As India’s media and marketing landscape rapidly evolves, Zee Entertainment is forging ahead with a bold, outcome-driven approach. Through Z R.I.S.E.—short for Results | Integration | Strategy | Engagement—Zee is transforming traditional media engagements into strategic partnerships rooted in real growth and local impact.
As part of its multi-city outreach, Zee has brought together senior marketers, retail advertisers, startups, and venture capitalists under one roof—each driven by the need to scale, innovate, and stay relevant in a fast-changing market.
MediaNews4U caught up with Ashish Sehgal, Chief Growth Officer, Zee Entertainment, to unpack the vision behind Z R.I.S.E., the company’s expanding regional content strategy, and how Zee is delivering customised, culturally aligned advertising solutions through its full-spectrum omnichannel ecosystem.
Q) What is the vision behind Z R.I.S.E., and how do you see it benefiting both Zee Entertainment and its advertising partners?
Ashish Sehgal: The core vision behind Z R.I.S.E. is to redefine how we engage with advertisers—not as mere media vendors, but as communication partners helping them build meaningful growth stories. We wanted to move away from transactional relationships and instead co-create solutions based on each client’s unique business challenges—whether it’s market expansion, brand visibility, or leadership in specific regions.
Zee’s extensive ecosystem—across television, digital, social media, ground activations, music, and cinema—enables us to offer truly customised communication strategies. Z R.I.S.E. was born from this strength, with a focus on tailoring solutions rather than selling standard ad packages.
To bring this to life, we launched a five-city outreach starting with metro markets. While these cities house large advertisers, they also have many emerging entrepreneurs who are often overlooked. These businesses are hungry for guidance on how to use media effectively—and Z R.I.S.E. provides that handholding. The enthusiastic response in cities like Chennai, and the stories shared by entrepreneurs like Tandam Ali and Darling Digital, have been both inspiring and validating.
Z R.I.S.E. also acts as a learning platform—where new and established advertisers exchange insights on how media has shaped their journeys. It’s proving to be a valuable forum for knowledge-sharing and inspiration.
For Zee, this initiative expands our client base by breaking the myth that advertising on our network is unaffordable. We now work with brands starting from budgets as low as ₹5 lakh. For advertisers, it means more than affordability—it means having a partner who listens, understands their objectives, and crafts tailored media solutions.
In essence, Z R.I.S.E. is about long-term partnership, strategic collaboration, and making media work harder for every brand—big or small.
Q) What incremental value or new opportunities will this initiative unlock for advertisers that go beyond your current offerings?”
Ashish Sehgal: Many advertisers traditionally associate Zee only with television, and to some extent with Zee5 as our digital arm. However, what they often don’t realise is the breadth of our ecosystem and the new avenues we’ve developed that go far beyond these platforms.
Through Z R.I.S.E., we are creating greater awareness of these untapped opportunities. For instance, we have a significant and highly engaged social media presence, which can be strategically leveraged for brand campaigns. Additionally, our network of regional influencers—local talent familiar to their audiences—can help brands create hyper-localised content and communications in native languages. These influencers aren’t just promotional voices; they can collaborate in creating original branded content that resonates more deeply with target markets.
These assets were previously underutilised simply because advertisers weren’t aware of their existence or potential. Z R.I.S.E. bridges that gap. It’s helping advertisers discover the full spectrum of what Zee can offer—from television and OTT to social amplification, influencer-led storytelling, and customised regional content.
As advertisers become more familiar with these possibilities through our engagements, they’re better equipped to make informed choices and unlock comprehensive, multi-platform solutions with Zee that go far beyond traditional media buying.
Q) While Z R.I.S.E. clearly opens doors for new advertisers and startups, what kind of incremental revenue growth do you foresee from your existing set of advertising partners?
Ashish Sehgal: Z R.I.S.E. was indeed conceptualised to bring in new advertisers—startups, smaller businesses, and those previously intimidated by the scale or perceived cost of advertising with Zee. But equally important is the value we’re unlocking for our existing clients.
