Zero Ad Spend, Maximum Recall: The Chaayos Way Of Revamping India's Chai Experience

In the early 2010s, most Indians still brewed tea at home and bought loose-leaf teas (not packaged in tea bags) from mass-produced brands like Tata Tea, Brooke Bond, Society Tea and Wagh Bakri. Interestingly, people had discovered cafe-brewed coffee by then, with speciality chains like Café Coffee Day and Barista springing up nationwide and popularising the café culture. However, tea lounges/salons were a rare phenomenon, limited to a handful of urban pockets.

Nitin Saluja and Raghav Vermawanted to change that for tea partisans. The proposition was quite straightforward when they set up Chaayos and opened their first outlet on quick service restaurant (QSR) model in November 2012 — bring chai out of living rooms and away from tapris (roadside stalls) and turn tea drinking into an organised, enjoyable, quick-service experience. There should be easily accessible spaces where people could sit down and have their favourite cuppa and snacks without waiting too long before getting on with their day.

In those early days, Chaayos outlets were compact, often tucked into high-footfall areas like metro stations, business parks and high streets. They served an array of tea variants and popular quick bites such as bun maska and vada pav. Over time, its teas and quick-service format helped Chaayos carve a niche, build a loyal customer base and even nudge other foodservice brands to put chai on their menus.

That is how the brand started, and the journey continued over the last 8–10 years. During this period, multiple chai chains emerged. Brands like Chai Point, Teamonk, MBA Chai Wala, among others, entered the market, and many others began adding chai to their menus as demand grew. Gradually, customers started expecting chai to be a regular offering.

Around 2019–2020, even before Covid, the founding team decided it was time to change things around. Around that time, Verma reconnected with his long-time friend and former bandmate Ankit Kumar — now vice-president, brand and marketing, at Chaayos — to help shape a new direction.

For Kumar, an alumnus of Delhi University and a post-graduate in advertising and marketing from Amity, Chaayos was not just another professional opening. He had known Verma for more than two decades. The two once played in the same band, with Verma on bass and Kumar on vocals.

By the time these branding conversations began at Chaayos, Kumar had already worked across an eclectic set of organisations, from the creative agency Wieden+Kennedy, known for its global advertising campaigns, to Lightspeed Extreme Entrepreneurs, an accelerator programme run by Lightspeed India Partners.

He also worked at Motherland Joint Ventures, a brand consultancy known for strategic positioning. But throughout this period, discussions with Verma never ceased. It was also at Motherland, where we crafted the Chai + Snacks = Relax positioning for Chaayos in 2021.

“We had so many things to talk about — where Chaayos was headed, what it wanted to be and how it could build its marketing and brand identity,” recalled Kumar.

His formal association with the company began just before Covid-19, when Chaayos embarked on a brand exercise to define its core DNA — the values and principles that would anchor it for years.

“Raghav [Verma] called me then,” said Kumar. “At Motherland, we had been doing this work, and I pitched the idea. We delivered a repositioning exercise for Chaayos, and that work still lives on today.”

The output was distilled into a simple statement: Visit our stores: Chai-plus-snacks equals relax. “The positioning, the groundwork, all that was done back then. It became the philosophy of Chaayos — to create products and spaces that help you relax, with a warm cup of chai and a great snack alongside,” explained Kumar.

After that project, he moved on to other roles, including a three-year stint at Magicpin. That’s precisely when the Chaayos founders also decided to overhaul the marketing and branding for the second time. Of course, the chain was known for its signature chai even then. But the in-store atmosphere often fell short of the ‘relaxed’ ambience the brand promised.

As consumer habits shifted, tea lounges were no longer there to relax and enjoy great tea. Patrons increasingly used Chaayos outlets as workstations, meeting spots and leisure hubs.

“When Raghav and I reconnected, it felt like the right time,” said Kumar. “I wanted to double down on brand-building, and Chaayos was ready to invest — not just in marketing, but in creating a more coherent, holistic brand experience. The timing clicked, our energies aligned, and I joined Chaayos in July 2024.”

