Zee makes DID app interactive; adds tutorials and live chat

Zee TV is all set to launch a new mobile app and a WAP site for its flagship property, Dance India Dance Little Masters, for the current season. For this, the channel continues its partnership with Mobilox Innovations.

The DID Little Masters app comes on the back of the older app, which was launched a mere three weeks prior to the finale. The channel claims to have acquired about two lakh hits and 18 lakh page views during the last three weeks. The new app is being brought on the back of the success of the reality show, which has been in the Top 10 list since it started.

There are five major features in the app; Competition Track Record, Tutorials, Vote Now, Live Chats and Gallery. Competition Track Record helps the user to keep a track of the rankings of the competition, even if the user has missed episodes on television. The Tutorials section has videos demonstrating dance lessons by the skippers and the mentors on the show.

While the 'Vote Now' feature helps the user to vote for his/her favourite participant directly, the Gallery section enables them to re-visit the performances and videos of the participants on the stage and also during rehearsals. Live Chat enables the user to interact and talk to the participants and judges.

Along with these, the app has also integrated the Facebook and Twitter platforms to enable the user to share the updates directly on the social networking sites.

Apart from these, the channel plans to expand its digital strategy further and get a digital agency on-board for a more organised approach towards the strategy.

Akash Chawla, marketing head, national channels, ZEEL, says, "The last time we launched the app, there was very little time left for the users to get to know about it and for us to promote it well. We have learnt from the previous experience and have made the app more interactive for this season of Little Masters. We plan to enhance our digital strategy on a whole, DID's WAP/app site is a start to this revolution."

The channel spent about 0.5 per cent of its total marketing spends on the digital medium, about eight years back. But, it claims to have increased it to about 10 per cent now. Mentioning that the spends increase during premieres, Chawla adds, "Digital has become a very significant platform for our marketing strategies these days. About 8-10 per cent of the total spends go into digital, while if we talk about movie premieres coming up, the spends rise to 15 per cent for that time period."

However, with all these interactive features, the app still lacks the live feed option for the users. Plus, a user has to be online all the time that the app is being used; there is no provision of downloading the content and consuming it later.

Abhijit Saxena, managing director and CEO, Mobilox Innovations explains that the users will be updated from time to time about any new video that is uploaded, or every time any of the judges or participants are online for chat, and also when the competition track changes.

Saxena adds, "The most important thing for an app is to keep it alive. There are so many apps being downloaded but ultimately, when the apps are not being used for a long time, they just remain on the mobile phone and die. We have a strong plan to keep the app alive by continuously sending notifications to the users as and when any activity is live on the app. We aim that this app will become a concept and the concept will ultimately get converted to a category."

Though the channel refused to comment on the details, DID Little Masters may announce a technology related tie up within a couple of days.