Zee Café gets viewers to give it a 'lift' at malls

The channel, in a bid to promote its new show based on superpowers, had mall crawlers pose with a tilted car set-up, so that it looked like they were lifting it.

In an innovative initiative to promote the new show 'No Ordinary Family' on Zee Café, the channel arranged for weekend-long mall activations.

Keeping in line with the theme of the show which involves the Powell family acquire superpowers, enabling it to perform extraordinary feats like lifting cars, a tilted car was set up at the mall and mall-goers were encouraged to pose with the car, making it seem as if they were lifting it.

Photographs were then clicked and instantly uploaded on Facebook. The activity in Mumbai was done at High Street Phoenix on April 30 and May 1, and in Bengaluru's Forum Mall on May 7-8. In Mumbai itself, an interaction with 2,000 people was done, where around 1,500 photographs were clicked and uploaded on Zee Café's Facebook page during the two-day activity.

A similar activity was also held at the City Mall Rajouri Garden in New Delhi, on the May 14-15 weekend.

Everyone who came to the activity zone and got clicked in that particular pose, was gifted the photograph in a specially designed 'No Ordinary Family' sleeve.

Discussing the idea behind this activation, Anurag Bedi, business head, Zee Café, says, "The idea was to make ordinary people feel super-human. Before we finalised the feat, our research suggested that the car-lift was the most emotionally gratifying and easily executable feat. The entire activity was designed to make people feel super-human, no matter how implausible and short-lived it might seem."

Zee Café caters to a SEC A, B target audience, between the age group of 15-44 years, across cable and satellite (C&S) homes. Hence, these particular malls were chosen to reach out to the correct audience.

Sharing why they want to target viewers via below the line (BTL), Bedi says, "Consumer perceptions are very dynamic in nature, so we need to tap such media to get in touch with our target audience. This consumer activation was the perfect way of extension of our brand proposition, thus bringing our audience closer to our offering."

He adds further that designing of BTL activities plays a vital role in its success. "If BTL activity is able to strike a chord with the audience, it can fetch huge returns for the channel. So, it's very crucial to design your communication effectively, via BTL media."

Zee Cafe also has a list of new shows lined up this month like Huge, Hell's Kitchen UK -- Season 4, Parks and Recreation S3, Brothers & Sisters -- S5, and depending on the concept of the show, the channel plans to experiment with a lot of marketing media.

"What works for one show may not necessarily work for the other, hence, we are designing different promotional plans for different shows. We are looking towards a lot of BTL, print, OOH, electronic and online promotion for our future offerings," concludes Bedi.