AD Agencies
Global rebranding: Draftfcb is now FCB
MUMBAI: Six months after becoming Global CEO of Draftfcb, Carter Murray is changing the agency’s name to FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding). In keeping with the global rebranding, effective 4.30 PM IST, March 10, 2014, the India operation will be called FCBUlka Advertising and it will have a new logo.
The colours in the logo have been drawn from the colours of the flags of the world, symbolising the heritage, equity and flavour of the local advertising company and the wide network reach. The diagonal line through the letter B and the letter U of Ulka signifies the importance of the local brand name alongside the global name.
Commenting on the new brand name and identity, Nagesh Alai, Group Chairman, FCBUlka, said, “FCB has a tremendous 140 years’ equity globally and in India Ulka has a 50 years plus great heritage. FCBUlka will continue to deliver on the integrated offering to its clients and stay focused on what it has been doing over the years – Making Brands Famous and Making Clients Rich.”
“Two distinct brands, Draft and FCB, were merged together seven years ago,” said Murray in a global statement. “The entities have united and now have one seamless offering. It’s time to simplify our brand name as well to reflect our focused identity and direction.”
Specifically, the global network will be called FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding), with an important local element celebrated market-by-market. Typically, each office will add the city in which they operate, for instance, FCB Shanghai, FCB Paris or FCB Chicago, using a diagonal line through the B and the first letter of the local moniker. In some markets we will add the name of an acquired company such as in London, where the office will be FCB Inferno, due to the local equity and relevance of the acquired company. In instances where there is an agency with specific expertise, it will take on that name, as with FCB Health. And, in rare cases, the name of a highly respected creative leader will be used to further enhance the office’s delivery and reputation. That is the situation in New York, where the agency is being renamed FCB Garfinkel.
Starting today, offices will introduce the new brand name with a colourful logo design. It loosely depicts the colours of country flags from around the world, incorporating their local attributes while embodying the strength of our global network.
Importantly, Howard Draft remains executive chairman and key advisor to Murray. “Howard has been incredibly supportive of me and the direction we are taking the company,” said Murray. “All of the capabilities that made Draft such an industry leader remain essential to the future of FCB, including CRM, analytics, retail and activation. We will continue to invest in and deliver on all of these while ensuring a strong overall creative product.”
“I believe it’s a really great time for FCB. We have terrific talent and some early momentum. There’s a lot of potential here and I’m excited for our future,” added Murray.
With nearly 140 years of communications expertise, FCB’s worldwide network spans 150 offices in 90 countries, with over 8,000 people, and is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.
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.
