobile internet adoption, and a post-pandemic reconfiguration of urban consumer behaviour toward convenience-first purchasing. The competitive landscape by 2024 was dominated by three players. According to a report by Motilal Oswal Research cited in multiple credible business publications, Blinkit (owned by Zomato's parent, Eternal Ltd.) held approximately 46% market share by late 2024, followed by Zepto at approximately 29%, and Swiggy Instamart at approximately 24%. Together, these three operators controlled roughly 95% of the organised quick commerce market. Legacy players including Tata-owned BigBasket (through its BBNow arm), Flipkart (through "Flipkart Minutes"), and Amazon (testing rapid delivery services in select cities) added further competitive pressure. Dunzo, an early q-commerce entrant, exited operations — providing a cautionary counterpoint to the sector's otherwise ebullient growth narrative. The competitive dynamic imposed a dual marketing imperative on all players: they had to simultaneously build operational credibility (by consistently delivering on their speed promises) and consumer brand preference (in a category where switching costs are low and app loyalty is fragile). In this environment, advertising spend escalated sharply across the sector. According to Storyboard18, citing financial filings, Blinkit spent ₹191 crore on advertising in 2024, while Swiggy's parent company spent ₹1,850 crore on advertising and promotions across its full business in the same year. Zepto's own advertising expenditure trajectory — detailed in the sections that follow — must be read against this intensely competitive spending context.

Brand Situation Prior to the Campaign Period

Zepto was founded in 2021 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, two Stanford University dropouts who identified a structural gap in India's grocery delivery ecosystem: the absence of a genuinely instantaneous fulfilment option for urban consumers facing micro-moments of urgency. Their solution was operationally radical — a network of dark stores (micro-fulfilment centres positioned within high-density residential catchments) designed to enable delivery within 10 minutes of order placement. In its earliest phase (2021–2022), Zepto had virtually no conventional marketing infrastructure. The brand's initial equity was built entirely through product performance. The platform's delivery capability was itself the communication — each successful 10-minute delivery was, in effect, an experiential brand advertisement that traditional media spending could not replicate. This product-led brand-building phase was strategically sound for an early-stage operation with limited capital and a need to build trust before awareness. By FY2023, Zepto's revenue had reached approximately ₹2,026 crore (per RoC-sourced financial statements), representing exponential growth from its launch-year base. However, the company simultaneously reported a net loss of ₹1,271.84 crore in FY23. The financial profile was characteristic of venture-backed hyper-growth businesses: aggressive investment in market share ahead of profitability, funded by a favourable investor environment. Zepto's advertising expenditure in FY2023 stood at ₹215.82 crore, according to Storyboard18 citing financial filings. Entering FY2024, Zepto faced a new strategic problem. Having established proof of concept in delivery speed among early adopters, it needed to scale brand awareness, build emotional resonance, and defend market share against well-capitalised incumbents — all while improving unit economics. The marketing function was therefore required to transition from pure performance-driven user acquisition to a more layered brand-building strategy.

Strategic Objective

Zepto's marketing objectives across 2023–2024 can be inferred from three mutually reinforcing public signals. First, the company's substantial increase in advertising spend — rising 41% from ₹215.82 crore in FY2023 to approximately ₹304 crore in FY2024, per afaqs.com citing financial filings — indicates a deliberate shift from lean acquisition spending to heavier brand investment. Second, the company's stated goal, as articulated by CEO Aadit Palicha in a public LinkedIn post, was to improve PAT (profit after tax) as a percentage of revenue even as topline scaled — from -63% in FY23 to -28% in FY24 — which required building a brand that could reduce reliance on unsustainable discounting. Third, the launch of Zepto's in-house advertising platform, Jarvis, and the company's subsequent announcement that it had crossed ₹1,000 crore in annualised advertising revenue (reported by YourStory, citing a LinkedIn post by CEO Palicha) signal a strategic intent to monetise its own audience — a revenue stream that depends on brand-building to sustain user volumes.

Taken together, the strategic objective for this period was not merely to drive app installs or first-order transactions. It was to embed Zepto as a habitual presence in urban Indian consumer life by anchoring the brand to a single, non-negotiable promise: speed. In doing so, Zepto sought to convert a functional attribute (10-minute delivery) into a brand identity marker that would be difficult for competitors to dislodge even as the category commoditised.

