MAM
Kyoorius allows open jury for Kyoorius Creative Awards
MUMBAI: After two successful years, The Kyoorius Advertising and Digital Awards, which has been rebranded to Kyoorius Creative Awards in association with D&AD starting this year, has received a total of 1863 entries across the advertising, digital and media categories.
Figures shared by the company show that there is a jump of over 31 per cent from last year’s total of 1419 entries, while the number of participating agencies and corporates jumped 28 percent to 323 this year.
Moreover, organising body Kyoorius, the not for profit initiative by Transasia Fine Papers, has introduced Media Awards as part of the creative awards to highlight the innovation done across media in the country.
“I must compliment the Kyoorius team for keeping the media judging criteria in the similar space as the creatives, which makes the three criterias very sharp and clear,” said Media Jury member and Vizeum India MD Shripad Kulkarni, when attending one of the jury sessions which spanned between 4 to 7 May 2016. Jury members are expected to review, discuss and select the best of the best over the four-day jury session post which the organisers have also made arrangements for an open jury for the whole industry to come, review and discuss the entries.
While the growing number of participants and the inclusion of media as part of the creative award is a welcome move by the organising body, several within the jury feel that it will take a while for the industry to understand what the criteria for entering the awards is.
“Because it is the first year, I think the criteria has not been well understood by the participants. This entire space of creative media awards is very distinct, and therefore participants will need time to differentiate from the other awards they are used to entering. Rather than volume, it needs innovation and sharp focus. I guess next year we will see a dramatic shift in the type of entries,” Kulkarni added.
When asked if it made the job of the jury harder, Kulkarni added, “It definitely made it more tedious, but that is fine as all we had to do was to put more effort into understanding the entries.”
CEO Stephen Li who is also part of the media jury, candidly stated that he expected the quality to be higher. “There have been two or three interesting campaigns in the media jury entries we have seen so far, but there has been nothing that has jumped out and wowed us.” His word of caution for those who attempt to submit work on sensitive issues like women’s right, poverty and other social causes is to work harder on them and do the due justice to the subject. “As much as such topics pose one with opportunities, there is also a responsibility to do more compelling work,” Li pointed out.
The Kyoorius Creative Awards show will be held on 3 June, 2016 at The Dome (SVP Stadium), NSCI in Mumbai. The awards will be presented by Colors, powered by Hindustan Times and includes ABP News, Rishtey, Happy Finish & Kinetic as main partners.
The full list of Media, Advertising and Digital jury are as follows:
Apart from Media Awards:
Jury Foreman: Mike Florence, Head of Planning, PHD Media
Steven Kalifowitz, Senior Manager, Brand Strategy, Twitter, APAC
Kartik Sharma, Managing Director, Maxus
Stephen Li, CEO, OMD
Swati Bhattacharya, CCO, FCB Ulka
Pat Law, Founder, Goodstuphx
Shripad Kulkarni, Managing Director, India, Vizeum (A Dentsu Aegis Network Company)
Digital Awards:
Jury Foreman: Ralph Barnett, National Creative Director, SapientNitro
Corey Cruz, Head of Creatives, Digitas LBi
Gary Steele, Executive Creative Director, TBWA
Karl Gomes, Chief Fanatic, Fanatics
Shormistha Mukherjee, Co-Founder & Director, Flying Cursor Interactive
Gauri Joshi, Unit Creative Director (Digital), Lowe Lintas
Debashish Ghosh, CEO Zee Digital and Director at India Web Portal
Advertising Awards:
Jury Foreman: Mr. R. Balki, Group Chairman, Mullen Lowe Lintas Group
Agnello Dias, Co-Founder, Taproot
Nima Namchu, Chief Creative Officer, Havas Worldwide
Tista Sen, National Creative Director, J. Walter Thompson
Ajay Gahlaut, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy
Scott McClelland, Executive Creative Director Asia-Pacific, Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH)
Daniel Comar, Regional Executive Creative Director, Geometry Global
Scott Dungate, Creative Director, Wieden+Kennedy (W&K)
Marco Bezerra, Executive Creative Director, J. Walter Thompsons Dubai
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
