iWorld
ZEEL turns activist with ‘Aankhon Ka Aandolan’ driving upgrade to an HD quality viewing experience
MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) the leading media & entertainment powerhouse, launched its new campaign ‘Aankhon Ka Aandolan’ to build awareness about the benefits of a High-Definition (HD) channel viewing experience and drive a behaviour change. With multiple players having pushed the HD subscription, its penetration still stands below 10%. With this new campaign, ZEEL aims to drive consideration to upgrade from SD to HD subscription amongst the current SD subscribers.
The campaign ‘Aankhon Ka Aandolan’ showcases the trouble that the eyes go through and the reason why they are out on streets to protest. The campaign further aims to educate viewers who would have heard about the HD experience being better but are not sure how it is significantly superior to what they are currently experiencing. Launched in partnership with the country’s top DTH platforms like Tata Sky, DishTV, Videocon d2h, Airtel and cable platforms, the campaign aims to actively drive HD channel upgrades during this festive season. Hence, the creative campaign has a clear Call-To-Action with a missed call number that will allow consumers to opt for their DTH partner or call their cable operators and enquire on the HD offers available.
The core idea of the campaign is led by strong consumer insights that address the inferior experiences that the SD channel viewers are currently settling for – Less Clarity, Faded Colours & Stretched Pictures. Along with the SD viewers, the campaign also reaches out to those HD viewers who believe that HD viewing is only relevant for specific content, whereas HD experience is an overall upgrade to a superior quality viewing world.
Conceptualised by the company’s creative partners Lowe Lintas, the campaign aims to be the trigger to upgrade to HD subscription by showing the consumers, the superior quality HD viewing experience that they are missing out on. ZEEL currently offers 14 HD channels. With the revised MRP price point regime that is expected to come into play in a few months from now, and the changing consumer behaviour pattern, the viewer will now be able to independently choose HD and SD channels separately giving them the power to upgrade to a superior viewing experience.
Commenting on the launch of the ‘Aankhon Ka Aandolan’ campaign, Ms. Prathyusha Agarwal, Chief Marketing Officer at ZEEL said “At Zee, we believe in offering 'Extraordinary Entertainment' to our consumers at all levels. Where we focus on offering versatile content for consumers across age groups, we are equally invested in offering them superior quality viewing experience through our best in class HD technology. We truly believe that HD viewing experience offers our viewers better clarity, and once you get hooked on to it, you just can’t do without it! We have tailor-made our two brand films in 8 languages and given it legs to appeal to our regional viewers spread across the country. The benefits of the HD viewing experience has been brought alive through the lead protagonist across regional markets of the ZEE network.
Sharing his views on the campaign, Sagar Kapoor, Executive Director at Lowe Lintas said – “FINALLY, THE EYES SPEAK UP! The creative idea stemmed from the very objective of magnifying the benefits of HD over the SD experience. We just shifted the lens on looking at a very apparent yet hardly spoken about TG. The eyes in this case. Hence the idea of eyes asking for HD viewing. It just made complete sense to land the advantage via someone who will benefit the most. Not to mention the cut through we get with the visual idea of creating characters out of eyes themselves.”
Anaheeta Goenka, President at Lowe Lintas Group also expressed her views saying “In India a better service or product does not necessarily make for adoption. Especially when the comparative does not exist. That was our strategic challenge. Getting people to see the distinct value of HD vs SD. Easy to sell the product – but we refrained and instead took another journey from the ‘viewers eyes’.”
Zee Entertainment has launched a 360-degree marketing campaign influencing the consumers across their path to purchase journey. The media mix strategically uses ‘TV, DTH and Out-of-home’ to build awareness, ‘Digital’ to influence behaviour and an aggressive ‘Retail’ promotion to trigger conversions at the point of purchase of the HD TV set. The high impact retail push is in association with the biggest electronic stores in the country such as Reliance Digital and Vijay Sales, during this festive season. Alongside, the company will also be seeding the campaign across Samsung and Panasonic stores in collaboration with Dish TV.
The campaign is promoted through the strength of the network with 35 channels coming together to achieve a reach of 40 Mn viewers ably supported by our digital push with an estimated reach of 45 mn across the campaign period up till Diwali. The Digital campaign has been designed to reach out to the SD viewers across platforms that they have used to either show interest in purchasing HD TV sets, make subscription payments or upgrade their lifestyle. The SD & HD subscribers will be targeted not only through the DTH & cable platforms but also through our network’s vast social media assets. Innovative marketing formats have been used across social media and Out of Home to bring alive the tension points – example, usage of Uber cab windows to bring alive the ‘clarity’ difference between SD and HD channels.
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
