Where does brand ‘Zee’ stand?
These days, I see the brand Zee sinking deep with their strategies and no improvement in programme quality, service and their overall design.
I don’t watch Zee TV. So, I wouldn’t comment on it much. But, it really needs to diversify its programming by producing less mushy and maudlin programs. This post intends to focus on the channels like Zee Cafe, Zee Trendz and Zee Studio.
First of all, the logo design of Zee sucks vis-a-vis Sony or Star. Previously, the logos of Zee and their graphics used to be attractive than they are now! I really used to admire the way Zee TV used graphics while showing ‘Yeh hai zee network aur aap dekh rahein hain Zee TV’ (This is Zee network and you’re watching Zee). If you remember, a planet with all TV’s would be shown and the camera zooms in as the planet revolves to unveil Zee TV logo. But, now those concepts and charm are really missing.
The logo of Zee Cafe is very cheap (sorry! but I’m trying to be very critical here.) They used some stupid type for Cafe and the colors are awful. The graphics they use for the channel are boring and I don’t know how they’re trying to position this channel on par with Star World and AXN! Leaving the logo and graphics aside, I loved Zee Cafe more than Star World for its programming. There was Hogan’s Family, Full House, E! News, Friends, Will & Grace etc. But then, the repetition began. When a show ends, the channel should consider putting a full stop to it but Zee Cafe doesn’t believe in it. I guess it’d show ‘Friends’ as long as it exists! While Star World shows latest hit series from US and UK TV, Zee picks up the old hits and tries to play safe. It’s a good move that it tried shows in Indian English like Bombay Talking which failed to attract audiences.
It’s commendable that they bring shows like E! News and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno to India. But, branding-wise the channel is desperately in need for a makeover.
And then there is Zee Trendz. Basically, it was supposed to be a fashion channel competing with FTV! They used to show vintage fashion shows and I guess the team behind the channel tried hard to run the channel. One fine day, it became a lifestyle channel. Wow! now it started competing with Discovery Travel & Living? 
Very funny! I think it’d have been better if the Zee network removed the channel from their repertoire. I highly doubt that this is due to lack of pre-planning and thinking about long term issues on the part of the team behind Trendz. Sony did a fairly good job when HBO was taken off the OneAlliance bouquet and Sony Pix was launched. The positioning of the channel was done quite well and they still stick to showing old movies which have good stories even though its market share, compared to HBO and Star Movies, is low. The shift should be convincing and believable unlike Zee Trendz. Another major glitch is that Zee shows the same content across its various channels like ShowBiz India extreme, Top 10 Countdown etc., on Zee Trendz and Zee Cafe. Both the channels cover their programming schedule mostly with music based programs like Full-On, Sizzle, Velvet etc. They even started showing movies on Zee Cafe! Then, what’s the point in having Zee Studio?
Zee Studio PREMIERES movies that have already been screened on channels like HBO & Star Movies! Recently, the channel even started showing sub-titles with their movie screenings. I wonder whether an English movie channel really needs that! There’s DTH in India and there’s an option for a sub-title feed in the DTH service. Through that they can leave the option to the user, instead.
I love the DishTV logo (It’s simple and single colored logo representing the D and a TV Dish) as much as I hate their service. The cramming of more and more channels is reducing the picture quality to a substandard DVD quality. Talking of other channels, Zee Cinema airs a 3 hour movie for 4 hours or longer with its slew of adverts in between. There’d be lotta annoying ads even if the movie is a 1980’s one! And there’s is Zee News which is there along with other news channels. I donno how it competes with NDTV, CNN-iBN, Aaj Tak etc., in the arena as I don’t watch it much. And I don’t even want to talk about Zee Muzic (that Z in place of S in the name of the channel itself is cheesy!). Please Zee, if you scrap some channels from your list let Zee Muzic be the first!They recently changed the channel colors from red to blue! I wonder what’s with the design team of Zee? The positioning of the channels is becoming worse by the day!
Oh yeah! I forgot about Zee Sports! How many people watch Zee Sports? It’s got poor reception and I don’t think the newly established ICL has done any good for the channel. Other offerings like Zee Business, Zee Smile (hmmm…. A best example for the worst positioning of a channel!), Zee Premier, Zee Action, Zee Classic (It coulda been better if the last three were removed long ago. They exist just for the sake of existence!) are very bad examples of brand positioning. I don’t want to comment on regional channels when the flagship channels are struggling with their competitors.
It seems that Zee’s trying to imitate the channels that other networks have. It could be Zee English (now, Zee Cafe) that imitated Star World, Zee Smile that’s closer to Star Utsav (where the old programs from the flagship hindi channels of the network are shown. Note that Zee Smile doesn’t only showcase comedy programs but also serious stuff.), Zee Trendz that imitated FTV, Zee Business that imitated CNBC TV 18 and Zee Sports that imitated Star Sports.
In my opinion, the overall design and programming of Zee channels have to be revamped to reposition itself as a good brand in the minds of Indian people.
This Post is also available on Retail, Marketing and Design blog
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