Ishan Mahajan,
Delhi NCR, Analytics (via Marketing)

It was September 2014. The Delhi monsoon had begun its retreat and as a result, the roads were much less busy than before. ‘Less busy’, however, wasn’t the expression one could use for what was going on inside the Zomato office. A group of us in the marketing team were going over our budgets, having chats with cities across the globe, identifying problems, and fixing them (or trying to, at least).

In between one of these sessions, Deepi walked into the room and animatedly called us over to the next table. There, he rolled out a sheet of paper and drew a ‘heart’ and (we weren’t sure why, but) a fork.

“This is our new logo,” he said.

There was an eruption of a mix of ‘Oh’s, ‘Ooooh’s, ‘Aaah’s and, well, ‘Oh no’s. Deepi smiled and said there would be some modifications, but that this is what we’d all be living with in less than a month. And that we’d need to change our current logo to the new one everywhere. Everywhere.

The next few days were spent getting used to the new logo and brainstorming on what it signified, trying to keep it a secret from the world all the while. For some of us, the new logo simply signified a love of food; for others, it signified something broader and deeper — the ‘heart’ that we put into everything we do as a company. It was important, of course, how the world would see it. But, more importantly, we wanted to make sure it was loved — not just accepted — by every Zoman.

Rebranding is a massive deal for any company, and it was no different for us. The logo had to be unveiled in a grand manner. Some of the ideas we started off with included hanging a giant logo on the wall, getting a logo-shaped cake, and making a worldwide announcement on our social media channels.

Amidst this hustle, our then CMO Rameet said, “Guys, we have to think big!”.

This was a historic moment for everyone at Zomato, and we wanted everyone to be made to feel a part of it at a personal level. We hit upon a simple idea that could be taken global — on the day we unveiled the new logo, every Zoman everywhere would get a personalised mug with their name on it, and we’d have a small celebration in every office globally.

Oh, and by the way, ‘every Zoman’ meant every Zoman in the 17 countries we were already in at the time.

What followed over the next couple of weeks was sheer madness — the social media/graphics team working overtime on multiple iterations of new brand collateral, the BTL marketing team arranging for vendors to print everything, rejecting one mug sample after another until we found one we loved, and talking to teams across the globe to arrange for a coordinated logo launch in their respective cities. Akshar and the design team were busy designing, printing, and pasting brand assets on a wall, looking at them, realising they didn’t feel right, scrapping them, and starting over. It was exasperating and exhilarating at the same time. I’d be lying if I said tempers didn’t reach boiling point on more than a few occasions. As I said earlier, all this had to be done while keeping the new logo and more importantly, the big fat launch, a secret.

The craziness reached new heights as the day of the launch drew nearer. We had to make sure the mountains of marketing collateral that had been designed after multiple discussions, never-ending translations and quick-fire fabrication, were shipped to the locations on time. I remember being on calls with cities in India and abroad to check if they had received their parcels, biting my nails in anticipation most of the time. At one point, we thought we’d miss hitting our target unveiling date due to some unforeseen reasons. But we ran the last mile just in time, and those of us who had been working to make sure the finish was picture-perfect heaved a sigh of relief.

The night before D-Day, a bunch of us stayed up in the office after everyone had left. We had over 350 mugs, one for everyone in the Gurgaon office. We carefully arranged these in the reception area, with pin-badge carrying our new logo inside each one. We had happy team pictures with the new logo emblazoned on them on the walls of every floor.

We had print-outs explaining what the ‘heart’ meant stuck everywhere folks could see them.

Our city teams had called in to say they were ready for a super-happy team launch as well. It was just past midnight and we were rejoicing the completion of this onerous task — mostly by taking selfies! There was one thing missing though: the logo on the reception wall. The guy who was to fix it had told us he’d be at the office early in the morning to get it done.
 
7 am: I reached the office to put the final touches on things and make sure everything was in place.
7:30am: This was when the guy with the logo for the wall was to arrive, but there was no sign of him, and frantic calls were being made.
7:45am: Logo guy says he’s just about reaching our office.
7:55am: He calmly walks in through the gate. There was really no time for shouting, so we ushered him in. He began his task, carefully laying down the heart, followed by Z-O-M-A-T-O. Each letter being put up on the wall inched us closer to 8:25am, when the first few Zomans would start trickling in. And with not a moment to spare, we had our brand new identity up on the reception wall.

The next hour was spent with everyone coming in and collecting their mugs, appreciating the display, and looking very happy that, with this small token, the logo was already very much a part of their lives. The smiles flowed into a very enthusiastic, bubbly day at the Zomato office, spiced up even more by pictures of teams across the globe posing at their own celebration of the new brand identity we had now.

The evening saw a huge red-velvet cake in the shape of the ‘heart’ brought in. I was well into my fourth month at Zomato, already well knit into the Zoman family. But standing there with the team and cutting the cake, I felt like I truly belonged. It’s been well over a year since that day, and we now have a spoon as our brand logo (which is a story for another day). And I love it equally, if not more. After all, it’s the organization that defines what its logo stands for, and not the other way around. But those few weeks of being involved with changing the face of Zomato — literally — will always be among the most unforgettable.