Campaign Architecture & Execution

Zepto's marketing strategy during this period operated across two phases, each addressing a distinct consumer relationship stage.

Phase 1 — Performance-Led Acquisition (2021–2022): In its earliest years, Zepto focused on performance marketing mechanisms — app-install campaigns and first-order discount offers targeting urban millennials and Gen Z consumers. These tactics are consistent with standard q-commerce customer acquisition playbooks and have been described by multiple credible industry observers, including 42Signals and Storyboard18, as foundational to Zepto's early growth. No detailed verified breakdowns of individual campaign performance metrics (conversion rates, cost per install, or CAC) from this phase are publicly available. No verified public information is available on specific media buys or agency relationships from this early phase.

Phase 2 — Brand-Building and Cultural Integration (2023–2024): As Zepto's operational scale grew, its campaigns shifted meaningfully in character. The company began investing in brand-led digital storytelling alongside performance mechanics.

The most documented and widely reported campaign from this phase is the "Make Soan Papdi Great Again" Diwali 2024 activation. According to reporting by afaqs!, Exchange4media, Storyboard18, and Campaign India — all sourcing directly from Zepto's Chief Brand Officer Chandan Mendiratta and Senior Marketing Director Anant Rastogi — the campaign was conceived in response to Soan Papdi's unique cultural status as India's most gifted and least consumed Diwali sweet. The campaign featured a 60-second film that anthropomorphised the sweet as an AI-generated character — a box with a humanoid face — experiencing an existential crisis over its meme-worthy regifting reputation, before being "rescued" by a Zepto delivery rider. Zepto simultaneously created a LinkedIn profile for the Soan Papdi character, appointing it as the company's official "Come Back Officer" (CBO). From October 18 to October 20, 2024, Soan Papdi was made available as a complimentary gift with eligible purchases from participating sellers on the platform. Rastogi confirmed in a direct interview published by afaqs! that the campaign was developed in four to five weeks and that the Soan Papdi character was designed using AI-generated imagery. He also explicitly stated that virality was not the primary objective: "Our goal was to own an event like Diwali. What this campaign did is, if you think of Soan Papdi, you'll think of Zepto — which will translate to a purchase decision." In addition to this campaign, Zepto invested in IPL sponsorship during 2024–2025 — a mass-reach, brand-salience play in line with its transition from a niche, performance-driven operator to a mainstream consumer brand. This is confirmed by 42Signals and other industry observers. Specific financial terms of the IPL arrangement are not publicly available. Zepto also launched Zepto Pass in 2024, a subscription loyalty programme offering exclusive pricing and priority delivery benefits. According to Storyboard18 and multiple business publications, Zepto Pass gained one million subscribers within a week of launch. While Zepto Pass functions primarily as a retention mechanism, its marketing value as a commitment device — reducing price sensitivity and normalising habitual ordering — is structurally significant. Separately, Zepto launched Jarvis, an in-house advertising platform for brands and sellers, in November 2024. CEO Palicha confirmed in a public LinkedIn post (reported by YourStory) that Jarvis had already delivered over 15 billion ad impressions and that the platform's advertising revenue had crossed ₹1,000 crore on an annualised basis.

Positioning & Consumer Insight

Zepto's positioning strategy is structurally distinctive in the Indian consumer internet landscape because it is single-attribute and operationally tethered. The brand does not attempt to position on price, assortment, or emotional warmth — each of which is either unsustainable at Zepto's cost structure or easily replicated by competitors. Instead, it positions exclusively on speed, and it can only maintain this position if its dark store network actually delivers on the 10-minute promise. The core consumer insight underpinning this positioning is the redefinition of the grocery mission. Traditional grocery shopping is a planned, considered purchase behaviour. Zepto's insight was that urban Indian consumers — particularly millennials and Gen Z professionals in high-density metros — frequently encounter micro-moments of urgency: a missing ingredient mid-cook, an unanticipated guest, a sudden craving, a last-minute household need. For these moments, the relevant competitive frame is not the supermarket or even a 30-minute delivery app. It is the nearby convenience store, where the consumer's decision is governed by immediacy, not price or loyalty. By delivering in 10 minutes, Zepto makes the smartphone interface genuinely competitive with the corner store — and in many urban contexts, faster. The "Make Soan Papdi Great Again" campaign illustrates a sophisticated extension of this insight. Rather than making a functional speed claim, it uses cultural memory and shared national humour to build emotional familiarity. The campaign's subject — an under-appreciated traditional sweet — becomes a vehicle for demonstrating that Zepto understands Indian cultural context deeply, not just logistics. This is a brand-maturity signal: a company confident enough in its functional credibility to invest in emotional resonance without abandoning its core positioning.