How Chaayos Rebranded With Zero Ads

When Kumar and the founding team set out to chart a new course for Chaayos in 2024, they began by returning to first principles. Their target? Rebuilding the brand without leaning on expensive performance marketing or high-decibel ad campaigns. Instead, they wanted to bring forth what Chaayos originally stood for and ensure that every customer experience lived up to that promise..

“We asked ourselves: What if the business is stripped back and looks at what customers want? The product was always top-notch. But did the overall experience keep pace with expectations?” said Kumar.

To figure that out, the leadership deep-dived into customer behaviour. They held long conversations with individual patrons, sometimes stretching to five hours, to understand why people visited Chaayos in the first place, what kept them coming back and what might persuade them to stay longer.

The first bold step was nearly unthinkable in consumer marketing. The brand did away with performance marketing and ad campaigns, slashing the marketing spend to zero. “We wanted to fix the fundamentals first and then decide if we need the promotional push,” explained Kumar.

Chaayos had followed the conventional consumer brand playbook for years, paying huge sums to creative agencies, shooting high-end campaigns and spending heavily on Google and Meta, citywide billboards and influencer marketing. Not any more. By late 2024, it took a calculated leap and made a clean break from that model. It no longer relied on paid acquisition and invested fully in the in-café experience.

The cuts were absolute. “Google or Facebook spends? Zero. Agency production costs? Zero. Celebrity endorsements? Zero. Outdoor campaigns? Just one in the whole year, at a twentieth of earlier budgets,” detailed Kumar.

If Chaayos were to grow, it would have to do so not by shouting louder, but by quietly deepening the experience of sitting down for a cup of tea. Here is how the team pulled it off in seven steps.

Focussing On Design & Experience

With marketing budgets pared back, Chaayos shifted its focus to the basics, making tangible improvements across outlets and all customer touchpoints. The seating was redesigned for comfort; music was carefully tuned to suit the mood; aroma profiles were refined, and brewing stations dubbed Chai Monks were placed at the heart of each outlet, along with high-speed Wi-Fi and visual consistency.

“Marketing can only take you up to a point. Nothing will work long-term without fixing or improving the brand experience. You can’t market a poorly designed product — in our case, the space, the chai and the food,” the VP said.

His unapologetic fixation on details extends to the smallest things. The reason? A poorly designed menu, unappetising product photography, or wobbly chairs can undo months of brand building. Even a dropped internet connection can sour a visit. “If the menu doesn’t tempt you, you won’t order. You won’t stay for a three-hour meeting if the chair is uncomfortable. If the Wi-Fi drops during an important call, that memory sticks,” he added.

Therefore, he monitors every link in the ‘experience chain’, combining product quality, service excellence, store design, ambience, content, community and partnerships. Every piece has to work in harmony to create what he calls “true brand love”, the emotional bond that makes patrons return.

“When that love is strong, even a merchandise launch will work,” he insisted. “It’s because people are not just buying a product but buying into the brand. We go all out to meet their expectations. It has guided Chaayos for years and will continue to shape its future.”

This thinking reshaped everything, from furniture to crockery. One of the earliest moves was to replace paper cups and disposable plates with ceramic and stoneware, which are more sustainable and visually distinctive. Months went into designing the range, sourcing the right materials and finding skilled partners for production.

“If the goal is a great customer experience, the product needs to look good, feel good in the hand, be easy to clean and make the customer happy,” said Kumar.

The switch produced an unexpected success story. The brand’s iconic green chai cups were reintroduced last year in green-and-pink stoneware versions, each marked with a small heart. Customers wanted to buy them immediately, while social media lit up with photographs tagged with appreciative messages.

What started as a design upgrade to enhance the in-café experience soon became a ‘merchandise attraction’ that people wanted to own. There was enough traction to consider selling them so that patrons could ‘take home a piece of Chaayos’.