The initiative is helping us reposition ourselves not just as a media vendor, but as a strategic partner capable of addressing brand-specific challenges. This has led to deeper conversations with current advertisers. Many of them, who already invest heavily with us, are now coming back with fresh asks—be it brand integrations, influencer-led content, localised activations, or digital extensions.
What this means is an expansion in our share of wallet from these clients. Brands are increasingly seeking more customised, multi-platform solutions that go beyond traditional media buying. And Z R.I.S.E. is enabling exactly that—unlocking incremental spends through value-added services and innovation-driven executions.
From a revenue perspective, our first goal is to arrest the de-growth in television spends, which the industry has been witnessing. By offering integrated solutions—spanning digital, ground activations, IPs, and regional content—we aim to re-capture existing advertiser budgets and then grow beyond that.
So, while new advertisers add a greenfield revenue layer, Z R.I.S.E. is also helping us deepen relationships and increase spend from existing partners—forming a dual-engine strategy for growth.
Q) ZEE has been vocal about its ‘Omni-channel, Omni-screen’ approach—what does that practically look like for an advertiser today?
Ashish Sehgal: Today’s consumers are constantly moving across screens throughout their day—from mobile phones to laptops, tablets, smart TVs, and even cinema screens. Their content consumption is fragmented, and our approach at Zee is to ensure our presence across all these touchpoints, so that brands can connect with audiences wherever they are.
Our ‘Omni-channel, Omni-screen’ strategy means we are delivering content and advertising opportunities across every format—linear TV, digital (Zee5), social media platforms, YouTube, FAST channels, and even on-ground activations through our IPs. This ensures that brands can engage consumers through a unified yet versatile presence across the media landscape.
For advertisers, this translates into highly customisable solutions. Whether it’s a ₹2 lakh brand integration at a live event or a ₹4 crore multi-platform campaign that spans television, digital, social, and ground touchpoints—we’re equipped to deliver both scale and precision. It’s not a one-size-fits-all model; we tailor campaigns based on the advertiser’s objectives and budget.
Importantly, this approach also enables full-funnel marketing. From awareness and engagement to consideration and ROI-driven performance marketing, our ecosystem supports every stage of the customer journey. In today’s ROI-focused environment, advertisers need measurable outcomes, and through our omni-channel strategy, we’re able to offer exactly that—impact, efficiency, and accountability at every level.
Q) Could you elaborate on ZEE’s exclusive advertising packages and how they’re tailored to regional brand goals?
Ashish Sehgal: Zee’s strength lies in its deep-rooted presence across every state and language in India. Our content offerings span regional television channels, language-specific packs on Zee5, a wide-reaching social media presence in multiple languages, and on-ground events—from small local activations to large-scale experiential IPs.
This hyper-localised footprint enables us to design advertising packages that are truly customised to regional brand goals. Whether a brand is looking to drive awareness in a specific state or engage with audiences in their native language, we have the infrastructure and content ecosystems to deliver on those needs.
Our packages are no longer generic. They are crafted based on the advertiser’s specific objectives, desired scale, and budget—be it for brand awareness, engagement, or market-specific positioning. Whether a client has ₹5 lakh or ₹50 crore to invest, we can build a strategic communication package that aligns with their growth ambitions.
In essence, we offer both flexibility and precision—giving advertisers the ability to reach the right audience, in the right geography, with the right message, all through Zee’s comprehensive media network.
Q) Given the multi-platform nature of your offerings today, how is the Zee team structured and equipped to deliver integrated packages to clients efficiently?
Ashish Sehgal: To effectively deliver on our omni-channel promise, we’ve restructured our teams to be more agile, collaborative, and client-focused. A key step was the creation of dedicated retail sales teams focused on small and medium enterprises, alongside a corporate sales team trained to handle multi-screen, multi-platform campaigns.
