MAM
Scarecrow Communications wins Pentair account
MUMBAI: US-headquartered global water solutions and purification solutions provider company Pentair Water solutions has appointed Scarecrow Communications, Delhi as its advertising agency.
Scarecrow will handle all aspects of Pentair’s communication including creative, strategy, design, activation and media.
Pentair managing director and country head Mukund Vasudevan said “We look forward to work with Scarecrow not only to build our brand in the Indian market, but also increase overall awareness for water-related issues.”
Scarecrow ECD Delhi Anindya Banerjee added, “Water Solutions is an interesting, yet challenging category especially in the Indian context. We look forward to partnering one of the leading water solutions specialists in the world.”
Pentair Water offers water and waste management systems, water flow (pumping) and swimming pool solutions. It is known for technology and the range of products that are used in industrial applications, commercial Installations, municipal requirements and residential water solutions.
The company claims a pan Indian presence with over 600 employs in India. Some of its projects include providing filtration solutions at IGI Airport, New Delhi, Taj Presidency Mumbai, pump packages at Gautam Buddh International circuit (F1 track), GMR Aerospace project in Hyderabad, Michelin Factory, Bhogat Oil Terminal for Cairn Energy and PepsiCo and pool equipment installations at ITC Maurya, Delhi and Taj Hotel Bangalore.
Scarecrow Communications founder director Manish Bhatt added, “Pentair is a global brand. Yet in India, as far as branding goes, it is almost starting from scratch. So there is no baggage. So we can roll out the brand experience in India with maximum freedom.”
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.
