Gojek takes cheeky swipe at Grab with microdrama parody

Gojek has taken a cheeky swipe at rival Grab Singapore’s microdrama series “I fell in love with my Grab driver” with a parody teaser titled “I fell in love with my work rival”.

Posted over the weekend, the parody follows an office worker whose life is falling apart five months after a breakup. She is stretched thin at work, frustrated by her team and seemingly left to do everything on her own, before meeting a new colleague who could potentially become more than just a work rival.

The parody closely mirrors the format and scenes from Grab’s original teaser, including green text over a purple-coloured background asking: “What if your work rival becomes the love of your life?”

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It also pokes fun at some of the more dramatic moments in Grab’s teaser, with the characters awkwardly touching hands while reaching for a marker, while the female lead swoons over her work rival in increasingly contrived moments, from him bending down to pick up a laptop to fanning himself when he gets hot.

The video ends with the female lead crying and asking, “How do we get there on time?”, before her work rival replies: “GoCar’s coming in four minutes.”

Its caption reads: “Her work life’s a mess. And now… so is her heart. Catch ‘I fell in love with my work rival’ in a cinema nowhere near you.”

The parody also caught the attention of Grab Singapore, which commented: “We fell in love with our rival's micro-drama.”

Gojek turns Grab’s microdrama into its own

The similarities between the two teasers go beyond the romantic premise. Gojek has effectively recreated the creative language of Grab’s original campaign, swapping out its characters, setting and brand proposition while retaining several of its key storytelling devices.

Grab’s original teaser for “I fell in love with my Grab driver” follows a woman struggling with life five years after the death of her husband. Her family drives her crazy, she is stretched thin and she is seemingly handling everything on her own before a meet-cute with her Grab driver.

The teaser similarly uses green text over a purple background to ask: “What if your Grab driver becomes the love of your life?” It also features the female lead crying, before teasing a moment where the Grab driver appears to lean in for a kiss.

Grab’s caption reads: “Her family's a mess. And now…so is her heart. Watch the trailer for ‘I fell in love with my Grab driver’, premiering 9 September.”

Gojek’s version effectively swaps the Grab driver for a work rival, while replacing family drama with workplace frustrations. Even the dramatic beats are exaggerated for comedic effect, turning the heightened romance and soap-opera conventions of Grab’s original into the joke itself.

The choice of GoCar as the punchline also makes the rivalry explicit. Rather than simply parodying the format, Gojek uses the final exchange to bring its own service proposition back into the story.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Gojek for comment.

The microdrama that started it all

Grab’s “I fell in love with my Grab driver” is the brand’s first microdrama in Singapore, starring local actors Glenn Yong and Regina Lim. The series follows Emily, a single mother juggling her children, ageing parents and career, before her relationship with her Grab driver develops into a romance.

The series sparked conversation online over its premise and title, prompting Grab to acknowledge on 8 September that it should have been “much more thoughtful” about how the campaign came across. The brand said the storyline was deliberately exaggerated to fit the fast-paced, soap-opera conventions of microdramas, while stressing that safety, clear boundaries and respect in everyday interactions should not be compromised.

Speaking to MARKETING-INTERACTIVE at the time, Mindy Yap, head of regional brand and Singapore country marketing at Grab, said the series was intended to use entertainment to build emotional relevance with the “sandwich generation”, rather than function as a conventional product advertisement.

The series was developed with Bitesize Pictures alongside Grab’s internal marketing and creative teams, with services such as Family Account and Grab Dine Out woven into the storyline as solutions to the characters’ everyday challenges.

When rivals become the creative idea

Gojek’s parody is part of a longer tradition of brands turning competitive tension into marketing material. Social media has made it easier for brands to respond directly to competitors’ campaigns, product launches and missteps, with the rivalry itself becoming part of the entertainment.

Samsung, for instance, has continued to poke fun at Apple across its social channels, most recently responding to Apple’s entry into the foldable smartphone category with a series of posts highlighting its own Galaxy Z Fold8.

Samsung Mobile US took aim at Apple’s latest launch with lines such as “So far, so same” and “Let us know when you're done reheating our leftovers”, while Samsung Singapore welcomed Apple to the fold with a post referencing the category Samsung has competed in for years.

The brand has also taken a more playful approach to its rivalry with Apple in New Zealand, where it enlisted a man named Tim Cook from Palmerston North to promote the Galaxy Z Fold8. Across a series of social videos, the local Cook declares that he has “switched to Galaxy”, allowing Samsung to play on his name while drawing attention to the product’s features.

For Gojek and Grab, however, the joke is particularly close to home. The brands operate in the same ride-hailing market and compete for attention around many of the same everyday moments, making each other a natural reference point for social content.

Rather than simply arguing that one brand is better than the other, this kind of rivalry allows brands to use familiarity, humour and audience recognition to make the competition itself part of the entertainment.

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