Instead of hiring afresh, we’ve chosen to upskill our existing talent. Regular training sessions ensure our teams stay updated on all screens—TV, digital, social, ground activations—and can offer end-to-end solutions tailored to client needs. We also have a central strategy unit that collaborates with sales to build integrated packages. When a brief comes in, the sales team works closely with this unit to craft the right solution before presenting it to the client.
We’ve adopted a flatter organisational structure to increase ownership and outreach. Every individual—regardless of hierarchy, including myself—handles client accounts directly. With a 400-member team and each person managing at least 10 accounts, we’re directly engaging with over 4,000 advertisers. This hands-on approach enhances accountability, responsiveness, and relationship-building.
To reduce turnaround time, we’ve embedded technology across the system. A centralised repository captures all communication opportunities and messaging frameworks, while AI and CRM tools help us analyse data, generate insights, and create packages on the go. This tech-led backbone ensures that our teams are not only better informed but also more efficient in responding to client needs across the Zee network.
Ultimately, the goal is to make every team member capable of selling the full spectrum of Zee’s offerings—seamlessly, smartly, and at speed.
Q) In an increasingly performance-driven world, how is ZEE helping brand partners measure ROI from regional campaigns?
Ashish Sehgal: As marketing becomes increasingly outcome-focused, we recognise the growing demand from advertisers for measurable ROI—especially from regional and multi-platform campaigns. At Zee, we’re actively addressing this through a combination of post-campaign analytics, collaborative measurement, and data-led optimisation.
To start with, we engage external research agencies to conduct brand-level studies and post-evaluation assessments. These independent evaluations help advertisers understand how their media spends have translated into impact—be it awareness, engagement, or conversions.
Additionally, we work directly with our clients to align on ROI metrics from the outset. Since most advertisers have internal measurement frameworks in place, we ask them to share their performance feedback with us post-campaign. This collaborative loop allows us to assess results together, identify what worked, and if needed, recalibrate our offerings to improve outcomes in future campaigns.
This feedback mechanism is backed by our internal investment in data infrastructure. We’re building robust data lakes that capture omnichannel consumer behavior, campaign performance insights, and time-slot-based engagement patterns. Whether it’s understanding how youth interact with content late at night, or how homemakers engage during primetime, our data helps us guide advertisers with sharper audience intelligence.
Ultimately, the principle is simple: our audiences are highly engaged across Zee’s platforms, and our advertisers benefit from that engagement. By combining content strength with analytical rigor, we’re helping brands not only reach their audience but also track the impact of every rupee they invest with us—especially in regional markets where measurement has traditionally been a challenge.
Q) As an advertiser, what kind of psychographic or audience insights do I gain when working with Zee? Specifically, how does your multi-platform model help me understand and reach my customer better—say in a market like Tamil Nadu?
Ashish Sehgal: When advertisers work with Zee, they gain access to more than just media inventory—they benefit from deep audience insights and a consultative approach to campaign planning. We begin by understanding the advertiser’s consumer lifecycle and market challenges, then identify which Zee assets—TV, Zee5, social media, or on-ground activations—best align with their target audience.
In a market like Tamil Nadu, for instance, we can segment communication across platforms that cater to women (TV soaps), men and kids (non-fiction shows), or digital-first users via Zee5 and social media. We also offer local influencer integrations and on-ground events for more immersive engagement.
Our real strength lies in our ability to create customised, region-specific packages that maximise ROI while minimising waste. Advertisers no longer need to invest heavily in national buys—they can now reach specific consumer segments with smaller, more targeted spends across multiple touchpoints.
A client could run five TV spots, generate 10 million digital impressions, and feature in regional content—all within a single, affordable package. The objective could range from awareness and engagement to footfall and trial, which we support through on-ground activations.
Ultimately, our multi-platform, multi-language presence, backed by ongoing data insights, helps advertisers reach the right audience at the right time, with measurable results.
Q) What’s your pitch to a South Indian brand looking to penetrate the national market—how does ZEE deliver a competitive edge?