Media & Channel Strategy

Based on verified public reporting, Zepto's media strategy during this period employed a multi-channel approach with a strong digital-first orientation. The company's primary consumer acquisition channels were digital performance marketing — app-install campaigns and promotional offers distributed through digital platforms — consistent with the mobile-first behaviour of its target demographic of urban millennials and Gen Z. Zepto also invested in influencer partnerships on Instagram and YouTube, as documented by industry observers, though no specific campaign performance data from these partnerships has been publicly disclosed. For brand-building, Zepto used short-form video content, social media activations (including the LinkedIn-native CBO appointment in the Soan Papdi campaign), and mass-reach television inventory through IPL sponsorship in 2024–25. The Soan Papdi campaign was specifically designed to generate organic amplification on digital platforms — the LinkedIn profile for the character, the AI-generated visual identity, and the pop-culture reference to "Make America Great Again" were all engineered for shareability without requiring paid amplification at scale. Zepto's advertising revenue strategy also created an indirect media loop: by building a large daily order volume (the company reportedly processed over 700,000 daily orders by FY2024, per its RoC filings and related press coverage), Zepto created a high-frequency audience that could be monetised by brands through Jarvis, the in-house advertising platform. This dynamic — where brand-building investment drives user volume which drives advertising revenue which offsets marketing spend — is a structurally important feature of Zepto's marketing economics.

Business & Brand Outcomes

The following outcomes are sourced exclusively from verifiable public documents:

Financial Performance: Zepto's revenue from operations grew 120% from ₹2,026 crore in FY2023 to ₹4,454 crore in FY2024, as per consolidated financial statements sourced from the Registrar of Companies. The company's net loss decreased marginally by 2% from ₹1,271.84 crore in FY23 to ₹1,248.64 crore in FY24. Aadit Palicha confirmed in a public LinkedIn post that PAT as a percentage of revenue improved from -63% in FY23 to -28% in FY24, indicating improved margin management alongside topline growth.

Advertising Expenditure: Advertising spend rose 41% from ₹215.82 crore in FY23 to approximately ₹304 crore in FY24, per afaqs.com citing financial filings. This figure positions Zepto as one of the highest per-unit advertisers in the q-commerce category, outpacing Blinkit's reported ₹191 crore in advertising expenditure in 2024.

Funding & Valuation: Zepto entered the unicorn club in August 2023 with a $200 million Series E at a $1.4 billion valuation, per the company's official announcement. It subsequently raised $665 million at a $3.6 billion valuation in June 2024 (Series F), $340 million at a $5 billion valuation in August 2024 (Series G), and $350 million in a domestic round in November 2024 (valuation maintained at ~$5 billion). Total funding raised as of late 2024 exceeded $1.85 billion, per multiple credible sources including Inc42 and Economic Times.

Market Position: As of late 2024, Zepto held approximately 29% market share in India's quick commerce segment, according to Motilal Oswal Research as cited by multiple business publications, positioning it as the second-largest player nationally.

Operational Scale: According to RoC-sourced financials and related press coverage, Zepto operated over 550 dark stores and processed upwards of 700,000 daily orders by FY2024. The company reported that nearly 75% of its dark stores had achieved full EBITDA positivity in FY2024, per press coverage of a company announcement in November 2024.

Zepto Pass Adoption: Zepto Pass gained one million subscribers within one week of launch in 2024, per Storyboard18 and other credible business publications.

Advertising Revenue (Platform): CEO Aadit Palicha announced via LinkedIn (reported by YourStory) that Zepto had crossed ₹1,000 crore in annualised advertising revenue, generating approximately ₹83 crore per month. The Jarvis platform had delivered over 15 billion ad impressions.

Note: No verified public information is available on campaign-specific brand lift metrics, net promoter scores, social media impression data, click-through rates, or app download attribution data from individual campaigns.

