Our vision is to develop a brand affinity and serve novelty says Jit Sengupta of Zee Biskope

From the time of its launch, Zee Biskope has tried to be differentiated in its content offering and its marketing, says Jit Sengupta, Lead, Brand Management, at the channel.

“We have been offering a curated channel in an otherwise commoditised market. The engagement drives, marketing initiatives, and the content calendar that we prepare have been based on robust consumer centricity and consumer insights.”

“I think content and marketing these days are synonymously used; they go hand in hand, and they kind of create value offering. It is the value offering that we cater to the audience,” he added.

Jit Sengupta

Sengupta says though the pandemic pushed them to take digital initiatives, the activities have been very well received by the target audiences. “When the reality changed, we had to then resort to digital initiatives, which acted as a convertibility platform. That was exactly the idea that by digital initiatives, we treat the digital audience as an additional potential base and whom we aim to convert into our channel audience so that they come and sample our channel,” he said.

“If you look at these initiatives, it is not just about the numbers. People have been shooting videos and dancing, they have been shooting in tunnels; they have been shooting in kaccha-pakka houses. So, it never mattered what the resource limitation was; it is only the sheer will of participation and fulfilling the aspirations that matters. It is the whole intention of connecting with people and making the brand accessible to them. So that they feel the affinity for the channel and the brand, fulfil their aspirations through the brand as that is what is important and that will continue to be the vision of marketing,” he explained. Sengupta said as the situation will continue to settle down, they will be exploring on-ground activations as well.

Taking this novelty forward, and with the brand’s first birthday coming up, they have planned an extensive campaign to mark the occasion.

The Zee Biskope Birthday Lahariya campaign is divided into four legs, said Sengupta. One of the initiatives invites people to share videos of their creative birthday wishes for the channel on WhatsApp.

The channel will select one winner a day and eight winning videos will be featured on Zee Biskope on December 21. The channel will show a specially curated movie line-up, Rishto Ka Safar, featuring four blockbuster movies throughout the day.

The campaign will extend on social media where a selected few from the top fans of Zee Biskope’s Facebook page will be invited for an exclusive virtual birthday meet with a popular Bhojiwood celebrity. They will celebrate the day by hosting a DJ night for 30 minutes on the channel. The activity will then continue over the channel’s Facebook and Instagram pages for an hour. 

Speaking about what inspired the campaign, he said, “In the Bhojpuri category, music is huge. They love music, they love to dance. When you think of a party, in this current situation, we can't call our viewers to a party. So we do the party by reaching out to their living rooms through our television platform and even beyond that through our social media.”

“One of our core propositions is that we are a movie plus channel. We don't just serve movies; we serve entertainment around movies as well. If you look at the Bhojpuri market, it has a lot of avenues. There's a huge gap in what can be curated and served to the customers. As an entertainer, or as a movie plus channel, we serve content beyond movies, but around movies. This is a novelty that the category has never witnessed before,” he added. 

“The channel has always served category first initiatives. While we celebrate the first birthday, we celebrate being the first Bhojpuri channel that brought three superstars for the first time to do a brand film and be the brand ambassador. We were the first who did the biggest-ever Bhojpuri movie screening, we were the first channel to have digital mascots like Bhaiyaji and Gamchaji. The engagement drives were celebrated on occasions like emoji day, camera day and dance day.  These were western concepts and they are not popular in India or in the region, but they have been customised and curated for the region in a way that they like.”

Info@BestMediaInfo.com