Ambush marketing reaches digital TV space with Star-Zee ad war

While companies taking dig at their rivals through ad campaigns is nothing new with colas, FMCG, and lately even e-commerce space dominating brand wars, the phenomenon has of late caught up with the digital entertainment arena as well.
While the Flipkart-Snapdeal duel is still fresh in memory, the credit for the first ad war in the digital entertainment space should go to Star India's Hotstar and Zee's digital offering Ditto TV. This has heated up the over-the-top (OTT) space with the latter taking a dig at the former in its latest ad campaign.
Ditto in its latest ad asks 'Akele TV kaun dekhta hai yaar?' (Who watches TV alone?), clearly taking potshots at Hotstar that encouraged people to go solo with its launch campaign.

"Consumer culture clearly is about enjoying entertaining content with the near and dear ones. Our campaign essentially strives to reinforce entertainment consumption habit and seeks to make the experience as seamless and anytime/anywhere as possible. And that's what the campaign strives to highlight," Zee Digital Convergence Chief Executive Debashish Ghosh told PTI.
However, an e-mail sent to Star India remained unanswered.
As per Scarecrow Communications, which conceptualised the Ditto campaign, "in these app-based products, the selling point is always personal space. But Ditto breaches the wall and talks about consuming entertainment together. This has a potential to create a disruption in the category.