The brand’s attention to detail yielded measurable results. Visitors stayed longer, spent more and returned more often. Even without performance marketing, customer acquisition matched the levels once driven by heavy ad spend.

“We are not just selling chai. We are selling the space and the feeling accompanying our products. If customers walk out feeling relaxed and cared for, the brand’s work is done,” summed up Kumar.

The In-House Studio Advantage

When Chaayos set out to overhaul its design and branding operations (more on social media marketing later), nothing was a cursory tweak. But instead of outsourcing campaign briefs to external agencies and awaiting delivery dates, the tea chain rebuilt its functions from the ground up with the help of an in-house, tech-powered studio.

From product photography and menu design to social media content, every piece of creative work is now run by that unit under the supervision of a brand manager who co-ordinates creatives, marketing and operations.

“I don’t do marketing. My team and I are a brand team together. And we solve our problems using creative tools,” said Kumar.

Structured like a boutique advertising agency, the studio has been designed to compress production time and reduce costs while retaining creative control. The setup is split into two core groups.

The social team is anchored by a multi-skilled content creator who can write scripts, shoot, act and edit, supported by a social media manager and a creative strategist. Together, they handle everything from Instagram Reels to campaign storytelling.

The design and art team stretches well beyond routine tasks. It includes art directors, illustrators, designers, architects and engineers working on projects ranging from menus to in-store murals and storefront façades. Chaayos ensures brand consistency and agility across digital and physical formats by producing all outputs internally.

This model, says Kumar, enables Chaayos to uphold its brand identity across every touchpoint, whether it is a social post, the look and feel of a promotional combo, or the layout of an in-store menu. The system allows quick iteration, pairing human creativity with AI tools to accelerate workflows without diluting originality.

“I have replicated an advertising agency model internally,” said Kumar. “Every creative aspect is now handled in-house.” The payoff is agility, brand coherence and a unique competitive edge.

Nevertheless, challenges remain. Retaining top creative talent in a corporate setting can be tough, as many prefer the agency culture. For Kumar, the solution is purpose. “When creatives connect deeply with the mission, they stay.”

Pushing Growth Through Conversations

Chaayos is betting on a strategy few consumer brands have attempted: Growth without performance marketing. With zero ad spend on Google or Meta, the tea chain is leaning on two primary engines of customer acquisition — word-of-mouth and social media.

“A lot of new customers come through word of mouth when people tell others about their great experience at Chaayos,” said Kumar. “That puts the brand on top of one’s mind when deciding where to go for chai.”

Word-of-mouth gets a boost by the brand’s diverse store footprints, ranging from small and large formats to mall outlets and airport cafés, ensuring that every personal recommendation has a physical touchpoint nearby.

When existing customers act as brand ambassadors, every time someone sees a Chaayos store, they remember the recommendation and want to try it out. Given this scenario, store count and revenue have steadily climbed despite the absence of promotional campaigns.

Social media serves as the other growth driver. Over the past year, Chaayos shifted from product-centric promotion to building a community of tea enthusiasts and a shared tea culture. Its content is built on familiar themes such as celebrating the quintessential baarish-and-chai moment (a cuppa on a rainy day), designed to keep the brand in everyday casual conversations.

That familiarity, according to Kumar, nudges people to visit an outlet or order online whenever they come across the brand’s content in their feeds.

AI Power With Human Creativity

Technology is not an afterthought at Chaayos; it runs through every execution layer. A custom automation stack, built over everyday task organisers like Todoist, keeps projects moving smoothly from ideation to delivery. Even routine content, from non-animated visuals to short videos, is first produced by AI and then refined by human specialists.

One of the best examples is menu automation. Today, creating 20-25 personalised variants for more than 200 cafés takes less than a day, compared to three days it once required, claims Kumar. Deployment time has also dropped from 24 hours to just three.

