Smart brands understand that in 2023, media placements like print and outdoor aren’t just meant to remain print and outdoor. They’re print-led and outdoor-led viral opportunities that can travel on the social internet. During Diwali 2022, India’s busiest time of the year, Swiggy launched its campaign, ‘Why Is This A Swiggy Ad?’ through billboards, front-page print ads and on social media. What started out as a traditional media campaign ended up becoming an uber-successful UGC campaign, getting 800,000+ people participating through their own fan-theories, livestream debates and online discussions, all wondering why the image actually was a Swiggy ad.

Swiggy – India’s #1 food-delivery app, valued at $11 billion, is on a journey towards transforming itself into an everyday super-app for millions of Indians across 500+ cities. What started out as a food-delivery business 8 years ago, now delivers groceries (Instamart), picks up & drops anything (Genie), offers deals and reservations at restaurants (DineOut) and even curates homegrown consumer brands (HandPicked). So much so, that Swiggy has become the poster-child of India’s tech start-ups with a consistent history of launching innovative services and features.

So instead of running the Diwali rat-race for media space during its busiest season, how could Swiggy remind its audience of how much they already love & know Swiggy? Or, do they really?

Objectives:

1. Create recall value for Swiggy’s myriad services and features

2. Increase brand preference during the year’s highest business season

3. Maximise the potential of the brand’s pop-cultural relevance

‘Why is this a Swiggy ad?’ (#WITASA) – an elaborate yet simple thought experiment designed to tap into the Indian consumer’s (already existing) everyday Swiggy subconscious.

A week before Diwali, Swiggy dropped an intricately designed, puzzling creative over social media, billboards & print across India. The image was filled with dozens of clues, easter eggs, Diwali & pop-culture references and an avatar of Swiggy’s beloved advertising mascot: ‘the Gulab Jamun Uncle’, along with a simple question - Why Is This A Swiggy Ad?

Swiggy asked consumers to come up with creative fan-theories trying to make sense of it all and reason publicly using #WITASA why their theory made sense. Did the peculiar elements in the image have anything to do with each other? Was Swiggy launching a new feature? What was the uncle doing in outer space? What was this ad for? The best fan-theories would win ₹1,00,000 ($1200) each.

Swiggy is an integral part of life in India’s top cities. So, our strategy was to get our consumers to do all the work based on their own memories & associations with the Swiggy brand.

Our younger, internet-first (and most relevant) cohort of audiences don’t want to be advertised-to anymore. With #WITASA we now had a chance to get them to co-create our advertising & its meaning with us.

Luckily, there are clear traces of Swiggy across everyday life in India. The brand’s relevance in mainstream culture wasn’t just functional but also entertaining. Leveraging this ‘Swiggy culture’, we encouraged India to go wild with their fan-theories and take their imagination to the extremities of what was possible by Swiggy - indirectly establishing our many services. A food app, sure. But, what else could Swiggy possibly do? Ultimately, if it made them think deeply of Swiggy, our job was done

We launched through a series of billboards, newspaper front pages and a website. All displaying the same puzzling #WITASA artwork. Users simply had to share their theories through text/image/video on our social to win ₹1,00,000 ($1200).

Over the week, Swiggy went wild featuring the ‘craziest-wackiest-can’t-believe-I-didn’t-think-of-this’ theories on our social channels, replying in real-time to each theory stirring the pot and getting users to break their heads for answers even more.

With no closure in sight, #WITASA went everywhere - from Twitter threads, 3-scroll LinkedIn posts, mind-boggling explainer videos, fan pages, and at one point - hundreds of thousands of people on a livestream discussing the ad. Was there even a right answer?

Ultimately, unique winning theories were revealed over an 18-minute video, all while establishing what everyone kind of realised by the end of the week. That if it made you think of Swiggy, it’s a Swiggy ad.

A single picture that made the internet speak a thousand words - #WITASA is now Swiggy's most successful user-generated campaign ever. And they pulled it off without making the campaign about Diwali but simply making users 'live the spirit of Diwali': to get together, discuss, laugh, ponder, collaborate and have a blast with a 'Swiggy ad' as an excuse. It became India's most searched question on Google for 3 days, even Google couldn't help but take part in it with a theory.

80K+ user-powered theories

700,000+ concurrent users discussing on Livestreams

100% uptick on positive sentiment

603% increase in brand mentions

35.5Mn Reach among Indian Gen-Z

1000% increase in engagement on Twitter

500% increase engagement on Instagram

In India, food, language and customs change every 100 kms. ‘Why Is This A Swiggy Ad’ needed to showcase our in-depth understanding of India - through the elements in the artwork that referenced food cultures of different cities, the Indian culture of one-upmanship, Bollywood and even Diwali.

While designing the artwork, a challenge was to pick elements that would resonate with maximum people across all walks of life in India. For example - NASA’s image of India on Diwali from space, depicted on our campaign image, is a hoax WhatsApp forward that everyone receives around Diwali.

We had to choose recognizable elements that would make people go ‘Oh, that’s why it's a Swiggy ad!’ We also needed to show our understanding of the nuances and psyche of the Indian market - helping each user to tie those elements together in their own unique way and see their own Swiggy ad.