iWorld
Inside ZEE5’s strategy to scale its upcoming UGC section
MUMBAI: In its quest to become an entertainment super app, ZEE5 is soon getting into user-generated content platform Hypershots. ZEE5 India expansion projects business head and product head Rajneel Kumar seems confident about the new user-generated content (UGC) venture with the expectation that it will start to spike soon.
“Over the last year we have been focused on moving away from two primary types of content, catch-up TV content and original programming, to get into different types of content use cases that we create for users,” Kumar said in a virtual roundtable hosted by Indaintelevision.com. He added that it got into the music video, live TV, news bouquet sections including channels outside the Zee network.
He mentioned that it launched a gaming platform Play, which saw good traction initially. It has experienced upto six sessions per day per user each of eight mintues and which cemented the decision to build UGC as another use case on the platform.
Kumar said that they had to approach tech stack and product stack very differently for UGC. He added that while consumers want an immersive experience of OTT content that happens on landscape mode whereas they have to look at a portrait mode for UGC coupled with a full-screen experience. To tackle UGC content, it went on even changing the kind of streams that it uses i.e., moving away from the traditional HLS with DRM etc., to moving on to mp4 and more importantly being able to optimise that.
Asked about the progress, Kumar answered that it is at the beta stage of testing for the UGC platform. He added that ZEE5 is trying to integrate it into the core application but carefully by taking into account performance on all device types.
“For us, user experience suddenly has a new complexity. We are putting a mid-budget movie next to a creator from anywhere and for the user either of the content can be important or one might be more important than another. That’s why we are working on hyper-personalisation. At the very core of it, the more personal we make the platform, the better we will be able to alert the content for consumer and that cuts across UGC, catch-up, original and every other segment,” he added.
During lockdown many users started discovering more original content. Hence, the platform has seen a spike in its subscription. It has seen a significant spike on its news content as well during this period. Kumar said that they put the high effort for personalising recommendation around news to make sure that it is localised.
“When you are going from eight million to 100 million DAUs, of course, there is a completely new paradigm we will be dealing with. All of the systems will be tested because the concurrency of users coming on the platform also suddenly changes. Every single layer needs to scale up. The good part is companies like us have always been cloud-native and we are working with scalable companies. Also, core technology providers like AWS, Google have also moved to a serverless deployment where you don’t need to really linearly scale one after other, you could have multiple instances ready at the same time. The ecosytem is coming together to support,” Kumar said.
However, he mentioned that it would be an interesting challenge to see how they differentiate the UGC section from existing ones by offering various propositions to bring more users to the platform.
e-commerce
Insight Cosmetics partners with Pinda for homegrown beauty push
New campaign ‘Kudiye… ghar ki yaad nahi aayi tujhe?’ celebrates toxin-free, skin-first Indian formulations over imported ideals.
MUMBAI: Insight Cosmetics has just turned the beauty narrative on its head and it’s doing it with a very familiar face. The fast-growing Indian beauty brand has teamed up with Udaybir Sandhu, better known as Pinda from the hit series Dhurandhar 2, for a campaign that proudly puts “Made in India” at the centre. Titled “Kudiye… ghar ki yaad nahi aayi tujhe?”, the film taps into that deeply relatable feeling of rediscovering something better right at home, challenging the long-held notion that international always equals superior.
Instead of chasing global trends, Insight is highlighting what it does best: skin-first, ingredient-conscious, toxin-free formulations designed specifically for Indian skin tones, textures and climates. The campaign positions sattu-level honesty and performance as the new standard confident, rooted and globally competitive.
Insight Cosmetics director and spokesperson Mihir Jain said, “Insight has always believed that India doesn’t need to look outward for validation. We have the talent, the understanding, and the capability to create world-class beauty products right here. Pinda represents that same confidence rooted, real, and unapologetically Indian.”
Pinda added, “There’s real pride in representing something that’s ours. For too long, we’ve been told that better comes from outside. Insight is changing that. This is about backing what’s made for us, trusting what understands us, and owning our identity with confidence.”
The collaboration rests on four clear pillars, proudly homegrown innovation, a strict toxin-free promise, a genuine skin-first approach, and deep cultural relevance that speaks to a generation both rooted in India and globally aware.
In a market long dazzled by foreign labels, Insight Cosmetics and Pinda are quietly proving that the most powerful beauty move is the one that feels like home. The campaign doesn’t just sell products, it sells a mindset, that the best glow is the one you already recognise. And right now, that glow is proudly, unapologetically Indian.
