‘You know who we are :)’: This company’s unnamed 18th birthday ad is a masterclass on brand recall

Zomato turned 18 with a birthday advertisement that did almost everything a conventional brand campaign would avoid: no logo, no product pitch and barely any explanation.

Instead, the food delivery platform took out a full-page newspaper advertisement in The Times of India, dominated by its signature red, carrying just one message: "happy 18th birthday to us. thank you for keeping us in your hearts (and bank statements)."

At the bottom of the advertisement came the punchline: "no logo required you know who we are :)"

The minimalist campaign was effectively a test of brand recall: could one colour, one tone of voice and one sentence be enough for readers to know exactly who was speaking?

For many, the answer was yes. For others, apparently not quite.

Zomato jokes about getting ‘cancelled’

The company also marked the occasion with its usual self-aware social media humour.

On X, Zomato wrote: "we've come a long way over the past 18 years, from getting cancelled on twitter to getting cancelled on X happy birthday to us"

The post played on the platform’s long history of being celebrated, criticised and occasionally caught in online controversies, while keeping with the irreverent voice that has become central to Zomato’s public identity.

From FoodieBay to a consumer tech giant

Zomato’s journey began in 2008 as FoodieBay, a restaurant discovery and menu platform. It was renamed Zomato in 2010 before eventually moving into food delivery in 2015.

The company went public in 2021 and acquired Blinkit the following year, giving it a major foothold in quick commerce. Today, Zomato operates under parent company Eternal, alongside Blinkit, Hyperpure and District.

Netizens react

One user celebrating the milestone summed up the company’s evolution this way:

"Happy 18th Birthday to Zomato!! A great example of how successful companies keep evolving instead of staying with their original business." ‘Even a colour so common as red can recognise which brand we are talking about’

The newspaper ad quickly triggered a wider conversation about branding and how consistently a company must communicate before it can afford to remove its own name from an advertisement.

One user described it as a lesson for people working in branding, writing: "It's an interesting lesson for all of us who are in branding...take lessons from this...even a colour so common as red can recognise which brand we are talking about. good this is good."

Another praised the campaign for showing what consistency can achieve.

"Bold and Beautiful. This is what design and branding consistency does. Have to give it to @zomato for creating a stellar brand in this era where everyone’s questioning whether new brands can ever be built or not. While the format is modern, the process is timeless - Consistency. Kudos, @deepigoyal and team."

Another user admitted that even without the logo, the brand eventually became obvious: "This is the first time in my bloodline seeing an advertisement without a logo and I actually thought it was some completely different brand. But then I guessed it was Zomato"

Not everyone recognised Zomato

The ad, however, was not the instant brand-recall triumph for everyone that some social media posts suggested.

One user wrote: "Saw this ad and my brain said Coca-Cola. Then Vodafone. Definitely not Zomato on the first try"

Another was more sceptical about the online praise surrounding the campaign: "If you are also thinking you didn't recognise the brand by this advertisement on Newspaper. Hold on nobody did. Then zomato paid some X account to write "literally the biggest flex ever seen in a while" and tag Zomato. btw Zomato's marketing team tried well."

A third simply said: "Bro unless Zomato sent me reminder that it’s their birthday I was not able to guess"