Add MobiGyaan as a preferred source on GoogleZee5 introduces privacy-first audience targeting platform aligned with India’s DPDP ActZee5 has partnered with federated data specialist Saptharushi to launch the Zee5 Audience Platform (ZAP), a proprietary audience intelligence and activation platform designed to strengthen the streaming service’s advertising capabilities.
The new platform aims to help advertisers identify relevant consumer audiences, plan media investments more precisely, and improve campaign performance while maintaining user privacy and regulatory compliance.
Custom Audience Targeting & Intelligence
ZAP combines Zee5’s viewership and engagement data with consented behavioral and transactional insights from partner networks. This allows advertisers to create customized audience segments based on specific product categories, consumer interests, and marketing objectives.
Unlike conventional advertising models that primarily rely on broad demographic categories or predefined third-party audience segments, ZAP uses content consumption patterns alongside intent and transaction signals from sectors such as quick commerce and digital payments.
Advertisers can use these audience segments to run more targeted campaigns across Zee5’s content inventory while benefiting from the platform’s wider reach.
Privacy-First Data Collaboration
User consent and data protection are central to ZAP’s architecture. The platform follows a federated data collaboration model in which raw user information remains within the respective partner’s existing data environment instead of being transferred to a centralized database.
The system uses privacy-safe computational queries to generate audience insights without directly exchanging underlying personal data. This approach is designed to align with India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act and its privacy requirements.
By bringing computation to the data rather than moving the data itself, ZAP aims to facilitate collaboration between partners while maintaining stronger data governance and consumer privacy controls.
New Advertising Formats & Engagement Opportunities
Beyond audience targeting, the Zee5-Saptharushi partnership will also introduce alternative advertising and engagement formats, including co-branded attention metrics and loyalty rewards.
These formats will primarily focus on sports broadcasts and premium programming, offering advertisers opportunities to engage viewers through interactive experiences beyond traditional video advertisements.
Prashant Shetty, Head – Advertisement Revenue, Broadcast & Digital, ZEEL, said, “What sets ZAP apart is its ability to translate audience insights into actionable advertising opportunities, while keeping privacy at the centre of the process. It empowers brands with greater flexibility to align campaigns with specific business objectives and engage more relevant audiences across media and campaign touchpoints. The impact of this approach is evident in Saptharushi’s previous deployments, which have demonstrated a significant, multifold uplift in click-through rate (CTR) delivery over campaigns activated against a brand’s existing customer relationship management (CRM) audience. This reinforces the value of more intelligent, insight-led audience activation in driving stronger campaign engagement, improved media efficiency and measurable business outcomes.”
Gowthaman Ragothaman, Founder & CEO, Saptharushi, said, “Reach remains the foundation of every great campaign, and Zee 5 offers it across languages, genres and viewing occasions. The next frontier is making that reach addressable: knowing which viewers are genuinely relevant to a brand and reaching them with their permission. Audiences like these are scarce, and Saptharushi was founded on the belief that this scarcity can be solved without anyone giving up their data. Our vision is an open audience economy in which publishers, data partners and brands build audiences together, while each keeps full control of what it owns. We are grateful to Zee 5 for the trust they have placed in us to bring that vision to life on India’s largest homegrown streaming platform. With ZAP, advertisers can build fresh, consented audiences from what people watch and how they buy across the full breadth of Zee 5. Zee 5 brings the reach. Saptharushi makes it addressable.”
Expanding Zee5’s Advertising Ecosystem
The launch of ZAP complements Zee5’s diverse content library, which includes original shows, regional cinema across seven languages, Free5 ad-supported streaming, sports, and children’s programming.
With ZAP, Zee5 aims to combine its extensive content distribution network with privacy-focused audience intelligence, giving advertisers more precise targeting and measurable campaign capabilities.
The initiative also reflects the growing adoption of data collaboration technologies in India’s digital advertising industry, where brands are increasingly looking for more effective audience targeting without compromising consumer privacy.
