How Otipy is leveraging nostalgia to power its agri-tech business

Otipy is an agri-tech start-up that connects end consumers to farmers through a community of resellers who handle the last-mile delivery of fresh produce. Launched in 2020, Otipy has expanded its product portfolio, now along with fresh and chemical-free fruits and vegetables, it also includes dairy, bakery and grocery. In a time span of 2 years, Otipy has become the largest online seller of fruits and vegetables in Delhi-NCR.

The brand had recently rolled out its new campaign – ‘Chawanni’ – under which they were offering veggies at the least possible price of 25 paise for its customers.

Speaking to Adgully for their column Talking Insights, Varun Khurana, Founder & CEO, Otipy, gives a rundown on the ‘Chawanni’ campaign and how they are focused on the mission of bringing back the olden days of the "chawanni Era" by adding nostalgic elements, along with creating a strong market push for their chemical-free fresh fruits & vegetables at the minimum price.

On what terms do you think your approach differs from fellow competitors when it comes to marketing strategies?

Through this campaign, we are trying to solve the problem of people consuming fresh, safer, and hygienic fruits & vegetables in Delhi NCR. Fresh is a synonym with the Fruits & Vegetable category and has been in use for years, which makes it harder for us to resonate/ establish our proposition with our audience. The thought was to have people try Otipy once with the route of price & emotional connect. We are confident about the user’s affinity to the brand if they try it in a sequence.

The concept is one-of-a-kind of unique campaign, and something like this has never been seen or heard in recent times.

Our primary TG is 25-50 years old. For ‘Ab chawanni chalegi phir se’, the idea was to bring forth something (discontinued, but not forgotten) most of us have heard from our parents at some points in our lives. This bygone era currency in current times gives everyone an experience of old times and an offer as lucrative as this tends to catch eyeballs.

Another initiative was introduced parallelly – in order to be more transparent with our claim of being the freshest, we have introduced a journey tracker for our selected products in F&V category, where any consumer can track the time of harvesting, transporting, at what time the order got packed, etc.

What steps have you taken to decrease food wastage in your supply chain?

With our innovative techniques and procedures, we have been able to decrease food wastage in the supply chain from 40 per cent down to just 3 per cent.

In order to achieve these figures, we have undertaken the following steps:

• A strong predictive model to match demand-supply on platform: Otipy uses a strong prediction engine using 21 different factors to predict demand at individual stock keeping unit level. Farm harvesting is planned as per prediction only which helps us reduce the wastage.
• Speed of supply chain (12 hours farm-to-fork): Otipy follows a special supply chain model of 12 hours delivery with only two touch points to ensure the quality of food remains good and healthy for consumption. We procure fresh farm produce directly from the farmers in the evening and get it delivered to the doorsteps of its customers through a network of its resellers/ channel partners by early morning.

What has been your engagement strategy with your audience? How is this great initiative leveraged on the media front?

At Otipy, almost all seasonal products are procured from local growers and they are the largest recipient of benefits from agri-tech facilities.

We serve our consumers with the high-quality produce and the best price. Cost effective pricing for the freshest quality of the produce is the most prominent factor which helps us engage the consumers. We are leveraging this campaign by using platforms like OOH, Radio and social media platforms. On our social media platforms, we will be doing a series of stories which will create nostalgia for our social audience as well.

What was the thought behind naming the campaign ‘Chawanni’?

The objective of this campaign is to build the distinctiveness around the brand not only to drive more traction and attract customers, but also educating Otipy’s offering of Fresh farm vegetables. The campaign revolves around the fun & nostalgic elements of Chawanni, creating both emotional and fun recall of the coin in a quirky way.

Do you have plans on expanding to different cities other than Delhi-NCR? If yes, how are you going forward with it?

We have recently entered West India by launching our operations in Mumbai and Thane, now we are planning to expand in other major Tier 1 cities.

Where do you source your produce from? Do you think local producers will be or are benefiting from the age of agri-tech facilities?

We source fresh fruits and vegetables directly from the local farmers. Yes, local producers are getting benefitted from Agri-tech facilities as now there is no middle man involved in the whole process and organizations can interact directly with them.

With a rise in inflation, how are you planning on selling produce at the cost of 25 paise?

We believe in our quality. With this campaign, we aim to create a recall of the brand and attract new customers. After placing a few orders through our app at a low price, people will have the experience of the quality of fresh produce Otipy offers and they will have strong faith in our brand and products. Eventually we will bring the prices close to normal rates but still at a lower price than market rate with a target to retain our customers.

Also, we save the produce from getting wasted by working on the loopholes in the supply chain with the help of our state-of-art technology, thus we save on cost too, hence, we are able to pass on the benefits to our consumers.

Are there any new campaigns that we can expect in the ongoing festive season?

As a brand, we want people to switch to a healthier lifestyle. We will be launching our range of gift boxes, which would also include farm fresh fruits & vegetables with the endeavour of a FRESH and HEALTHY festivities for everyone. We are planning to come up with many more such targeted campaigns in the near future.

What is your target audience for the campaign and how are you planning on engaging with them?

Our consumers are mostly in the age group of 25-50 and they have grown up in the era of chawanni, that is, the days where 25 paise used to hold a significant value and they all have used this currency in their childhood, and some of them may have also used it in their grown-up days. With this campaign, we are taking them down the memory lane and engaging them by creating nostalgia of those good old days where they could get fresh farm vegetables & fruits at this price.