‘Literature teacher will fetch your food’: Delivery service ad campaign has Muscovites baffled

A Russian food delivery company has joined the ranks of brands seemingly betting on outrage publicity as its ad campaign focusing on the professional background of its couriers was found by many to be in bad taste and offensive.

If anything, the ad campaign of the Delivery Club seemed to be working, as pictures of the placards spotted in the streets of Moscow and in the capital’s metro promptly appeared on social media. The ads claim to feature people working with the delivery service and showcase their profession and interests, in an apparent attempt to “humanize” the faceless business of fetching foodstuffs.

But the contents of these unlikely placed CVs quickly raised some eyebrows. One such advertisement featured “literature teacher Abdisattar,” said to be raising three daughters and enjoying mountain tourism in his free time. Many online doubted the moral of the story, seemingly glorifying the premise of a trained professional having to resort to part-time student jobs to survive, while others considered it outright racist.

© Twitter / @pozvolte

The latter was rather untrue, as the ad campaign actually included people of various nationalities, genders and backgrounds. It featured a “reporter with 7 years of service,” a “football fan,” a “Cossack” and a “polyglot making jewelry in his free time” – who all for some reason decided to work as couriers.

The Delivery Club admitted that its ad campaign was designed as highly controversial on purpose as it came out to explain the idea.

“Unfortunately, we often observe disrespectful attitude towards the couriers. Sometimes, users [of the service] don't think that a courier is a person first of all, and his profession must be respected as any other one,” a senior executive with the Delivery Club, Ruslan Gafurov, said.

“We'd like the residents of the city to have a fresh look at the couriers and muse about who will appear at their doorstep when they make the next order.”

It has also emerged that the ad campaign was made by Russian holding Look At Media, which was previously involved in a strikingly similar project for another major Russian food delivery service – Yandex.Eda. Back in 2018, the Village magazine, owned by the holding, released a piece highlighting life stories of several couriers working for the Russian internet giant – the primary competitor of the Delivery Club.

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