MAM
Sumeer Mathur joins DDB Mudra North
MUMBAI: DDB Mudra Group has announced the appointment of Sumeer Mathur as DDB Mudra North strategic planning senior VP and head.
Based out of DDB Mudra North’s Gurgaon office, Mathur will work closely with national strategic planning head Aditya Kanthy, to lead planning and brand management for the agency.
Before joining DDB Mudra North, Sumeer was associated with JWT (Delhi). During his tenure at JWT, he led award winning campaigns for Airtel Money and Microsoft. Apart from JWT, he has also worked with Rediffusion Y&R, Lowe Mumbai, Contract and SSC&B Lintas.
On joining DDB Mudra North, Mathur said, “I am quite excited by the opportunity DDB Mudra North offers. While many agencies talk about the change in communication landscape, DDB Mudra Group seems to be the only one that has multiple disciplines working together to build brands under one roof. Too often the area of influence of the planner remains constricted to cracking an insight that turns into a TV campaign. I was also drawn to the culture of the agency which came through during my interactions with Madhukar, Aditya and Vandana.”
Mathur brings to the agency an experience of over 15 years in communications across brands while being based in Mumbai and Delhi. He has worked with leading brands, across categories ranging from automobiles (Hyundai & Tata motors) FMCG (GSK, Unilever, Colgate Palmolive and Unicharm), household appliances and home electronics (LG and Microsoft), social health (USAID), airlines (Kingfisher airlines, Spice Jet) and hospitality (Taj Hotels & Resorts). He has also undertaken regional and global responsibilities for Unilever Brands (Fair & lovely, Lifebuoy shampoo, Clinic all Clear) for the South East Asian markets.
Kanthy said, “We’re thrilled to have Sumeer on board. He’s an incredible talent. Vandana, Sambit and Sumeer make a formidable team in Delhi. He’s excited about working with all the DDB Mudra Group agencies under one roof and leading our bright young team to create influence and apply creative thinking for business growth. We’ve got a lot to do to be the best agency in the city and he’s up for it.”
Added DDB Mudra North president Vandana Das, “I’m so excited to have Sameer as part of the DDB Mudra group in Delhi. Sumeer is a dynamic leader & brings with him experience & maturity that is required to strengthen existing brands while ensuring that we are on a growth drive. I believe that he is a great asset & we can use his skills and talents in making our agency reach new heights.”
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.
