AD Agencies
Publicis WorldWide acquires stake in Arcade
MUMBAI: Publicis WW has acquired a minority stake in Asia’s fastest growing digital network, Arcade.
Publicis Worldwide CEO Arthur Sadoun said, “Asia is a strategic priority for us. The Arcade team’s core values of creative excellence, entrepreneurship and digital innovation are a perfect match for Publicis Worldwide, as we strive to be the preferred partner of our clients in their digital transformation.”
Arcade CEO and founding partner Nick Marrett said, “The worlds of marketing, entertainment and information are colliding. Arcade’s entrepreneurial approach to creativity helps brands find new ways to thrive in this new and challenging environment. We are thrilled to be joining forces with Publicis as we accelerate our development across the region into key markets like China, Africa and India for the benefit of our clients, and strengthen our Asian credentials. The chemistry and alignment with Publicis was incredibly strong right from the outset.”
Headquartered in Singapore with offices in Shanghai, Tokyo and Jakarta, Arcade currently employs more than 100 professionals across the region. Some of its key clients include Clear, Close Up, Pond’s, Rexona, IKEA, Coca-Cola, Bango, WeChat and Google.
Publicis WW CEO APAC Loris Nold added, “Arcade has built a unique model that allows them to create global and incredibly innovative work out of Asia. Our key clients have made Asia a global hub for some of their brands and we are increasingly working with Asian brands that have global ambitions. To partner Arcade’s founders, Nick, Gary, Mark and Matt, across the region is fantastic news for us.”
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.
