MAM
GM bets big on Man-U sponsorship, drops from Super Bowl
MUMBAI: General Motors has entered into a five-year sponsorship deal with EPL club Manchester United as it seeks to ride on the global appeal of the club that has an estimated 659 million fans worldwide.
GM‘s strategy behind associating with Man-U as official automotive partner through its car brand Chevrolet is part of the auto major‘s marketing strategy to make the brand into a global icon.
The new strategy follows the auto major‘s decision to go without advertising in next year‘s Super Bowl games of National Football League and halt paid advertising on Facebook as it seeks to adopt cost effective marketing platforms in order to build its brand.
What also prompted GM‘s decision to pull out of Super Bowl advertising is the fact that the competition has limited appeal beyond American shores which doesn‘t fit into its new marketing strategy of reaching out to global audience.
Man-U, on the other hand, is by far the most popular football club in the world and is adding new fans every year particularly in emerging markets like China and India, which are key markets for GM.
General Motors Global CMO Joel Ewanick said, “Manchester United has some of the most passionate supporters of any sporting club in the world. The Chevrolet family is proud to partner with Manchester United and is fully committed to putting these fans at the center of everything we do.”
Chevrolet is pledging that fans will be at the heart of its sponsorship with a constant focus on bringing the club supporters and football fans around the world closer to the game than ever before.
Manchester United CEO David Gill said, “Although part of two very different industries, Chevrolet and Manchester United share many of the same values. Like the Club, it is steeped in history having recently celebrated its centenary and it has also grown to be a global brand, selling cars in more than 140 countries. Above all, it too strives to be the best in its field and I am delighted to welcome Chevrolet as our Official Automotive Partner.”
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.
