ZEE TV’s outdoor campaign on fresh content kept twitterati guessing

MUMBAI: Over 130 outdoor hoardings across Delhi and Mumbai with identical messaging from 6 different packaged goods brands, all asking consumers to stockpile products ahead of July 13th, created a strong buzz over the internet and kept twitterati guessing for the last 72 hours.

The teaser outdoor campaign was to announce the comeback of fresh content on Zee TV by Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE). The broadcaster partnered with PepsiCo, Amul Lassi, Nestle Maggi, Red label, ITC Dark Fantasy and Cadbury Dairy Milk to place matching creative with their products in the centre of the white hoarding.

“We saw the content coming back after a three month gap as an opportunity for doing some marketing and creating buzz, and also giving our partner brands a vehicle to ride on our communication. Ultimately, advertisers want reach and through our platform they reach our consumers,” said Ashish Sehgal, Chief Growth Officer, Advertisement Revenue, ZEE. “When this whole thing was presented to Punit Goenka (MD & CEO, ZEE) he suggested that we should make the brands a part of our story and get them to talk about us.”

Brand partners are an integral part of the communication when we are reconnecting with our consumers, added Sehgal.

“With fresh content, brands will once again have the opportunity to resonate and pave their way into the minds of their consumers in this new environment. At ZEE, we have not only seamlessly weaved stories for brands with relevant influencers and have been at the forefront in creating an integrated platform agnostic solution for our advertisers/brands, but also ensured that they are part of our communication as well.”

The teaser campaign was launched within a week with Laqshya Media and was complimented by a digital push to amplify the messaging.

The campaign with the hashtag ‘#13thKiTaiyyari ki jiye’, was part of the larger campaign by the network, 'Banegi Baat Saath Saath’, conceptualised by its creative agency Lowe Lintas.

The brand film, rolled across media, is an ode to the entire TV industry coming together to entertain its viewers. The company said it strongly believes that the challenges faced in the first half of 2020 were just like a twist in the tale before the interval.

“The whole idea was to give out the message that Covid-19 was just a small interval,” said Prathyusha Agarwal, chief consumer officer at ZEE. “When the whole world went zig, we decided to zag. Nobody was advertising on outdoor, so we thought let’s do it. Usually, we are the mouthpiece for brands, but this time, it’s a complete role reversal. It was done in record time and a hat tip for the brands to play along with their messaging, at a time when most brands are doing only Covid-19 related advertising.”

“There is an impact when you merge two or three media together,” said Agarwal. “With the announcer teaser on outdoor and a digital campaign, we are already seeing a reach of 60%, which along with our ‘Banegi Baat Saath Saath’ brand film on ZEE network channels will go up to 90%. This is very high frequency buzz building over the last 2-3 days.”

She also shared that her team conducted multiple calls and video conferences with viewers to determine their mood and the kind of content they want to watch on television channels. Many scripts and screenplays were reworked and going forward a lot of the storylines will come back to induce a sense of positivity and bring back strong heroes that people turn to for companionship.

ET had earlier reported that all Hindi general entertainment channels were gearing up to resume fresh programming in July. While Colors started with a couple of shows from July 6th, the rest of the channels – Star Plus, Zee TV, Sony Entertainment TV and SAB were to restart daily soaps starting July 13th.