Bengaluru Woman Slams Zepto for Calling Her 'Cutie' in Bizarre Push Notification

  Viral News: A message from the online delivery app Zepto to a Bengaluru-based woman has stunned the internet. The woman received a push notification from Zepto, addressing her as "cutie".

The bizarre message promoting banana chips referred to her as " cutie_mahak". 

"You got a follow request from Namaskaram Banana Chips Original Style Salted," the message read. The woman found the notification distasteful.

Her caption read "Yesterday I received a push notification from Zepto which very conveniently addressed me as "Cutie_mahak"! and suddenly it brought along all the terrible instances that all teenage girls in India go through.. Random strangers calling out names/teasing on the street, some common terms: "Hey Dear, Sweetie, Cutie, Lovely, Darling, Sexy, Hottie, Chammak Challo...." the list goes on and on.. This is a harsh reality but all females in India have faced this kind of harassment and the childhood trauma still haunts them for years. "

She questions how a well-known brand finds it appropriate to call a random stranger "Cutie".

"Fast forward many years, we are in an era of startups and POSH acts and all talks about women's safety yet a well-known brand finds it appropriate to call a random stranger "Cutie" with no context at all?  If saying this publically on the street is #harassment and is not OK, then why is this push notification fine to be sent?  #womensafety starts at home, starts in our daily talks, starts in our minds, and till the time brands sensitise the common public that IT IS NOT OK to call someone random adverbs, nothing will change", she added.

She concluded with "Sorry, but not Sorry! This kind of marketing is where I would like to draw a Line!  Zepto Cares - Sure, but maybe not so much about women!".

In a similar incident, Zepto faced backlash for sending promotional notifications for a contraceptive pill. The message read "“I miss you, Pallavi. Says i-Pill emergency contraceptive pill,".

Zepto reacted to Pallavi's post with an apology, acknowledging their mistake. “Hey Pallavi, we messed up, and we're truly sorry. We understand how thoughtless and potentially harmful this was,” the company stated on LinkedIn.