ZEEL ropes in 17 sponsors for Zee Cine Awards 2014

While Lux Cozi is the presenting sponsor, ZEEL has got on board Dabur Vatika and Karbonn as powered by sponsors.

Zee TV is all set to air the Zee Cine Awards 2014 on February 23 at 8 pm.

Since it's one of the premium award properties of television, the company has got on board 17 sponsors, including three title sponsors. While Lux Cozi has come on board as the presenting sponsor, Zee TV has roped in Dabur Amla and Karbonn mobile as the powered by sponsors.

According to ZEEL chief sales officer Ashish Sehgal, Zee Cine Awards had made close to Rs 30 crore in its last edition. The channel has hiked its ad rates by 30 per cent this year and the property is expected to make around the same sum, due to the decrease in inventories (because of the 10 + 2 ad cap).

ZEEL has signed 14 associate sponsors for the latest edition of the Bollywood Awards which will be simulcast on Zee TV, Zee Anmol and Zee Tamizh. The sponsors are - Pataka Tea, Indica 10, Royal Stag, Colgate Visible White, Amway's Nutrilite, Ching's, Fevi Kwick, Tata Motors Truck Racing, Everest, Pepsi, Nivea, Fair & Lovely, Dove and Scorpio.

The channel has gone all out to promote its annual home-grown awards property. According to Akash Chawla, head-Marketing, national channels, Zeel, "The strength of Zee whether it be Zee News, bollywood world, ETC, Esselvision or our network channels means this is a truly Zee Network property. The event is one of the single biggest platforms for any advertiser.Its promoted and is to be aired across multiple languages and multiple channels across Zee in India and also across the world. The fact that the event was done together with EsselVision has further added to the strength of Zee Cine Awards being the only awards function where the broadcaster owns and conducts the awards with other partners."

The channel has also been promoting the property across other media like print, outdoor and radio to amplify the buzz. This year, Zee TV had launched an exclusive website, www.zeecineawards.com, to serve as a one-stop destination for pictures, videos and information from all the previous editions of Zee Cine Awards since 1998. It has the largest repository of content around ZCA. The website invited viewers to vote across all the popular categories of awards at ZCA 2014. It also has a specially created 'fan wall' that allows fans to leave a message for their favourite nominees.

"This year we specially tracked the popularity of the nominees on social media through the popularity meter. This was done by tracking conversations around various nominees on digital media. This also becomes another platform to judge who's the favourite. Apart from this, we are extensively promoting the property on all our social media platforms of Zee TV and Zee Cinema. On the website, there has been an unprecedented 1 million page views in a very short span of time," Chawla adds.

For viewer involvement, Zee Anmol had conducted a contest in which three lucky viewers from Bihar, Maharashtra and Mumbai were brought to Mumbai to witness this entertaining night. This initiative aimed to fulfil dreams of viewers.

For promotion on print, the channel has tied up with DNA, its English print partner. It has also tied up with Hindustan and HT to cover the key markets and to amplify the promotions. Besides this, the channel will also use other publications to drive promotions. For OOH promotions, the channel's focus has been on Mumbai. Zee TV has covered all impact sites in Mumbai, to create optimum buzz around the property.

Zee Cine Awards also partnered with the producers of 'Holiday - A Soldier is Never Off Duty' and 'Total Siyapaa' to showcase the first look of these two films.

"It's a win-win situation as we had one of the most spectacular displays of thrilling stunts by Akshay Kumar as he unveiled 'Holiday' at the awards show and Ali Zafar and Yami Gautam presented a beautiful romantic act in showcasing 'Total Siyapaa'. While the films reach out to a worldwide base of millions of fans through this showcase, our on-air content stands enriched with the star performances. Also, our initiative of a free call mechanism for voting generated 3.6 million votes worldwide. This quantum of votes, duly audited by Ernst & Young, only strengthens our belief in the fact that we're the only authentic award, truly representative of viewers' choice," Chawla concludes.

Zee Cine Awards was inaugurated in 1998 and mixture of categories decided on by public votes, as well as categories solely judged by an industry jury. While 2014's edition of the award took place in Mumbai, Zee has also hosted the event in places like Macau, Singapore, London, Mauritius and Dubai.