Understandably, AI isn’t a flashy buzzword for Kumar but a workhorse for daily productivity. Borrowing a line from his CTO, Mohit Malik, he often tells his team, “AI will not replace humans. AI will replace humans who do not know how to use AI.” He repeats it often to push the team, urging it to shave off execution time wherever possible.

“The idea is simple,” he explained. “Use AI to handle the repetitive heavy lifting so that you can spend your energy on the craft itself.” That means producing multiple versions of campaigns and creatives that resonate with people and then letting automation handle the rollout.

The approach allows his team to focus on high-impact work while scaling execution without compromising quality.

As Kumar said, “How we use AI depends entirely on the use case. For us, it’s about speed, precision and staying at the top of our game.”

Customised Automation At The Core

At Chaayos, a cup of tea is as much a product of code as of craft. The brand has built a technology-first model that uses data to drive personalisation and automation. For instance, demand forecasts, menu changes and product rollouts are quickly managed through integrated tools built in-house.

When a customer places an order — whether digitally in-store through kiosks or via the app — the system recognises past orders, preferences and the location of the last outlet visited. All customer data is stored securely on central cloud servers, enabling features like loyalty programme integration and personalised recommendations, while complying with data security protocols.

Meanwhile, the company’s custom-built and IoT-powered Chai Monks handle the brewing, preparing more than 80K combinations between them while maintaining the same consistency cup after cup.

Powered by automation and smart data usage, the current setup promises speed and uniformity. But it also aims to make each interaction feel personal, an experience ‘driven by people and precision’, as Chaayos puts it. This has led to a net promoter score of 78 (NPS is a metric used to gauge customer loyalty and satisfaction), while digital and in-app transactions now account for 45% of total revenue.

Bringing Café-Level Excellence To Every Delivery

The tea chain’s phenomenal attention to detail does not waver when it comes to delivery. Drinks are tested to hold at the right temperature for half an hour. Plus, Chaayos has introduced a double-layered recyclable cardboard carrier designed for ease of carrying and spill-free transit.

Similarly, for cold beverages, the brand has moved beyond simple cup seals and uses special packaging with handling instructions to keep them chilled and upright through the journey. Food is delivered with equal care, and a bun maska is expected to arrive warm.

Kumar describes these refinements as ongoing rather than occasional. They start with customer conversations and never really stop.

“Even without a product launch, we keep returning to customers to check if things are working,” he said. “Technology helps us move fast here, surfacing issues like a sudden dip in orders in a particular city and prompting quick action. It’s a constant loop of listening, improving and re-testing because great experiences are built one detail at a time.”

Team Integration & Not Isolation

According to Kumar, the most valuable lesson in marketing has little to do with splashy campaigns or clever channel strategies. It comes down to one principle — integration. “The more connected your teams are, the faster and better the work gets done,” he said.

That cohesion, connection and co-ordination, he says, translates directly into speed. When internal teams share goals, responsibilities and day-to-day conversations, bottlenecks will disappear.

“If my business head tells me that a specific metric has not moved in the past two weeks, I get his concern immediately because he is my partner. I can run five experiments for him on the spot and get results instead of waiting weeks for an external agency to act.”

At Chaayos, this close-knit structure allows marketing to operate like a live lab. Of course, large-scale initiatives matter. But Kumar argues that real breakthroughs often come from quick, targeted tweaks.

“The small, rapid iterations — the things you can turn around in days, not months — move the needle fastest.”

The approach keeps Chaayos agile, able to adapt to customer feedback and shifting market dynamics without the drag of traditional silos. It is a critical advantage for a brand scaling at speed.

Pilot, Refine, Scale: The ‘Chaayos Experience’ Playbook

Rolling out a new product across 194+ cafés is routine for Chaayos — the brand has standard operating procedures for that. But when it experiments with an entirely new model, the playbook does not exist. In such cases, the team starts from scratch, learns everything and only then thinks about scale.

