Zee Café turns Barista green on World Environment Day

The channel goes on-ground and encourages people to adopt saplings promoting the green message.

World Environment Day was celebrated on Sunday, June 5. To commemorate the occasion and create anawareness for the cause, Zee Café, the English general entertainment channel launched an initiative 'Green Turn', in four Indian cities.

Through the initiative that was launched in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune, the channel helped coffee chain Barista's patrons take a green oath and 'adopt' saplings, and participate in creating a greener environment.

Regarding 'Green Turn', Anurag Bedi, business head, Zee Café, says, "We believe that the world has reached a stage where all the natural disasters that have been occurring in our world are not 'natural' anymore. We are the cause of these disasters. It's time we stop and think, act, and take a stand. Green turn is Zee Café's way of showing we care by making even the smallest difference; because, that's how it starts."

'Green Turn' had on-air, on-ground and online promotion activities to spread awareness, which started on May 30.

On-air promotions was done through 30-second promos on the Zee bouquet channels to support the cause, and the on-ground activities were undertaken around 10 times in a day. Also, 10-15 seconder trivia slates ran 5-6 times a day inside the outlets.

Standees, posters and banners were put up promoting the initiative at all Barista outlets, across the four cities. Ten thousand Cards4U free Zee Café-Green Turn branded postcards were also placed as give aways. The saplings were given away in eco-friendly bags to patrons.

At the Barista level, Gotcha! Impact Media (parent company of Cards4U) partnered with the channel to help conduct the sapling drive.

Bhrighu Rai, general manager -- brand alliance and sales, Gotcha! Impact Media, says, "It was about stimulation, education and engagement. And, that is what, we too, as a company believe in."

People could also tie up with the 'Young Environmentalists Programme Trust', and participate in a tree plantation drive conducted in Mumbai, in the Hiranandani Garden area.

While this initiative was in its fourth year, this was the first time it was taken to four cities. Earlier, it was done on a smaller scale in Mumbai only.

Bedi says, "We decided to address our cause on higher scales this time, in order to reach out to wider audiences. It was the need of the hour to go loud to promote green turn."

He adds that Zee Café's core audience being in the age bracket 18-34, the audience the channel was targeting through the initiative coincided with Barista's, 15-44 SEC AB, males and females.

Online promotion of the initiative was also done with the 'Green Turn' microsite on www.zeecafe.tv/green-turn, a Facebook page, as well as a virtual sapling app.