Ashish Sehgal: For a regional brand aiming to expand nationally—or even into a few new states—the first challenge is understanding consumer behavior in unfamiliar markets. Most such advertisers may not have the budget or bandwidth to commission extensive consumer research or test multiple messaging strategies before scaling.
That’s where Zee offers a strategic advantage. Through our expansive presence across regions and languages, we already have deep consumer insights based on ongoing campaigns, competitor activity, and viewer engagement. Our teams are equipped to share market-specific intelligence—what communication works where, how competitors are positioning themselves, and what resonates with local consumers. In that sense, we don’t just act as a media partner—we become strategic consultants.
We also help brands adapt their messaging to local preferences. A product that works in Tamil Nadu may need different positioning in Maharashtra or West Bengal. Our insights allow advertisers to make those adjustments early, increasing their chances of success in new markets. For example, when brands like Gold Winner or Milky Mist decided to scale nationally, they partnered with us—not just for media exposure, but also for guidance on packaging their communication effectively across different states.
Moreover, we offer sampling opportunities through our on-ground activations, giving brands a real-time feedback loop before a full-fledged national rollout. These activations double as test marketing vehicles—allowing brands to assess product-market fit in select geographies at minimal cost.
All of this is backed by data—both from our content and advertising ecosystem, and from the extensive consumer interactions we conduct as part of our content development. We capture lifestyle habits, media consumption patterns, shopping behaviours, and more, providing advertisers with granular, actionable insights.
In essence, Zee becomes a launchpad for regional brands aspiring to scale nationally—offering not just reach, but also the intelligence and tools needed to grow strategically and sustainably.
Q) With the launch of two new channels in Bengali Market, how is ZEE positioning itself uniquely in an already crowded Bengali regional content space?
Ashish Sehgal: That’s a valid question—and one we considered very carefully before launching. Despite perceptions about the decline in TV viewership, television still commands the highest content consumption in India. We’re talking about 16 crore households and over 900 million viewers engaging with TV content on a monthly basis. That’s a massive base, and ignoring it would be a missed opportunity.
Our decision to launch two new Bengali channels stems from this belief in the continued relevance of television as a dominant entertainment medium—especially in regional markets with deep brand affinity. Bengal is one such market where Zee already has strong viewership and leadership in GRPs. That gives us a solid foundation to innovate further.
The aim with these new channels isn’t to replicate existing formats but to expand the narrative and attract newer audiences. The content strategy is consciously more inclusive—designed to appeal not just to the traditional female viewer but to the entire household, including men, youth, and children. We’re introducing diverse genres like crime, thriller, romance, investigative drama, and seasonal formats, along with a mix of fiction, non-fiction, and movies. The programming is faster-paced, more contemporary, and reflects evolving viewer preferences.
From a network strategy perspective, launching new channels allows us to experiment without disrupting the loyal audience base of our flagship channel. Instead of alienating core viewers, we create a parallel offering to bring in new viewers—thereby increasing our total network share in the market.
In an era where OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon dominate digital content, they still cannot enter the linear TV space. That remains our stronghold.
Q) What macro trends do you foresee shaping the media and advertising landscape over the next 2–3 years, especially in regional India?
Ashish Sehgal: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly one of the biggest trends shaping the future of media and advertising. Over the next few years, AI will drive efficiencies in content creation, data analysis, and campaign optimisation—enabling more personalised, scalable solutions for advertisers.
At Zee, however, we see AI as an enabler, not a replacement for human creativity. Our focus is on using technology to empower our teams and partners to work smarter—both in crafting content and building better advertiser solutions.
A good example is the launch of the Zee Writers’ Room. Instead of relying only on established names, we’re giving new, aspiring writers a platform to share stories. AI helps us screen and identify compelling submissions, but final decisions remain with our creative teams. This approach allows us to surface fresh, authentic voices—especially from regional markets—and create content that’s both locally resonant and nationally scalable.
In short, the winning formula for the future lies in combining data-driven insights with human storytelling.