One such initiative is Chaayos Experience, which Kumar calls Chaayos Version 2. The idea stemmed from a simple observation. Customers loved the chai and snacks, but had to step out for full meals. A typical day saw patrons arrive for breakfast, sip tea, work through the morning and leave during lunch hours to eat elsewhere. They returned later in the day but again left for dinner.

Chaayos saw an opportunity and reworked the menu to create an all-day spread, featuring more than 180 items ranging from chole bhature, parathas with chana chole and dal makhani-rice bowls to guacamole toast (avocado toast), pasta and an impressive dessert section.

Chaayos Experience was first launched at Skymark One in Noida. More than a menu revamp, it meant rethinking operations and opting for new kitchen setups such as frying stations for chole bhature and cold displays for desserts. The team worked on recipes, workflows, and customer touchpoints for more than six months.

“We even redesigned our menus, moving to physical, handheld versions like in restaurants, to make the interaction easier,” said Kumar.

After the first outlet stabilised, a second one followed. Learnings from both are helping set up new cafés in Gurugram, where two more Experience outlets will open soon. Expansion is deliberately slow, allowing time to codify SOPs, tweak layouts and adjust marketing before entering cities like Mumbai or Chennai.

“Some learnings may not apply when we move to a completely different market,” said Kumar. “But the process is always the same. You have to pilot, refine and scale. That’s how we will go from two stores to four, and eventually [if it works], will set up this all-day-dining format in all our cafés.”

What happens if a pilot or a beta launch does not work? Chaayos cuts its losses and moves on. The team throws its weight behind the experiment to make it a success. However, they will stop if it becomes evident that the project is not viable.

The scale of the project dictates the timeline. For instance, a delivery-first product may run for three months at a Noida café before expanding to four more outlets, while a smaller product may be tested for a month. There is no fixed benchmark. Each project sticks to its timeline, which is determined by the team leading it.

Balancing Growth, Instinct And Brand Love

Today, Chaayos operates close to 194+ cafés across India, with its footprint growing across major urban markets. Its delivery network mirrors the brand’s offline presence, covering every city where it runs a café. From Delhi and the wider National Capital Region (including Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Noida) to Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad — the brand is present in all key locations.

The lone exception is Ahmedabad, where Chaayos has recently opened at the airport but is yet to roll out full-scale delivery. Online orders have emerged as a powerful growth driver, complementing in-café sales and allowing the brand to reach customers who may not visit the physical outlets regularly but still want the customised chai at home or work.

The two-pronged strategy — expanding cafés while strengthening delivery — has helped Chaayos deepen its reach in existing markets and build steady repeat business via its digital channels.

But for Kumar, the underlying principle matters most. “We won’t fulfil any demand that does not fit the brand’s goals,” he said.

In a world where consumer brands chase short-term ROI, he insists that all marketing decisions must align with the company’s long-term vision. However, instead of rejecting any initiative outright, he works with business teams to help them reinforce the larger brand strategy.

Decision-making sits at the intersection of instinct and analytics. “I come from a world where I rely heavily on gut. Data should support that intuition, not replace it,” said Kumar. Often, early numbers validate his instincts, but at times, they don’t. Nevertheless, there were moments when he chose to follow his gut even against initial data, convinced that the outcomes would prove him right.

He also believes leadership is about clarity and communication as much as vision. From cofounders to team leads, he keeps all stakeholders informed at key points, raises red flags early and asks for help when needed. “Wins and losses are shared. After all, you are just one player in a much bigger team.”

And the most challenging part of his job? Maintaining world-class quality, every single day. “It is easy to cut corners. The hard part is ensuring that every piece of work is 100% high quality — no excuses,” he said.

If there is one piece of advice he would give his younger self, it would be to invest in AI skilling earlier. “I never thought artificial intelligence would go mainstream so fast,” he admitted.

Going forward, Kumar envisions Chaayos as a household name, admired nationwide for its creativity and chai. He aims to build “a team known for supercharging the brand, a people’s team that will be lauded for doing amazing work”.

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