MAM
Goafest Ad Conclave theme announced
MUMBAI: The theme of this year‘s Goafest Advertising Conclave is ‘Time to Listen‘ and it will highlight the shortcomings of media and creative agencies, as perceived by major advertisers.
The conclave is being sponsored by Discovery Channel and will see 200 industry leaders drawn from marketing, advertising and media. The Advertising Conclave will be held on 4 April at Zuri White Sands, Goa from 3.30 pm to7.30 pm.
Goafest Advertising Conclave chairman Srinivasan Swamy said, “Our Conclaves always focus on issues of relevance to us. In the past we have talked about how to grow the advertising industry, or on the changing agency structure or how advertising is more than creative and media etc. In the same vein, this year we will get advertisers to tell us how we can be more relevant to their needs. The theme ‘Time to Listen‘ captures this essence.”
Goafest Advertising Conclave will have some of India‘s biggest marketers identify the areas that agencies, both creative and media, need to focus on and make suggestions to get served better.
Hindustan Unilever MD and CEO Nitin Paranjpe will deliver the keynote address at the conclave. The other industry experts that have confirmed their presence at the conclave include Tata Sky MD and CEO Harit Nagpal, SBI Capital Marketers MD Arundhati Bhattacharya, and Bennett Coleman president Arunabh Das Sharma.
SKA Advisors founder and chairman Sunil Alagh will moderate a lively panel discussion with the distinguished speakers.
Goafest 2013chairman Nakul Chopra said, “The original idea of the conclave as distinct from Goafest was a forum where industry leaders could contemplate the future of our industry and come together to cooperate in improving it. True to this spirit this year it is our endeavour to make the conclave a much more potent learning experience for the industry. There is no better way to improve our future than by listening to our own customers. With a stellar cast of speakers and a potent theme this year‘s Conclave promises to be thought provoking at the very least.”
For the record, Goafest 2013 will be in its 8th edition and for the 6th consecutive year AAAI and The Advertising Club will come together to deliver India‘s premier awards that celebrate creativity.
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.
