Building brands is not a child's play these days -- they have to be bold to be heard. But crossing the line can backfire. An Indian unicorn, for instance, is facing backlash on social media over its decision to promote its brand via an advertisement that many perceive portrays the workplace exploitation of its workers. The ad featuring Bollywood stars Hritwik Roshan and Katrina Kaif has definitely given leading food delivery giant Zomato an edge over others in the competition for attention, but it has triggered widespread derision. Read: India's first food delivery unicorn fires up start-up ecosystem The first ad shows Katrina opening the door for a Zomato delivery professional. After taking the delivery of a cake, she asks the Zomato man to wait for a slice, but he gets another notification for delivery and leaves. The second ad is almost similar, only that the Zomato delivery executive has to forgo an opportunity to take a selfie with Hritwik after handing him over a food bowl. "For us, every customer is a star," says the tagline. While the Twitterati has slammed Zomato for glorifying the poor working conditions of the delivery professionals, the unicorn says the ad is aimed at making the delivery men "the hero". "This ad disturbed me. We don't need to glorify people rushing to deliver food. Or condescend to them and make it out to be heroic. Service providers need to come back to Earth," K Srinivasan tweeted. "So the message here is what? That @zomato delivery guys work under such pressures and time constraints that one can't even wait 10 seconds for a selfie with a superstar. And that's a work culture they are proud of having?" tweeted Gaurav. "Zomato spends crores on Hrithik instead of giving raise to deliver personnel," wrote another social media user. Zomato has also put out its version of the controversy. "We believe that our ads are well-intentioned, but were unfortunately misinterpreted by some people," it said in its statement on Twitter. Read: Indian economy grows by 20.1%, raising hopes of recovery The controversy erupts barely a month after Zomato became India's first new-age technology unicorn to list on the bourses, scripting a stellar debut that could lute similar consumer start-ups to go public. The company, backed by Jack Ma's Ant Group, in fact, rode on the Covid outbreak that has prompted a trend of people moving to order food items online the world over. Such was the fantabulous listing on July 23 -- true to hype -- that Zomato's market capitalisation breached 12 billion US dollar mark in the first hour itself, making it one of the 50 most valuable traded firms.

Food delivery giant Zomato on Friday became India's first new-age technology unicorn to list on the country's bourses, scripting a stellar debut that could soon lure similar internet-based consumer start-ups to go public. The company, backed by Jack Ma's Ant Group, in fact, rode on the Covid outbreak that has prompted a trend of people moving to order food items online the world over. Such was the fantabulous listing -- true to hype -- that Zomato's market capitalization breached 12 billion US dollar mark in the first hour itself, making it one of the 50 most valuable traded firms. Read: India successfully test-fires home-grown anti-tank missile The listing price was Rs 115 and Rs 116 on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), respectively, as against the offer price of Rs 76. NSE's flagship NIFTY 50 index is used by domestic and global investors as a barometer of the Indian capital market as well as the economy. 'Future exciting, but a long way to go' "The future looks exciting. I don’t know whether we will succeed or fail -- we will surely, like always, give it our best," Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal tweeted. In a letter to the company's shareholders, tagged on the micro-blogging site, Goyal also hailed its business rival -- Japan's SoftBank-funded Swiggy -- but said that both the food delivery companies "have a long way to go before we can call ourselves world class by our customers’ standards". "India is a tough market to operate in, but if you are building to succeed in India, you are already exceptional. I say that because I believe Zomato and Swiggy are two of the best food delivery apps in the world today. We have a long way to go before we can call ourselves world class by our customers’ standards, but we are determined to get there. "We have lived through many ups and downs -- something not every company has the privilege of living long enough to do. I have made many decisions which have been good for the company, while some have caused our stakeholders a lot of heartburn... "We are going to relentlessly focus on 10 years out and beyond, and are not going to alter our course for short-term profits at the cost of long-term success. The tremendous response to our IPO gives us the confidence that the world is full of investors who appreciate the magnitude of investments we are making...," he wrote. Read: 25 die as heavy rains batter India's Mumbai Decoding Zomato Founded as Foodiebay in 2008 by Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, both technology graduates, and rechristened Zomato two years later, the food delivery firm's technology platform connects customers, restaurant partners and delivery partners, serving their multiple needs.The service is currently available in almost all major Indian cities and in several countries. The company's customers use the Zomato platform to search and discover restaurants, read and write customer generated reviews and view and upload photos, order food delivery, book a table and make payments while dining out.