iWorld
ZEE5 Partners with Lowe Lintas to drive its Global Creative Strategy
MUMBAI: Global streaming platform ZEE5 today announced that it has appointed Lowe Lintas as its creative partner to drive its creative strategy across international markets. This mandate was won following a multi-agency pitch. The brand will be handled by the agency’s Mumbai office.
With a bouquet of 100,000 hours of On demand content across genres like Movies, Originals, TV Shows etc. across 12 languages and 60+ Live TV channels, ZEE5 has, over the months since its global launch, quickly carved a clear niche for itself in the hearts of South Asians around the world.
In April 2019, ZEE5 further extended its reach to also target mainstream audiences with the introduction of content in five new languages – Bahasa Malaysia, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, German and Russian. Introducing ZEE5 to these audiences was the campaign ‘Extreme Emotion’, jointly crafted by the teams at ZEE5 (Global) and Lowe Lintas, which taps into the huge love for Bollywood movies and Indian TV Shows that exists the world over.
As ZEE5 fuels its momentum across key markets, it looks to drive much deeper relationships with audiences in these markets through localization of both its content and communication, and this is where Lowe Lintas will bring in their expertise.
Commenting on the partnership, Archana Anand, Chief Business Officer, ZEE5 Global said, “Driving more meaningful conversations with our audiences across markets is a key part of our agenda for the year, and how well we can engage them through our communication will play a critical role in that. We needed to work with a creative partner who could bring in strong creative ideas that lend themselves well to localization, and that are backed by strategic insights, and Lowe Lintas brings that to the table. We’re happy to have them on board as our creative partners in this next phase of ZEE5’s growth.”
“It’s a pleasure to partner with ZEE5,” says Anaheeta Goenka, President Lowe Lintas. She further added, “We are working closely with their truly entrepreneurial and driven team to launch ZEE5 globally. An interesting challenge as we collectively work on cracking a global positioning that travels across geographies, mindsets and is deeply culturally connecting to the content.
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.
