Lit or thirsty? FreshDirect’s new food app speaks fluent millennial

What’s noteworthy about FoodKick is the lengths it goes to adopt the patois of millennials. In fact, FreshDirect leaned on a focus group of 100 millennials in building the app. Forget your password? No problem, the app responds, “Whoops, can you check your deets again?” In trying to get users to sign up for push notifications, the options are “YASSS” and “Not Now.” There is not a third option for: “Communicate using the standard English language.”

The non-millennial user simply shopping for groceries will be flummoxed. Words like “hanger,” “delish” and #likeaboss are in abundance. Today is billed as #TacoTuesday, so “def don’t forget the guac.” The only delivery areas currently available are Brooklyn and Long Island City, a sliver of Queens that might as well be Brooklyn.

“The voice and tone certainly skews towards millennials,” said Kolodny Johnson, vp of brand marketing and communications at FreshDirect. “There was a conscious design and strategy approach, but we definitely tweaked the language, content and positioning according to their inputs. You have to be hyper-relevant with this generation.”

Of course, one person’s “hyper-relevant” is another’s pandering. The key, according to Lawson Clarke, a creative director at Hill Holiday, is having a brand that itself is young.

“It’s painful if Home Depot started talking like a millennial but FoodKick seems like they’re all in from the get-go,” he said. “It sounds like a fun service packaged in a fun way.”

The same irreverent tone is also visible on the brand’s social channels, be it Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. The brand is especially focusing on Instagram, “given how well it lends itself to visual imagery of food,” but also plans to make a Snapchat debut soon.

“Since we only launched two weeks ago, we’re still taking a slow approach to social,” said Johnson. Which makes it no less on fleek.