Strategic Implications

The Brand-as-Infrastructure Thesis: Zepto's most important strategic achievement is not transactional — it is attitudinal. By anchoring its brand relentlessly to a single, operationally verifiable promise (10-minute delivery), Zepto has engineered what its own communications suggest is a transition from being a convenience app to being urban infrastructure. When consumers stop perceiving Zepto as one of several delivery choices and begin treating it as an automatic reflex — like reaching for a light switch — the brand has achieved a form of habitual equity that is nearly impossible to dislodge through competitive price promotions alone. The Equentis analysis characterises this dynamic as Zepto turning "grocery shopping from planning to impulse."

The Dual Revenue Model as Marketing Multiplier: Zepto's launch of Jarvis and its rapid growth in platform advertising revenue reveals a structurally sophisticated marketing model. Advertising investment drives user growth; user growth creates audience inventory; audience inventory generates advertising revenue from third-party brands; advertising revenue helps fund further marketing investment. This flywheel — if sustainable — reframes Zepto's marketing spend not as a pure cost but as a partially self-financing investment. The ₹1,000 crore annualised advertising revenue milestone, announced within three years of the Ads Business launch, suggests the model is gaining meaningful traction.

Cultural Fluency as Brand Differentiation: The "Make Soan Papdi Great Again" campaign demonstrates that Zepto's brand team understood a critical insight about Indian internet culture: the most shareable content is not the most polished, but the most resonant. By making a brand campaign out of a joke that every urban Indian already knew, Zepto didn't need to explain the reference or build the emotional context from scratch. The campaign created earned media by inserting the brand into an existing cultural conversation — a far more capital-efficient strategy than building a new narrative. The deliberate decision to reject virality as a KPI (as stated by Rastogi in his published interview) while designing precisely for virality's preconditions reflects sophisticated campaign architecture.

Implications for Competitors: Zepto's brand strategy creates a dilemma for fast-follower competitors. Blinkit possesses the advantage of Zomato's brand recognition and superior market share. Swiggy Instamart benefits from Swiggy's established food delivery ecosystem. Both of these advantages are distribution-led. Zepto's counter-positioning — building a standalone, speed-only identity without the equity of an adjacent brand — is high-risk but potentially high-reward if it succeeds in establishing brand-parity with consumers. The IPL sponsorship and celebrity brand ambassador investments signal Zepto's intent to compete on brand equity, not merely on delivery SLAs.

Discussion Questions

1. Single-Attribute Positioning and Competitive Durability: Zepto has built its entire brand architecture around delivery speed. As competitors including Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart make comparable 10-minute delivery claims and expand their dark store networks, how sustainable is speed as Zepto's sole positioning pillar? What strategic options does Zepto have to evolve its brand identity beyond speed without diluting its core equity, and what are the risks of each option?

2. The Advertising Platform as a Strategic Asset: Zepto has crossed ₹1,000 crore in annualised advertising revenue through its Jarvis platform in under three years. To what extent does this advertising business change the economic logic of Zepto's marketing spend? Does converting the app into an advertising medium risk degrading the user experience that Zepto's brand is built on? How should Zepto manage the tension between maximising advertising revenue and preserving the simplicity and speed of the consumer interface?

3. Cultural Marketing and Brand Relevance: The "Make Soan Papdi Great Again" campaign was designed to "own Diwali" as a brand event, not to drive direct transactional response, according to Zepto's Marketing Director. How should marketing effectiveness be measured for a campaign with an explicitly brand-affinity objective rather than a performance objective? What frameworks would you apply, and what metrics would you define as indicators of success?

4. Profitability vs. Market Share in Hyper-Growth Categories: Zepto's FY24 financials show a 120% revenue increase alongside a 72% increase in total expenditure, with the company still operating at a net loss of ₹1,248.64 crore. At what point does continued investment in brand-building and market share expansion become inconsistent with the stated goal of FY26 profitability? How should a company in this position sequence its marketing investments between brand-building, user acquisition, and loyalty retention?

5. The IPO Readiness Imperative: Zepto has publicly signalled its intent to pursue an initial public offering. How does an impending IPO alter the objectives and accountability framework for marketing investment? Specifically, should Zepto's marketing strategy in the pre-IPO period prioritise demonstrable revenue-linked ROI metrics (to satisfy institutional investors) or continue its brand-equity-led approach (to build long-term competitive defensibility)? What tensions might arise between these objectives?