Earlier this month, ZEEL launched its first lifestyle channel, Zee Zest with a clear focus on content that will be a perfect encapsulation of food, travel, lifestyle, home improvement, wellness, culture, and DIY to enable one to UNLIMIT Life straight from the confines of your armchair.
Leading Zee Zest as its Business Head, Amit Nair spoke exclusively to us about the ‘Zest’ that drove the launch of this new offering, Zee Zest.
Edited Excerpts.
Congratulations on the launch of Zee Zest. If you had to define the brand Zee Zest, in less than 100 words or so… how would you do that?
Zee Zest is ZEE’s first lifestyle channel, and a 360- degree platform where one can UNLIMIT Life through its varied and comprehensive line-up of shows. The channel presents content that will be a perfect encapsulation of food, travel, lifestyle, home improvement, wellness, culture, and DIY, and reaches the audience via TV, Web, Events, and Social Media.
Tell us about your experience of launching a channel amidst the covid-19 pandemic?
Being an optimist, I believe in looking at opportunities even during adversities. The teams were working on the channel for a couple of months now, and the lockdown induced by the Covid-19 pandemic was a hiccup in our process. But our teams have always been swift in adapting to the evolving environment and in a span of a few weeks, we quickly transitioned to remote working environment.
The launch timing of the channel has been favourable for us, since we saw a window to give our audience an offering and a unique viewing experience that would help them through this pandemic by providing rich content and allow for arm chair travelling. We had to recalibrate and innovate with our content. It was a challenging yet rewarding experience. We hope to get a smile on our viewers’ faces as we have a vast variety of shows for them to explore and enjoy.
How did you decide the name Zee Zest? What went through this process?
Zee Zest as a brand is an energetic brand that plays a catalyst to Unlimit the horizon of your experiences and adding Zest to their lives. It is for an audience that is evolved yet rooted in India, a desi audience desiring cosmopolitan exposure, one who is open to experiencing an Indian twist on a global platform. It is this brand pillar that gave birth to the word Zest!
What according to you is the need gap in the current lifestyle category? How does Zee Zest fill the gap?
Zee Zest as a whole brings a wide change in the lifestyle category as it captures the consumers’ mind space by offering the best of lifestyle content with shows that not only entertain but educate and add value to our viewers’ lives.
The diverse content across sub-genres with a homegrown appeal to entertain, lead to discovery, and will liven up every moment of the viewer with the intent to UNLIMIT Life itself. We bring some of the biggest names in international Lifestyle content seasons exclusively in India like MasterChef Australia Junior, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, 3 new series from Jamie Oliver, etc. It is a perfect encapsulation of travel, lifestyle, home improvement, food, wellness and culture.
The lifestyle channel category is led by a dominant TLC. How is Zee Zest different and unique from the market leader and the competition at large? How has the advertiser response been towards Zee Zest… especially amidst the Covid-19 pandemic? Any advertisers/advertiser funded programs already sanctioned?
Zee Zest is uniquely positioned in the segment, having a distinct TV and digital presence. The digital business of Zee Zest acts as a force multiplier to TV thereby offering a differentiated and distinctive offering in the market. The publishing site will have multi content verticals that go by the philosophy of Discover Engage and Fulfil. The site has a catchup of TV content, digital first originals and trending stories in lifestyle which are action oriented. This is backed by best in class design with a mobile first strategy. The social handles will further drive new ideas for brands to engage via content publishing.
Zee Zest serves as a platform for brands to reach a focused SEC-A target audience through the channel. Our unique proposition of offering an enhanced experience with a TV & digital presence has garnered us an extremely positive response from advertisers. Going forward, we will aim to provide more value to the advertisers with platform-agnostic solutions.
What unique marketing plans are in place to get Zee Zest out there?
We have an array of an extremely well-curated line-up of shows from across sub-genres that sets us apart and extensive data to ensure we have the right mix. To further amplify our efforts, we will leverage our robust outreach enjoyed by our Network TV Channels and strengthen our position as the purveyors of UNLIMIT LIFE. We are also leveraging the Digital medium to reach out to every Lifestyle & Entertainment enthusiast and get them to sample our channel’s offering. The channel will present content that will be a perfect encapsulation of food, travel, lifestyle, home improvement, wellness, culture, and DIY.
