Swiggy looks to lure Generation Z consumers with Launchpad initiative

How do you market your goods to a consumer cohort that has the attention span of a gnat, considers the mobile phone an extension of their bodies and scoffs at any business that isn’t online?

Well, do as marketers have done for any other generation: Talk to them in the language they understand and through the medium they approve.

That’s exactly Swiggy is doing. To expand its presence in new markets it has decided to catch 'em young. The target: Generation Z. Why? By 2020, Gen Z is expected to account for 40 per cent of all customers.

Its Launchpad programme unveiled earlier this year is one such tool. It plans to take the programme to 200 campuses by December this year from the existing 75 where it rolled out earlier this year. The goal is to take it to 300 campuses by next March. The key will be improved service through customised offerings on the back of hyperlocal insights gathered from the campuses themselves. 

Why is Launchpad important? First things first. All students who’ve successfully completed the first year of their college can apply to the Launchpad programme if this campus is covered by Swiggy. The handpicked campus CEO will earn the opportunity to set up the Swiggy network within their campus and get mentored by industry experts. In effect, you are engaging a crowd of anywhere between 7,000-20,000 in a campus — all tech savvy, and a virtual captive audience. It is not exactly a brand-building exercise — almost everyone would be aware of Swiggy and many would have used the app anyway.

The core idea, says Vivek Sunder, chief operating officer, Swiggy, is to improve serviceability in these campuses. Since many of these universities are away from the main cities or are based in locations that do not have a thriving food delivery or eating-out scene, it becomes important to connect the eateries to students as much as it is important to connect the students to these places, he says. Take the case of BITS Hyderabad which is almost 40 kilometres away from the centre of an otherwise bustling city. "What is interesting is that some Indian universities by themselves have a bigger potential than some smaller towns in India. Not only does the programme benefit the campus students with better food choices delivered in minutes but it also encourages entrepreneurship in the student community," says Sunder.

This would be like hitting two birds with one stone. When you take into account the fact that Swiggy aims to include 300 universities by March and that its rivals do not have any such programme, the two potential targets become apparent: One, since the target is young and the potential reach huge (though the company hasn't provided the total number of students it aims to reach), this exercise could become habit forming; and two, that it can identify potential candidates to be hired by Swiggy at some point.

Sunder says that with Launchpad, Swiggy is empowering enterprising students with the first-hand experience in solving real-world problems and giving them the opportunity to challenge themselves and think out-of-the-box. "It is helping the campus CEOs with a pre-placement interview to land a full-time role at Swiggy, the chance to meet Swiggy’s top management and present their work and ideas," he adds.

How? That has to do with Launchpad's selection process and the business model. The process to select the CEOs is a rigorous one and Swiggy, among other things, uses a simulation game for shortlisting. The game takes the candidates through the entire journey of running Swiggy’s business. "This game tests the candidates’ understanding of the three key stakeholders involved, namely, consumers, restaurant partners, delivery partners. They also get an overview of the impact made by their decisions on all these stakeholders’ basis which they can optimise their strategies to generate maximum business impact. These are strategic decisions regarding business growth, customer experience, marketing etc," says Sunder.

Finally, the top-percentile students are interviewed by its panel, which essentially looks at the ability as well as the enthusiasm of the candidates for the programmme. 

The perks include up to six months of internship opportunity and monthly stipend determined by "a fair and transparent compensation structure which is the standard across all the campuses and regions".

Now look at the exposure these candidates get. "Our campus CEO engages with the restaurants, tells us and them about the food preferences of the student crowd after learning about all that through a meticulous exercise and encourage them to deliver. And once that starts happening, the expansion of order volumes is just a matter of time since students have both -- the appetite and the willingness to experiment," says another executive.

The programmes led by such campus CEOs has been quite successful in campuses including IIT Roorkee, NIT Kurukshetra, IIT Kharagpur, NIT Calicut, BITS Pilani and Lovely Professional University.

Take the case of IIT Roorkee where third year B.Tech student Harsh Shah is the CEO. Shah says the efforts put in by Swiggy has seen the order volumes grow five times from what it was in April, the time when the Launchpad system was set up in the campus. 

In the same campus, Shah came up with initiatives like "No Mess Day" on Wednesdays when there is a flat 40 per cent discount for University students on order-ins using the Swiggy app. This is among the many initiatives that the company is plans to replicate in other centres as it moves along. 

Like all other businesses, location could be make or break. Third Eyesight founder Devangshu Dutta says from a demand point of view, in universities or university towns students generally don't cook and it would be a win-win if a company picks the right places where the students come largely from of families with an income level where eating out is not unaffordable. On the execution front, he says, the challenge is not over even after acquisition. "Timeliness is very important with meals and eventually, the time you take to deliver will be a bigger selling point than the discounts you give."

Campus calling

• The company’s vision is to be present in 200 of the country’s top universities by the end of this year and 300 campuses by the end of March 2020
• Swiggy feels Indian universities have bigger potential than some smaller towns in India in terms of business opportunity 
• The programme provides university students with an opportunity to set-up Swiggy within their campus and gets on-the-job entrepreneurial experience
• They not only take executive decisions on how to meet the targets but also help with hyperlocal insights about their campus
• Other than connecting food and restaurants to each other, Swiggy helps digitise campus canteens and restaurants present inside the campus