NEW DELHI: Food delivery major Zomato has become the latest to throw its hat into the Indian video content production business, announcing the launch of Zomato Originals on Friday. The venture will see Zomato produce 18 original shows revolving around food over a span of three months, including one by popular chef Sanjeev Kapoor.
“We are constantly looking for new ways to engage our users around food… this presents us with another opportunity,” said CEO and founder Deepinder Goyal. Delivered to Zomato users in India through its mobile app, these shows will sport episodes of 3-15 minutes each and are optimised for mobile app-based viewing. However, while a library of about 2,000 videos apart from the original shows under different categories including recipes and food-related comedies have been lined up, the feature is being offered free currently and will go live on the app from Monday. “It is free to watch at launch as we further understand and explore this space,” Durga Raghunath, senior VP, Growth, Zomato, told TNIE.
Raghunath also noted that food videos are among the most-watched on the internet currently, pointing out that Zomato’s own viewership data for its SneakPeek videos buttresses external observations. The company had launched the little video snippets on restaurant partners in August last year.
According to analysts, while the feature might not be monetisable, at least immediately, it will provide offer Zomato an effective customer engagement tool which also differentiates it from rivals Swiggy and UberEats.
“While, it is a bit early to say whether it will work as a customer acquisition/retention tool, it is definitely a very differentiated customer engagement tool,” noted KPMG’s Girish Menon.
Abhneesh Roy, executive VP, Edelweiss Financial Services agreed. “This will definitely help, because people like to watch this kind of content and it is not something easily available on TV…,” he said.