Meesho sends legal notice to marketing company CEO over alleged smear campaign

File image of Meesho co-founders Vidit Aatrey (left) and Sanjeev Barnwal (right)

E-commerce unicorn Meesho has sent a legal notice to an influencer marketing company’s CEO who was allegedly involved in a smear campaign against the company on social media.

The cease and desist notice, which was reviewed by Moneycontrol, has asked the influencer marketing manager to reveal on whose behest he was working, take down all defamatory content posted on his instructions, and tender an unconditional apology to Meesho.

Last week, several Twitter influencers posted screenshots of WhatsApp conversations where their services were sought to disparage Meesho’s business model – and investors like Sequoia and Elevation Capital in the tweets.

Meesho said that it is also sending a legal notice to an influencer who publicly admitted to have been paid to post negative content about the company. One of the purported conversations also showed the marketing company CEO claiming that one of Meesho’s competitors was his client. 

In his LinkedIn profile, the CEO has mentioned that he is based in Ahmedabad. On another online forum for marketers, he had earlier mentioned one of the top Indian ecommerce companies as a client. Although that specific unicorn company’s name has been removed now, names of other tech companies still appear.

“On June 2, 2022, Twitter user Ravisutanjani Kumar (@Ravisutanjani) exposed a concerted campaign against Meesho wherein several influencers put out a series of tweets tagging the company's investors, with an aim to allegedly malign the company's reputation by spreading falsehood and lies. Following the exposé, some influencers acknowledged that said tweets were paid promotions while others deleted their posts,” the company said in a statement.

Image tweeted by Ravisutanjani Kumar that Meesho has mentioned in its legal notice

“This is not the first time that Meesho has been targeted by those with vested interests looking to defame the company. Twitter users Udita Pal and Aashima Arora voluntarily came forward to share instances from earlier this year where they were approached to put out negative tweets about the company in lieu of monetary benefits,” it added.

However, Pal and Arora refused to participate in the campaign. While both are open to promoting a brand on social media, they communicated that they are averse to posting anything that might hurt fellow founders in the startup ecosystem.

Meesho said that will continue to monitor the situation and consider legal recourse “against those spreading misinformation and lies about the company.”